Philips CD-i 1984 and it was first publicly announced in 1986. The first Philips CD-i player, released in 1991 and initially priced around US$1,000, was capable of playing interactive CD-i discs, Audio CDs, CD+G (CD+Graphics), Karaoke CDs, Photo CDs and Video CDs (VCDs), though the latter required an optional "Digital Video Card" to provide MPEG-1 decoding. Philips also licensed the CD-i format to other manufacturers for use, and there were also CD-i players by Sony under the "Intelligent Discman" brand. Philips marketed the CD-i as a "home entertainment system" in Europe, but more as a games and educational machine in the U.S.
The Legend of Zelda was developed and released for the Philips CD-i in the early 1990s as a product of a compromise between Philips and Nintendo, after the companies failed to develop a CD-ROM peripheral for the Super NES. Created independently with no observation by or influence from Nintendo, the games are , together with "Zelda's Adventure". Nintendo never acknowledged them in the "Zelda" timeline, and they are considered to be in a separate, self-contained canon. These games are widely acknowledged to be the worst installments in the series. Three "Zelda"-themed LCD games were created between 1989 and 1992. The "Zelda" version of Nintendo's