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.
Philips CD-i that though Philips had a large booth at the 1995 Electronic Entertainment Expo, there was no CD-i hardware or software on display. "Next Generation" scored the console one out of five stars. After its discontinuation, retrospectively, the CD-i was overwhelmingly panned by critics who blasted its graphics, games, and controls. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates admitted that initially he "was worried" about the CD-i due to Philips's heavy support for the device and its two-pronged attack on both the games console and PC markets, but that in retrospect "It was a device that kind of basically got caught in the middle.