Printed in a Philips promotional magazine published in September 1992 this is the earliest listing of titles I could find that were available for the CD-i. This would have been put together a few months following the UK launch of the system and probably represents the closest to a list of launch titles that we are likely to find.
GAMES
Battleship
Caesars World of Gambling
Connect 4
Dark Castle
Defender Of The Crown
Escape From Cyber City
Mystic Midway
The Palm Springs Open
Pinball
Sargon Chess
Tetris
Text Tiles
SPECIAL INTEREST
Create Your Own Caricature
*(Included in the list of available titles but mentioned elsewhere in the magazine as an Autumn release and noted as being the first UK developed title, so probably not a launch title)
Harvest of the Sun: Van Gogh
Rand McNally’s America: US Atlas
Renaissance of Florence
Stamps: Windows of the World
Time Life Photography
Treasures of the Smithsonian
Golden Oldies Jukebox
Jazz Giants
Louis Armstrong
Mozart
Pavarotti
Prelude
CHILDRENS
Cartoon Jukebox
Childrens’ Musical Theatre
More Dark Fables of Aesop
Mother Goose Hidden Pictures
Mother Goose Rhymes and Color
Paint School I
Paint School II
Richard Scarry’s Best Neighborhood
Richard Scarry’s Busiest Neighborhood
Sandy’s Circus Adventure
Sesame Street - Letters
Sesame Street - Numbers
Story Machine: Magic Tales
Story Machine: Star Dreams
Tell Me Why I
Tell Me Why II
CHILDRENS STORYBOOKS
Beauty and the Beast
Brer Rabbit & The Wonderful Tar Baby
The Emperor’s New Clothes
How The Camel Got His Hump
How The Rhino Got His Skin
Pecos Bill
CHILDRENS BIBLE STORIES
Moses Bound for the Promised Land
Moses: The Exodus
Noah’s Ark
So a quick tally reveals - 26 Childrens Titles
14 Games,
7 Music Titles
7 Special Interest Titles (not counting Caricature as noted)
This opening line up of titles illustrates the heavy desire to target or develop the educational / special interest market rather than the traditional computer and video games market. It was the same strategy that Philips had enacted in its US CD-i launch the previous year, which also explains the general ‘American’ influence of many of the early titles.
With this initial line up of games Philips had no hope of battling it out with the dominant Sega Megadrive, the recently released Super Nintendo or the well established Commodore Amiga in the UK. Philips knew better thank to try and decided to forge their own path, with games only a small part of their overall strategy. Over time this would change and they would pivot towards the games market in one of many efforts to prolong the systems life and viability.
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