Why did Philips make Zelda games for CD-i?

In the early 1990s Nintendo planned a CD add on for the Super Nintendo, first with Sony, then with Philips. When the project collapsed, the settlement with Philips included a license to use characters from five Nintendo franchises on Philips' own CD-i system, with almost no Nintendo supervision over what was made.

Philips used it quickly. Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon were developed in tandem by Animation Magic on one shared engine and budget, released on the same day, October 10, 1993, with animated cutscenes outsourced to Russian animators. Zelda's Adventure followed from a different studio, Viridis, on June 5, 1994, going top down and using live action video instead.

They remain the only licensed Zelda games on a non Nintendo system. Nintendo does not recognise them as part of the series' canon, and series director Eiji Aonuma's own assessment is that they do not really fit in the Zelda franchise.

For collectors they are documented here as what they are: official licenses and unofficial history at once, the strangest legitimate objects a Zelda shelf can hold.