Can you believe Nintendo and Sony were set at some point to collaborate in creating the best video game console on the market?
This may have been way back in 1990, but the Nintendo PlayStation console was indeed made into reality.
The partnership between two parties has since failed, but fortunately, there are prototype consoles that prove the collaboration between the two tech giants existed at some point.
A limited number of prototype consoles were made around 1990. A collector’s item for every gamer, it’s rare to find one these days.
But one of these exclusive rare prototypes recently got sold in an online auction hosted by Heritage Auctions. The price tag? A whopping $300,000.
After a premium, the unnamed buyer paid a total of $360,000 for the exclusive console that contains a rich gaming history.
Interested parties have started bidding online as early as February.
As told by Polygon, the prototype came to be sold after it was found by the seller inside a box previously owned by a ex-Sony Computer Entertainment CEO, Olaf Olafsson.
Olafsson, together with the seller Terry Diebold, formerly worked together at Advanta Corporation.
The company eventually went bankrupt and plenty of their properties were auctioned off in private.
That’s the story behind why Diebold eventually came to own the exclusive prototype, which was then shortly sold off in the auction.
Back in 2019, the owner disclosed how he turned down an offer of more than a million dollars from an interested buyer in Norway.
Valarie McLeckie, Heritage Auctions consignment director, said in an interview back in December 2019:
“It’s the first time this prototype has ever been offered at public auction before.”
“Nintendo and Sony are arguably two of the biggest competitors in video games today. It’s just a little baffling to some to see Nintendo and Sony sharing the same console— and that it has the namesake of the PlayStation itself.”
Rumor has it, there were actually a hundred prototypes of the Super NES CD-ROM System — known colloquially as the Nintendo PlayStation — but this is the only one that’s known to have been saved from certain destruction.
Gaming enthusiasts and PlayStation loyalists can’t help but wonder what a Nintendo PlayStation would’ve been like.
It seems like a partnership between two gaming giants almost came to life, although it was eventually halted in the process.
But can it play games? Of course! There’s no specific games designed exclusively for the Nintendo PS— but the said console is confirmed to work after modder Ben Heckendorn did his magic: taking the console apart and fixing the CD-ROM drive.
The Nintendo PS was only one part of the large auction on comics and video games. Note-worthy games like Chrono Trigger and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link were also sold for thousands of dollars during the event.
