The mythical console collaboration is up for auction.
There is an alternate timeline in some other universe where the ‘Console Wars’ never happened, with Sony and Nintendo happily married and joyfully sharing games, tech, and ideas.
But in our reality, things are a little different, and a frosty acknowledgement of each other is probably the best we’ll get for a while.
That’s not to say that once upon a time these two computer giants didn’t collaborate to give us a console that could read cartridges and CD’s alike. The Nintendo PlayStation was actually a thing, 30 years ago but not one single unit managed to make it into the publics clammy hands…. Until now that is.
One unit has recently been touted at auction and currently is going for around £300,000.
What Happened?
Back in 1991, Sony announced it was collaborating with Nintendo to release what would be known as the ‘Super NES CD-ROM’, SNES CD or the Nintendo PlayStation.
After some ongoing disputes about how revenue would be split among the two companies, later the same week Nintendo humiliated Sony and publicly cancelled the agreement and cosied up to Dutch company Philips, eventually developing the Philips CD-i.
After all, they were Nintendo – the big koi in this pond – and up until this point dominated the entire gaming market in Japan.
Down but not out, Sony charged Ken Kutaragi (designer of the Nintendo PlayStation) to set up a new gaming department to take on Nintendo; soon after Sony Computar Entertainment Inc (SCEI) was born.
Their plan; take what they had already been working on and go all-in on a CD-based gaming console – forever changing the medium with the release of 1994’s Sony PlayStation.
During the time of the proposed alliance nearly 200 prototype units were made, all of which were thought to be destroyed, apart from one!
The current owner won the device in a blind auction for $75, when the company he worked for declared bankruptcy. The head of said company just so happened to be one of the original founders of SCEI.
Completely unaware of what he had bought, this symbol of ‘what could have been’ sat in his attic for years before his son came across an article online and realised what he had.
How can I get one?
The Prototype is currently on auction at Heritage Auctions and as of writing the current top bid stands at a whopping $350,000 (£270,000) + a little 20% buyers premium.
There are still about 2 weeks left in the auction, so that leaves plenty of time for you to deep dive under the couch for some change and raid the copper jar.
It’s already the most expensive computer console ever sold but in the next 2 weeks expect the price to keep going up.
Compatible games cartridges work and are hard to find and no CD formatted games were ever created but this particular prototype has had a few repairs made, so you can play music CDs on it.
Not a bad price for a ‘CD player’ in 2020, but this is a legitimate piece of gaming history and someone out there will pay whatever it takes to own this one of a kind console that never got to see the light of day.
Feeling flush? Check it out here.
