Pretty crazy that someone has found one of these prototypes just laying around in a box of junk. For anyone not aware, Sony was one of the company's contracted to make a cd-rom addon/console version of the Snes for Nintendo.

More picture here

Assembler thread here

This may be one of the biggest finds as far as unreleased stuff goes. I wonder how things would have turned out for Nintendo and Sony had they produced these.

holy baby

neat looking thing

weird no mention of nintendo or snes or super famicom anywhere.

The back of the cart and the controller both have Nintendo branding. I would imagine the add on version would have been the one with the Nintendo branding.

Well holy shit.

I would have guessed that the prototypes just plain did not exist anymore (outside of maybe a basement at Nintendo or Sony). That's an incredible find.

Holy fuck!

It's just bewildering to think how one object not only encompases the entire future of those companies and their console successes/failures, but the future of games themselves from that point on.

I don't think it's too crazy to posit that If Nintendo had embraced games on CDs, everything we're seeing now would be different.

(really hoping this isn't a fake, too. Damn my skepticism!)

Also, @jeff, if this dude gets that cart or disk working, can we get a platform page for this thing? ;)

I actually really like the design.

Oh the road not taken...

Seems a bit crazy / unlikely that they would have fully developed the playstation name / font / logo for this prototype and then just completely reused it all for another completely new product.

Yes it was only ever a prototype, but they had every intent of making it, so it stands to reason that a "PlayStation" logo was designed as part of that process (if anything to distinguish that company's contribution from the Super Famicom logo, also seen on that device.) The "Play Station" name was even announced at CES in 1991 when this odd hybrid device was revealed.

As I said above, it's good to be skeptical about these mysterious things just showing up out of nowhere. But having the name of the console on it isn't all that strange, as it's supported by history.

It is crazy, even at the time.

From Wikipedia:

The Sony/Nintendo relationship started when Sony engineer Ken Kutaragi became interested in working with video games after seeing his daughter play games on Nintendo's Famicom video game console. He took on a contract at Sony for developing hardware that would drive the audio subsystem of Nintendo's next console, the Super NES. Kutaragi secretly developed the chip, known as the Sony SPC 700. As Sony was uninterested in the video game business, most of his superiors did not approve of the project, but Kutaragi found support in Sony executive Norio Ohga and the project was allowed to continue. The success of the project spurred Nintendo to enter into a partnership with Sony to develop both a CD-ROM add-on for the Super NES and a Sony-branded console that would play both SNES games, as well as titles released for the new SNES-CD format.^[3]

However, the two companies conflicted over control of the licensing. Under their agreement, Sony would develop and retain control over the SNES-CD disc format, effectively ceding a large amount of control over software licensing to Sony. To counter this, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi sent Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa and executive Howard Lincoln to Europe to negotiate a more favorable deal with Philips, Sony's industry rival. At the June 1991Consumer Electronics Show, Sony announced its SNES-compatible cartridge/CD console, the "Play Station". The next day, Nintendo revealed its partnership with Philips via a surprise announcement at the show.

That is so cool. It would have been a really sharp-looking device for the 90s.

This is so fucking cool... Love stuff like this.

Dang, that's super cool. Even if it isn't the most useful machine in the world, still amazing to see or have in that person's case.

This thing has got to be worth a fortune on the collector's market.

The story of that is pretty cool. It is all outlined in a book called: Revolutionaries at Sony: The Making of the Sony Playstation and the Visionaries Who Conquered the World of Video Games – April 30, 2000 by Reiji Asakura.

It is a long title, but a good book. I have a copy, they are sort of rare which is a shame because the story of how Playstation came to be is misunderstood. There are some real heroes and innovators from all over the company that helped. We would not have had Playstation without Norio Ohga CEO of Sony, and a dude form Sony Music. It wasn't just Ken Kutaragi who made that system what it became. And, Norio Ohga backed Ken mainly because he knew the potential of CD roms because HE is credited with spurring the development of the compact disc as a commercially viable audio format. He was the father of CD tech being pushed.

If you can get your hands on a copy it is an amazing read, because how games were made, shipped, sold, and bought was TOTALLY different before Sony took that system apart. Sony didn't just make "the" winning console, they totally changed the industry in Japan by how it worked from manufacturing to how a consumer bought a game. The book also goes into how N64 and Saturn were manufactured....those aspects are fascinating too.

Shit's fake.

I've seen this headline floating around, but this is the first I've seen of the console. Now I'm positive it's a hoax.

I'd probably say both companies came out of this alright. That thing looks weird but given the way CD consoles looked in the early 90s, keeping it fairly SNES makes it stand out as one of the better looking efforts.

Care to enlighten us?

The guys on Assembler are pretty sure its real. Thats all these guys do is find rare or unreleased hardware, software, and dev units. Hopefully it will get cracked open with some clear pictures soon.

@joshwent: Firstly, the video style is exactly like other hoax videos: intentionally unprepared, out of focus, and it ended in the middle of a sentence. The Bourne movies had less shakycam.

Secondly, the date format in Japan would be year/month/day, not month/day/year.

Thirdly, that thing just looks cobbled together from existing hardware. The bottom lower faceplate looks like it came from an internal CD-ROM drive, the DV-out appears to be either a Dreamcast or GameCube DV port, and the side venting is identical to the GameCube's/Wii's. Sony and Nintendo were in bed about this for quite a while, and any prototypes would likely have come through a very limited factory run. Most prototype hardware this jury-rigged is made by individuals trying for patents.

Lastly, this shows up not long after an Apple I sells for $200K. That alone is suspicious, but combined with the quality of the video, it's really suspicious.

EDIT: I just got a look at the photos, and I see that the date is written properly for Japan.

Good to see that the first "Play Station" was used to play/is capable of playing Metal Gear Solid.

I wonder how much that thing is worth..

Though I wonder why Sony would put the Playstation brand on the controller, when this thing was conceived before the idea of the Playstation even existed no?

@mlarrabee:

I could be wrong it could be fake, but ill just lay out some observations from my experience in model making.

The sheer amount of fabrication needed to fake this is astronomical. The aged plastic is untouched as you can see the edges that lead to the SNES section are clean, meaning if someone was to dremel that area out to insert that part that effect would be gone as they would also have to debur the edge. The yellowing is from oxygen exposure meaning deep cuts like that would be white.

There is a significant amount of flash along the whole object, the mold lines make it clear that this was from a plastic injection machine. Getting a mold for those things costs thousands of dollars. This does appear to be a preproduction model as the models would be retooled to have a smooth edge.

I don't believe that from the time the first pictures of one of the prototyped surfaced to not is enough time to make cheap plastic yellow( i could be wrong here).

The wear on the controller looks genuine, if you were to remove the old logo and screen print a new one on would of shown up on the plastic as you can see the plastic is textured.

The guy probably does not know the japanese date system and made a mistake. 10/6 and 6/10 are both valid dates.

All the parts look of that age, the areas where the buttons are could not of been tooled from a dremel or other drill they would of have to been there on the mold.

The SONY is the controller plug must of been molded in , Sony never made snes controllers or any other item that's shell is the same size. This would have to be injected molded again costing a fortune.

If this was fake I don't think they would post high res images of the device, it would be vary apparent if it was fake.

If this is fake I would call this the greatest piece known to man. And would require an expert like Adam to accomplish. Even then I don't think he could pull it off.

I'm going to jump on the hoax train. It's just too good to be true, plus it looks a bit too randomly assembled. Thirdly, the person in the badly-made video is named dizzle521 and I just can't imagine why he of all people would have this, if real.

I'm skeptical that this is 100% legit. Has the sort of feel of those "my uncle works for Nintendo and he says (insert lie here)." I still think Sony and Nintendo should partner up though.

The weird lack of Nintendo branding is suspecious too me. Regardless, if its real its really cool...but it couldn't play anything so its just the novelty of owning it, something that doesn't interest me a whole lot.

@mlarrabee: I watched the first 3 Bourne movies back to back, had motion sickness afterward.

Given this device is 98% identical to one shown before it looks like just one version of various prototypes.

The article below written in 2012 shows a similar machine....so likely legit.
http://kotaku.com/5876374/the-playstation-you-never-got-to-play/

Also, it looks like Sony Patent application device filed in 1991.
http://www.google.com/patents/USD349519

Image from a Japanese book shows image of the model found
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1441607099

Ben Heck is doing a livestream repair of this. They are trying to get the cd drive up and running.