The Nintendo Playstation Has Been Found!
In case you don’t know the now-legendary story: Nintendo and Sony were once really good buddies back in the early 90’s. Sony created the advanced sound chip that gave the Super Nintendo orchestral score capabilities, and after that, they jointly went to work on a CD add-on to the SNES. Nintendo would sell the add-on, while Sony would sell a hybrid 2-in-one machine called the “PlayStation.”
Eventually Nintendo’s head honcho Hiroshi Yamauchi must have found something in the deal he didn’t like, the most common theory being that Sony would have held a large amount of the profits on the CD-based games. At the Consumer Electronics Show in 1991, Sony unveiled their prototype for the SNES PlayStation. Then, one day later, Nintendo announced a separate deal with electronics company Phillips. Stabbed in the back, Sony became so mad that they were convinced to release the machine on their own and get their revenge…..and that revenge was sweet, as the PlayStation clobbered the Nintendo 64 in overall sales.
Until now, the only images for the Nintendo Playstation have been blurry magazine scans. That changed today when a Reddit user posted multiple images of a real prototype belonging to his father. Not only are these new images significantly better, they reveal aspects of the console that were previously unknown, like the volume slider on its front, and the multiple ways to connect the console to the TV, including a mysterious port labeled “NEXT.”
Some parts of the console have turned yellow with age — as SNES units tended to do — but overall it looks to be in good condition. The question is, does it work? The jury’s still out on that question…..the machine’s anonymous owner is still looking for the power cable.