The only known SNES-CD prototype will be up for sale

Back in the early 90's I can remember sitting in the magazine isle of Win Dixie and reading EGM magazines. When I came across this news I was super excited. I really wanted this to happen. When the plans fell through I was really disappointed, but then the PlayStation was created.

This is indeed a very rare product with great historical value. I can image it's way beyond my price range and the lucky guy who found it is going to profit greatly from it's sale. I wonder if the console will ever end up in the hand of any emulator programmers or people at least capable of archiving the on-board processors.

I'd buy it an donate it byuu if I could.

 

GBAtemp threads from back when it was found and subsequently fixed
https://gbatemp.net/threads/snes-playstation-prototype.392097/
https://gbatemp.net/threads/an-alleged-playstation-prototype-surfaces.392328/
https://gbatemp.net/threads/nintend...m-earlier-this-year-confirmed-working.402248/

Though frankly most would probably be more interested in the Ben Heck series of the teardown and repair

The dude behind the no$ series of emulators and hardware specs for many of the things we do around here did add support for it https://problemkaputt.de/sns.htm and made some tests for it (and some others also made some homebrew demos with various specs).
Offhand I don't know how many chips are standard or known from either the PS1 or SNES such that decapping would yield something here (though I am not sure how justifiable decapping this would be).

 

Honestly, it belongs at the Strong Museum. I've never consulted for a staff of preservationists who cared more about video game history and preservation than the people who work there!

-Another World

 

Did it have any games for it? It's not a device that can interest a "normal" collector. Having it in a shelf is all cool and all, but can it be used for something?

 

At this point in time it's pretty much a collectors piece. No official software (as far as I'm aware) and only a few homebrews

As @Another World says this does belong in a museum as it's an important turning point in the gaming industry when Nintendo betrayed (possibly too strong a word?) Sony, they ended up creating possibly their greatest rival

 

This for sure should be put into a museum somewhere, that is like the Mona Lisa of the gaming world.

 

Nintendo were conned into signing a contract by Sony that meant Nintendo would make absolutely nothing for any CD game that would be released on the system. Nintendo when they found out had no other option but to break the contract with Sony. It was discussed in great detail in an old issue of retro gamer magazine.

 

And yet people blame Nintendo and thought they were in the wrong.

 

There are a few demos and ports of other homebrew titles (the link at the start has a few such things, however it mainly is a piece of history and serious "what if?" type thing. There is no merit to it as far as having some kind of crazy video out, higher quality for existing games in some way, a means of playing newer games in more prototype format (and is more SNES than PS1 from what I recall), and frankly most such things if they even existed would have long been surpassed (and/or trivially replicated) by existing mods or devices.

That said as far as "normal" collectors go then I would say it would be of interest to quite a few people - a prototype lynx is so much whatever (as might be anything where there is more than one in existence) but this is the end of Nintendo home console dominance and the rise of a market leader that changed the face of the industry, and while the story is maybe not as well known as Sega vs 3dfx it is up there. That is far from nothing and any number of "room in my house with one of every console, maybe an arcade stand and a dev kit" type peeps would be delighted here. Now how many of said same would stump up really real money for this is a different matter (I don't even want to begin to cook up a value for this one, and I am not even sure how I would) but I would say the market is bigger than you probably imagine, especially if the price is in the sub 50K USD range. If it does go silly high then smaller market but still notable players, and possibly some museums playing too. I would hate to think what goes if some "art investor" type wandered into the mix (20 or so years from now... now that is when I would predict the insanity to truly start) then all bets are definitely off here.

 

Both companies were involved in the contract and there's plenty of blame to go around as both companies were responsible for the thing not coming to the market, but I'm glad it didn't. The resulting products (N64 and PS1) were good in their own right. I like how things played out.

 

While you have flirted with controversy around here that might be the worst one yet.

 

Curious to know what the price of this will be. It will easily go for 10's of thousands of $.

 

He won't let it go for that, he's apparently already turned down some six figure offers.

 

Good for him, keeping that trash unusable trinket around.

 

360,000 USD list price plus 20% buyer fee and a consignment premium as well (though I can't find how much and most info is old, hopefully if it is low if this is going to be a traffic driver or notably rare).

Good day to be an auction house.

 

I misspoke earlier. 360K is only the current bid and we have about 2 weeks to go.
Don't know what the reserve will be, if there even is one.

That said why would you think it would go higher? We do not have too much to compare it against but while it is a nice bit of history, and doubtless the owners of it will be able to take it easy for a year or two if it sells, but very few things get too much higher than that without being either of practical use (say a house) or serious world/nation history levels of fun stuff.

 

What kind of games would the SNES-PS be able to run? Something inferior to a PS1?