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.

 

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

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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