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Before Sony entered the home console arena it worked with Nintendo on a CD-ROM drive for the SNES. The aim was to eventually release a combined console - called the PlayStation - which would play SNES carts and SNES CD-ROM games.

Of course, this never came to pass - at the 1991 CES Sony officially announced the system, only to discover that at the same event Nintendo confirmed that it was working with rival Philips instead. It was one of the most infamous double-crosses in video game history, but Sony would have its revenge by creating the stand-alone PlayStation system, a best-selling console which would end Nintendo's dominance of the industry and establish the brand for years to come.

Images of the SNES PlayStation have been around for years, but it was thought that no consoles actually existed in the wild. That has been proven incorrect today, as someone has posted images of a prototype machine - complete with trademark SNES yellowing on the lower part of the casing.

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The poster says that he got the machine from his father:

My dad worked for a company, apparently one of the guys he used to work with, I think his name was Olaf, used to work at Nintendo and when my dads company went bankrupt, my dad found it in a box of "junk" he was supposed to throw out.

The "Olaf" he is talking about could be Olaf Olafsson, who was president and chief executive officer of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Inc. at the time of the PlayStation. He was intimately involved with the Nintendo deal and the final PlayStation console which would launch in 1994.

It is not known if the unit can actually power up, or what is contained on the cart and CD which come with it.

You can read more about the development of the PlayStation on our sister site, Push Square.

Update: The finder has posted a video showing off the console. He hasn't powered it up yet, though. Be warned: this video contains some bad language.

[source assemblergames.com]