SNES PlayStation Prototype Gets Turned On, Opened Up

Maybe the NX should be a Sony collaboration.

@palatinus Hell no, Sony Europe is one of the worst video game companies. They make NoA seem perfect.

Nice find. Glad it worked...

Now if there was aa disc game out there that could be played on it, that would be something

@Grumblevolcano Really? I didn't know that was even possible. lol

I wonder what would happen if you put a standard PlayStation disc in there. Would it boot? Is it similar enough?

@Grumblevolcano

I don't think Sony Europe is involved in the console development process for Sony.

I bet this would've been expensive back in the day. Having backwards compatibility with carts and a disc drive on board is a lot of tech in one package.

@palatinus In parts of europe we are missing PS Now, flashsales, some games, etc. and stores are just horrible. Example for PS3 we don't have games in categories like PS1, PS2 etc..

Dump the system ROM.

Nice to hear they want nothing more than to put it on display for all to see,
it certainly makes me more certain of the legality of the hardware.

Wish I had one too
It's cool to think about what could have been....though I for one think it'd have been detrimental for Nintendo in the long run, forcing them into Sega's position. Also, I don't believe the system would've been a success. Look at Sega cd. 3do. The other systems cd attachments....

On another note, see that last picture. The system is laid on a counter top arcade machine. My dad used to have a few of those and they were awesome!! Popeye, Warlords, and space invaders . I think he still has the last one

At the end of the day this is nothing more than relic.

@mattesdude The problem with these multi-format systems is that they tried to wear many hats at once and were mediocre at all of them. They seemed more focused on making a system that could do many things rather than one that could do its job well.

Nice. I have heard from my friends that PS EU is crap, but I only play Xbox-Nintendo games. So I only know Xbox Europe is great, and Nintendo Europe is getting better.

I'd like the controller. It's more pearl white in color rather than the gray one.

@palatinus While that is correct, they are in charge of everything related to the Playstation store in Europe which is a mess both visually and in terms of content. Perfect example is music games, SCEE's laziness generally means new songs appear several months late. "Something From Nothing", "Shepherd of Fire" and "R U Mine?" were released for Rock Band 3 in January in SCEA regions and Xbox worldwide yet SCEE received them in June. There's plenty of other examples, some with even worse waiting times so the comparison to NoA is the infamous Metroid Zero Mission issue.

I know it's a prototype, but It never would have released having only Sony's Playstation name slapped all over it. It still would have been SNES tech running the system like the Genesis did for Sega CD.

@Grumblevolcano
When Sony and Nintendo built the SNES they made a wonderful system. Nintendo always seems to struggle to build hardware that appeals to 3rd party developers. If a Sony/Nintendo collabaration resulted in an amalgamation of the best aspects of both companies it could be an excellent result.

@palatinus In what alternate dimension did Sony help Nintendo with the SNES? The only component in the SNES that was Sony related, was the audio sub-system, a component that was made to order and Nintendo needed no further assistance from Sony for that to be incorporated into the console, since Nintendo itself was responsible for the whole manufacturing process.

They did build the prototype from this article together, but that is hardly a sales pitch for how wonderful a collaboration between the two could possibly be.

This is such a unique piece of game history (or what never became history) — I really hope this does make it to a museum one day.

@TheRealThanos

Yes. A video game system produces an interactive video and audio experience and Sony provided the technology that half of that ran off of. You are correct. Well put.

Now this...is awesome.

So awesome! But I really wanted to see the cd part in action! It apparently came with a bunch of prototype first gen Playstation games...but I guess they can't run them. It looks like you could listen to music cds with it as well! D: Most epic cd player...

Is it wrong that when it said the former left the latter at the altar, I immediately imagined miyamoto breezing away in a brides dress and bouquet, while some nameless Sony dude in a tux stood there with a confused look on his face? XD

Anyway this is a very cool piece of gaming history.

So cool. Can Nintendo/Sony just make that again?

@Grumblevolcano But SCEE is good. All those times booting up CTR.... Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Presents.....

Fan-flipin'-tastic!

If Sony didn't like try to gain full control over Nintendo's licensing, this could have happened. Too bad its the opposite.

@subpopz

In the modern age a thing like a sound chip might seem like a somewhat trivial thing. This was definitely not the case in the time of the SNES. Also one of the things about the Genesis that was so crappy was the sound chip. Comparing the sound on the SNES to the Genesis is certainly a significant factor.

NO CD-ROM SYSTEM

Like the SNES I own right now.

This is literally the outcome I thought was least likely to happen. But fantastic! The system is a piece of video game history and I'm happy to see the two gentleman are adamant about not selling it to a private collector.

@palatinus Talk about completely missing the point: you explicitly said "When Sony and Nintendo built the SNES" which they didn't. Nintendo built the SNES all by itself. They bought components from Sony but also from several other companies and the manufacturing process wasn't aided by Sony or any of the other component suppliers, so they did NOT build the SNES "together" with Nintendo.

That would be similar to saying that Samsung helped build the iPhone or Texas Instruments helped build the Xbox One, since they supplied the most number of components for that console.

It's a wonderful new sidebar in the history of video games that one of these still exists to take high res photos of and see in use. A good outcome for game enthusiasts. One can only imagine the treasures that are still held in secret at Nintendo's HQ.

@Artwark and instead they allowed that control to Philips and they went on to use Nintendo's characters in a way that Nintendo now, never mentions their existence.

For several tens of thousands, I'd sell it in a heartbeat, most likely. Unless there's indication that its worth will grow considerably along the years.

I heard that the cartridge that came with it, had been mistaken for a faulty game, but actually was required to enable the rom slot to function fully.

Who knows until they find a rom disc.
Are we saying its an optical drive or magnetic? From the logo it implies optical.
(Disc with 'c' optical. disk with 'k' magnetic)

@TheRealThanos That's not entirely correct. Nintendo wanted a very specifically capable sound chip for the Super Famicom and commissioned Sony to directly built it from scratch FOR them, and as history tells us, it was Ken Kutaragi himself who designed it, so while indeed it would be a huge stretch to call the SNES a complete Nintendo/Sony collaboration, there was some form of collaboration between the two, just on the sound part. As it is known, the sound part of the SNES actually works completely independently from the rest of the console, the rest of the system just passes over code to the sound chip which does its thing on the side. Which is why sometimes, when a real SNES crashes, such as when you knock it when it's in function, the sound will continue to play, the sound chip continuing to execute the code that was given to it, within its very own separate 64KB of RAM.

But as was said previously it's no different from when, say... ATi made a custom video chip for the Gamecube, or when IBM made a custom PowerPC CPU on demand for Nintendo... or NVidia making a custom GPU for the PS3, etc etc etc... Although it could be argued that those were not made entirely from scratch but were customisation of already existing chips... The CELL for example in the PS3. That was an IBM designed chip made from scratch for the PS3 if I recall correctly. But you don't hear people saying that the PS3 is a total IBM/Sony collaboration.

@Kafei2006
@TheRealThanos
Yes, Sony built the sound chip for the system. They were part of the building of the system. Which is exactly what I said. I did not say the SNES was a full collaboration of Sony and Nintendo. That was something that Thanos somehow misunderstood. My point was that if the two companies were to collaborate now they could build a great system.

I really do hope they decide to put it in a museum. With something as rare and unfortunately not worth much as a gaming console, it'd be the perfect thing to put on display. (I mean it's not worth much as a console because there were never any games made specifically for it. It's worth a lot as a collectors item though. As it should be.)

Good on them for turning down any sort of cash in turn to place it in a museum. I guess Henry Jones Jr. is a real person.

@palatinus "If a Sony/Nintendo collabaration resulted in an amalgamation of the best aspects of both companies it could be an excellent result."

That's what I've been thinking about for quite awhile. Nintendo's always been top-dog when it came to making great, quality games whereas Sony's always had beastly hardware. Microsoft's contributions to the console scene have been purely social-networking gimmicks, but it did make gaming accessible to a lot of people. I imagine if all three companies came together to make a super-console, that'd be the console to end all consoles.

@Kafei2006 Ken kutaragi created the sound chip, in secret because the sony execs weren't interesteds, and pitched it to Nintendo. it wasn't the other way around.

Everytime people come the IDIOTIC "Nintendo should stop making hwardware and keep making games" is plain stupid.

If Nintendo games are sooooooo wonderful and terrific....then why nobody buys their consoles? That fallacy that Hardware comes first than software is a fallacy and myth.

The maxim truth is simple:

@Kafei2006 @palatinus Well, seems that we actually all meant the same thing then. Thanks @Kafei2006 for dropping in and putting it all together. For the record, @palatinus, I didn't think that you were THAT dense to begin with, but it did puzzle me a bit because of the way you said it and how I interpreted it in turn.

The adjustments that @Kafei2006 made to my statements are a welcome correction, and one I forgot to mention. The sound unit was indeed for all intent and purposes an autonomous device, although having only the sound work as in the example he gave, would somewhat defeat the purpose of the device as a whole, but that is another discussion...

Anyway, in the end what's important is that we have an agreement here. The rest was based upon me understanding you incorrectly and based upon that I made my response, which got the ball rolling in a slightly wrong direction.

As some people on here that know me could tell you, I'm actually quite a relaxed person (for an older guy) but I can imagine how some of my reactions came across. I've found that I'm still quite passionate about gaming and some discussions bring that out more so than others. Never any personal offense meant though, so I hope you didn't take it as such either. Just a slightly heavier discussion, is all...