Someone Has Already Offered $1.2 Million For The SNES PlayStation Prototype

Wouldn't put it going beyond that offer or it will gone down the toilet and he gets basically nothing. Those are the risk the big fish getting away.

Love to have it, but a bit too expensive. Lol

It would be nice for a museum or something to get it, too many pieces of art, original literature and memorabilia are owned by private collectors. The public should be allowed to see it.

It is nice that he showed it at gaming conventions. It would be nice to donate it to a museum, but sounds like he could use the money. Let some rich dude buy it and then donate it to Frank Cifaldi’s Video Game History Foundation.

To quote Indy, "It belongs in a museum."

I'm pretty sure nintendo has at least one of these, but okay, that's the same as nothing.

Well that is an ugly piece of tech.

Best thing to ever happen was for each go their separate way. Ended up satisfying 2 very different needs in the market.

Is this the one they tore apart and modified with modern components to get it to work?

It's a cool piece of history, but the functionality is probably on borrowed time and even if I could afford to, I'd rather not spend over a million bucks on something I can't play with much.

Turned down 1.2 million in hopes to get more?

Greedy af lol

@CurryPowderKeg79 Nintendo's biggest mistake was agreeing to something without running all the details by Hiroshi Yamauchi and then not even having the courtesy to let Sony know they were backing out. I still hold Nintendo in the highest regard of the three companies (for some reason), but Nintendo got what they deserved in the PS/N64/SS/DC era. Too bad Nintendo's fans also had to suffer the consequences.

@PBandSmelly I think @TechaNinja was referring to Terry Diebold, not Nintendo.

Interesting, but the fact that there aren't any games somewhat limits my enthusiasm. What would be really cool would be to get your hands on an unreleased console that actually had working games, such as the 3DO M2. I was so sad when they canceled that system.

@CurryPowderKeg79 Deciding to stick with carts or breaking with Sony?

@Cotillion Yep, this is the one that has been ruined by somebody who has no respect for historic gaming artifacts. Despite its modifications, it is unfortunately still the only one floating around, so it is still valuable.

@Corbs Where in the world have you been lol? I'm still waiting for my Radiant Historia review. 😉

And Sony has taken the throne of gaming worldwide ever since this mistake by Nintendo..

Looks like it could use some retro brite 😅 Should send it to the 8 Bit Guy for some driveway restoration before they sell it 😆

I now feel even luckier to have had the chance to see it and play games on it twice at Midwest Gaming Classic. It's a piece of gaming history and the physical evidence of Nintendo's huberis and folly during the 16 bit era. And it's just cool.

Meh, I don't blame him. I'd sell it too if I were to come across it.

1. People would eventually find out where I live and probably try to steal it.

2. Fringe collectors are stupid with money and might as well bank off it.

@Tsusasi

Grats man! It must have been amazing being able to interact with an artifact such as that.

Crazy. He should’ve taken the offer. I don’t think it will get that high in auction. Some people do have more money than brains though.

@TurboTEF It was really a fun trip through gaming history.

@ALinkttPresent Honestly I see it as being the same as someone taking some old extremely rare barn find car and replacing old/broken/worn out parts new parts to get it running again. Some hardcore antique car guys might scoff at that but at the end of the day that work helps preserve it and makes it able to be enjoyed.

@CurryPowderKeg79 why?
It gave us competition and that is a win for us and it keeps Nintendo sharp.

people have a go at Nintendo for the break up but look at this machine, looks like Sony were always going to go their own way, they have totally taken over the branding of the machine. was there really any way these companies would form a partnership in the long term that would still be going today? i don't buy it.

@ALinkttPresent What did he do to it? I remember watching the Ben Heck videos but all I seem to remember was he re-soldered some wires that had come loose.

it should go to a museum!

You can argue that people are entitled to spend their money as they wish but to me this is just a very sad statement on what we value. An obsolete piece of hardware for $1.2 million when there are millions of people starving in the world. Should I ever become rich, I hope I never become so foolish and self-centered.

Wow! I've actually played the Nintendo PlayStation in Seattle back in 2017 at a tiny convention I randomly stumbled upon whilst travelling.

I can now say I've touched the controller of a console worth $1.2 Mill xD

he should have taken the money, always take the money

Terry should have gotten a sponsorship from a tech museum before he toured it. Plenty of tech museums would have probably gladly sponsored it and hosted it in their public museums while giving Terry some of the proceeds. He really didn't think this through and now he's just gotten greedy.

I really hope it doesn't vanish off in a private collection never to be seen again, as this tends to be a trend. Terry, if he has a brain, should cancel the auction and find a public tech museum to host it and get proceeds for it. Ben Heck basically did a lot of painstaking work now... for nothing.

@nessisonett So he should still get nothing for it by donating to a museum?

So Nintendo was like, "Nobody wants to play CD-ROM games on the SNES, but GameBoy games... Yeah, that'll work."

@NTELLIGENTMAN Plenty of museums buy off collectors. Of course some donate but it depends on his asking price.

Sony should buy it! That way they can store it in their silo with all the others.
Sure the world at large will lose this tech forever, but the security guys will be able to link them up to play multiplayer Final Fantasy 6 in 3D.

Yeah this is probably Nintendo's biggest mistake and the reason why the PS exists.

@quinnyboy58 actually most people agree that the deal was a bad one for Nintendo to begin with and they mainly bemoan at Nintendo's decision to let it get as far as it did before backing out.

This would have turned Nintendo into a Sony subsidiary. Everyone including Sony knew this.

@CurryPowderKeg79 No. Sony wanted the rights to all disc games, which would be all games, so if Nintendo had agreed to the terms it would have ended their console business and Sony would probably still have made the next Playstation on their own.

@Agriculture And because of that Nintendo became bigger than they have ever been.

@CaptnDave Good point. Instead of buying any more switch games you should donate that money to the needy. Otherwise you would be a complete hypocrite.

@StevenG Actually SteveG, I donate far more money and time to charities than I do to video games. Maybe you should try it.

@CaptnDave That's a nice total non-sequitur.
You complained about people spending money on wasteful things while others starved. No matter how much you donate, if you are buying video games you are wasting money while others starve.

@StevenG I'm sorry but we don't live in a black and white world. Could I do better? Most assuredly. Almost everyone can. But I keep my personal spending well in check in comparison to the income I have, and I would argue that no level of income can justify the 1.2 million spent on this. You seem to imply the opposite end of the spectrum, that anyone can spend on whatever they want with no moral obligation to helping others in society and this is what I protest. Hopefully you recognize the need to give to those in need (even from a selfish perspective social issues effect us all directly or indirectly), and that spending a modest amount on oneself does not automatically make them a hypocrite. But again the issue here is that I feel that this is out of balance for the person spending the 1.2 million here.

@CurryPowderKeg79 Only in the sense of agreeing to it in the first place. What's mistaken about pulling a deal where your partner is going to snaffle 100% of licensing fees on the medium that would eventually sideline cartridges?

I'll buy 10! (Just writing something because stupid site says (hmm is that all you have to say?) Well yes thats the only thing ive got to say on this subject!! Jeez.

@CurryPowderKeg79 is it? I see Switch destroying the sales charts. Zelda, mario and pokemon being the biggest and most loved franchises in games. Botw being the most revolutionary game in a decade and mario galaxy 2 the best reviewed. Nintendo stocks going up and millions of people wanting to buy their games and systems. And this mistake as you call it, created the timeline we live in today.

Does it work? and how did it get into the wild as it were?

Although some may not agree, if Nintendo & Sony were to join forces maybe Sega would still be in the hardware arena. Then the big 3 would be Nintendo, Sega and Microsoft! While we all know Sega made a lot of crucial errors, I can’t help but wonder what could’ve been if Nintendo didn’t pull the rug out from under Sony’s feet.

I’ll swap it for a Mega Drive/Mega CD/32x combo. 3 for 2.

@Averagewriter Between Sony and companies like Square, it's very clear that there existed better plans for CD than FMV games like Night Trap. Here's a short description of what I meant:

Nintendo agrees to Sony's terms. Nintendo and Sony launch the Snes Play Station (all-in-one Snes with disc add-on), and much like how the Sega CD had lots of FMV-games, this one has that. Fast forward 4-5 years and a console somewhere between the N64 and PS1 launches. A 3D capable console with an optical reader, and a cartridge slot that can be used for games or ram-expansion.

Now, with this new console ALL games are on disc. When Nintendo develops Ocarina of Time it becomes, without a doubt, completely obvious it needs to be on CD. Now Sony is the one collection the licensing money from that game, and Nintendo is basically out of the hardware business.

@CaptnDave A society has such a moral obligation, not an individual. Taxation is the correct tool for that. If you want to suggest that taxation should be high enough to prevent such a thing, I can't say I disagree.

@Averagewriter I meant the successor to the Snes CD. And yes, the contract wouldn't extend to the next generation, but Sony would have demanded a new contract that did stipulate that Sony would collect the licensing money from CD games.

And of course Ocarina of Time would have been made differently on such a console. The alternate history that turned out to be good for Nintendo is if they had never even talked to Sony about making a CD add-on, and maybe, but not very likely, that would have made them never consider making a video game console.

@Averagewriter Yeah, that's one way it could have gone, but that would still make Sony launch the PS1. People always act like the decision not to co-operate with Sony is their worst decision, but it would have gone the same way regardless.

@Averagewriter Nintendo relied on the idea that they would develop the must have games for a console, while 3rd party developers would create additional, less important games. The CD changed the whole dynamic of the industry, because must have games were things like Metal Gear Solid. Ocarina of Time was of course also a must have game, but people wanted things like a complex story to follow, full voice acting and lots of cutscenes.

@StevenG imagine if Elon musk was taxed in the way you describe. None of his contribution would exist. Hell much of the innovation that allows us to feed so many of the people in the world today would likely not exist (and the stats are quite good in this area, all thanks to the business driven green revolution). While I fell almost no connection to some rich fella that wants to buy some exotic old hardware I find statements like these troubling in how naive they are.

@Nehalem Why would his contribution not exist? I find it troubling that you think the only way society can function is by hoping for the aid of billionaires.

I hope you are a billionaire, or paid to post that. Otherwise the naive one is you.