A prototype of a "Nintendo Play Station" will soon be up for auction via the Heritage Auction house.
The console, previously believed to have been a myth finds its roots in the early 1990s. It came to fruition with engineer Ken Kutaragi created the Super Nintendo sound chip. The chip led to the development of a disc-based console in collaboration with Sony. Kutaragi designed the console in question himself. Officially named the Super NES CD-ROM System, the model never pushed forward to production.
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"Reportedly, the other 199 prototypes were destroyed when the promising partnership soured and fragmented," reads the Heritage Auction official site. "This unit was at one time owned by the founder, first president, and chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc., Olaf Olaffson. Olaf eventually made his way to become a member of the board of directors of Advanta Corporation, and became its president in 1998. A little over a year later, Olaf left Advanta to join Time Warner - but he left his Nintendo PlayStation prototype behind at Advanta. Roughly around this time Advanta filed for bankruptcy, and began gathering up everything in their corporate office to sell at auction. As the story goes, the Nintendo Play Station prototype was grouped together with some miscellaneous items that were boxed up, veiling the contents of what was included in the lot - a nice Easter egg for the winning bidder, indeed!"
Heritage Auctions will launch bidding on February 14, 2020, with the official auction being staged from March 5th to the 7th.
“It’s the first time this prototype has ever been offered at public auction before,” Valarie McLeckie, Heritage Auctions consignment director, said. “Nintendo and Sony are arguably two of the biggest competitors in video games today. It’s just a little baffling to some to see Nintendo and Sony sharing the same console — and that it has the namesake of the PlayStation itself.”