The ‘Nintendo PlayStation’ Prototype Was Sold For $300,000

[Paul2]

The world’s only known "Nintendo PlayStation" has sold at auction today for $300,000.

The prototype console was teh result of a failed partnership between Nintendo and Sony in the early '90s. Only 200 prototypes were manufactured of the system, which is basically a Super NES with a CD drive

The specific device is actually playable, with the auction description saying a few rounds of Mortal Kombat were played on it.

As the only known version of this hardware in existence, the prototype is the gaming world's rarest console, if not the rarest item altogether. There's also the added romance of it representing the final collaboration between Nintendo and Sony before their plans for a Super Nintendo CD-ROM system fell apart over licensing deals.

Pre-bidding closed prior to the live auction today at $280,000—plus a 20% buyer's premium that made it $336,000 in total—though, it had previously hit $350,000 in February. The winning bidder technically paid roughly $380,000 for the winning bid, owing to an additional "buyer's premium" fee attached to the auction.

One of the early bidders was apparently Palmer Luckey, the cofounder of Facebook's virtual reality company Oculus, saying on Twitter in February that he is "on a quest to digitize and preserve the history of physical video games" and that "VR will ensure the original experience lives on forever, but we need to keep these things alive and functional in the meanwhile."

Update: It seems that it wasn't the much-publicized cofounder of Oculus VR Palmer Luckey who walked away with the console, it was entrepreneur and avid video game collector Greg McLemore.

Speaking to Forbes, McLemore, an LA-native, real estate and tech
 entrepreneur, said:

"I'm looking to not have this machine just buried in a closet somewhere," adding he wants to take his collection—which he estimates includes over 800 coin-operated machines and countless other smaller games, trade magazines and original art—and build out a permanent museum.

https://cdrinfo.com/d7/content/%E2%80%98nintendo-playstation%E2%80%99-prototype-was-sold-300000

whoa.  couldn't believe someone would buy this very rare prototype of snes-cd playstation for over $300,000 including buyer's premium fee.  sure, its very rare and its snes-cd playstation but is it worth that much money though?  not to me and most people but i think this buyer must be very rich or something to collect this prototype by spending this much money.

[Titan]

I watched a documentary on YouTube about this a few days ago. They actually rebuilt this thing and had the community develop a couple games for it to show it off. It was pretty crazy of a story and a decision by Nintendo that pretty much changed the course of gaming forever. It also was a decision that eventually knocked Nintendo out of the running for the core gamer. Not that that was bad for them. They are murdering it right now and they always have but they had to redefine themselves and go after a different type of gamer. They couldn't go after the CoD, Battlefield and those kinds of AAA title gamers. They found their niche and no one will ever be able to touch them in it.

It also makes you wonder how many more of these consoles are tucked away somewhere. Apparently hundreds of prototypes were made, which means this console was close to making it to production. Some others had to have survived. Hell, they may not have been destroyed but could be shoved in a warehouse somewhere like the ending scene of Indiana Jones.