Rare Nintendo PlayStation video game console up for auction
While this might sound like a hoax, it's actually a one of a kind relic of gaming history.
By AARON REICHA rare prototype of the PlayStation console, with ports for CD-ROMs and cartridge.(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The Dallas-based Heritage Auction house has put up for auction a rare and mostly unknown video game console: the Nintendo PlayStation.While most people associate the PlayStation as being Sony's entry into the video game industry, it is a little-known fact that it has its roots as a Nintendo-Sony collaboration in the early 1990s to make one of the first CD-ROM video game consoles.Nothing ever came of the project outside a few prototypes, and Nintendo would go on to make the Nintendo 64 console while Sony would make their PlayStation consoles.It was rumored that all the prototypes – supposedly 200 – were destroyed, but Heritage Auction has managed to obtain what was thought to be impossible: a genuine and fully functional prototype.Known as the "Nintendo Play Station Super NES CD-ROM Prototype," the console shares similarities with the Super Nintendo (SNES) and the PlayStation, and has a slot for SNES cartridges and a CD drive for disc-based video games. However, as no games were ever released for the prototype, the CD drive is limited to playing music.According to Heritage Auction, this particular prototype was once owned by the founder, president and CEO of Sony, Olaf Olafsson, who eventually left to join Advanta in 1998. However, he left Advanta a little over a year later but left it behind. Advanta then began auctioning everything in the office after it filed for bankruptcy, and the one of a kind prototype was bundled with miscellaneous items.After being sent around the world through various owners, Heritage Auction is ready to find this piece of video game history a permanent home. But good luck purchasing it, as the current bid is $280,000.
