According to a report from Polygon, video gamer Daniel Diebold recently discovered one of 200 supposed prototypes of the Nintendo-Sony PlayStation in his father's attic. He initially posted photos of the prototype via Reddit but was questioned about the device's authenticity and later posted a video showcasing the prototype and all its parts.
Back in the 1990s, Sony and Nintendo had a deal to create a new gaming console that could play SNES cartridges and SNES-CD games. This was the original plan for the Nintendo-Sony PlayStation. The deal dropped and eventually, Sony made its own PlayStation console while Nintendo moved forward with the N64.
According to the report, Daniel's father Terry Diebold worked in maintenance at Advanta Corporations from 2000 to 2009. The president of Advanta was Olaf Olafsson, novelist and physicist who happened to be the former CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment during the time it was making the PlayStation prototype in collaboration with Nintendo.
Sony and Nintendo's deal broke during the Consumer Electronics Show back in 1991 and from there, each company went their separate ways. They did manage to manufacture at least 200 prototypes, one of which remained with Olafsson.
The story goes that when Advanta went bankrupt, Terry was assigned to clean out the junk from the company's offices and found the Nintendo-Sony Playstation prototype and was able to keep it.
The photos and video of the actual console reveals it has a grey hue similar to the original Sony PlayStation and the SNES, a cartridge slot on top and a CD-ROM at its front. The console features Sony branding all over it but the controller is clearly an SNES controller.
Unfortunately, the console has no power cords, but Polygon says that Daniel is currently working around this issue to test if the hybrid console even works.
Along with the console is an unmarked cartridge that only bears the date "Oct. 6, 1992" along with currently untranslated Japanese text. At the time of writing, it is still unknown if the cartridge even has a game in it.
According to the report, Daniel Diebold is still unsure about the future of the prototype he now possesses, stating, "At the moment, I don't know. I'm sure my dad would think about selling it because he's pretty broke."
