Sony and Nintendo’s Original PlayStation Prototype Found

An important part of gaming history was reportedly found, dating back to when Sony and Nintendo originally meant for the PlayStation to be a CD-based expansion for the SNES.

Imgur user DanDiebold posted pictures of the legendary Sony and Nintendo hybrid system that was a prototype for the first PlayStation (via GamesRadar). Back in 1988, Sony and Nintendo started working on a CD-based add-on for the upcoming Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Famicom. During the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, the prototype was revealed by Sony. The following day, Nintendo announced that it was partnering with Philips for its CD-oriented tech, pushing Sony out of the picture. While Philips and Nintendo never went on to formally release the SNES' CD expansion, the Philips CD-i console launched in 1991 and went on to be a commercial failure (resulting in over a billion dollars in losses and Philips' abandoning of the video game industry). Nintendo would go on to release the disk drive-based 64DD expansion for the Nintendo 64 in 1999. Similar to the CD-i, the 64DD failed horribly, selling 15,000 units total in Japan and only have 10 pieces of software released until it was officially discontinued two years after its launch.

Nintendo, Sony and Philips never really resolved their differences, as Philips recently filed a lawsuit against Nintendo saying that the House of Mario infringed on its patents. Nintendo lost the lawsuit in which a judge ruled they were infringing upon Philip's motion control tech, resulting in the Wii, Wiimote, Wii Motion Plus, Nunchuk, Wii Balance Board, Wii U and Wii U GamePad being labelled as patent violations in court. The two companies have recently settled these lawsuits, likely with Nintendo shelling out a ton of money back to Philips.

Sony's CD-based game tech originally intended for the SNES' CD-based expansion would eventually be used to in creating the first PlayStation console, which launched in late 1994.

So where did these Sony/Nintendo PlayStation prototype pictures come from? Here's where the person allegedly found the console:

"My dad worked for a company, apparently one of the guys he used to work with, I think his name was Olaf, used to work at Nintendo and when my dad's company went bankrupt, my dad found it in a box of 'junk' he was supposed to throw out."

This is where the story gets fishy. 'OIaf' could refer to Olafur Johann Olafsson, the original CEO, President and Co-Founder of Sony Interactive Entertainment. This means that this prototype could have belonged to one of the system's creators, or it could just be an elaborate hoax.

While this could be the real deal when it comes to a pivotal piece of gaming history, we suggest that everyone take this article with a grain of salt, as these pictures have not been verified. Nevertheless, 21 years after the PS-One's launch, Sony's PlayStation 4 is steamrolling Nintendo's Wii U on the market. As of March 2015, the PS4 sold 22.3 million units since it launched in Nov. 2013, whereas the Wii U sold 9.54 million units since its Nov. 2012 debut. That's what you get for betraying your partners, Nintendo.

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