The incredibly rare hardware collaboration between two of the industry’s giants has seemingly been proved real.
The ‘SNES PlayStation’ was re-discovered back in July after a Reddit user posted images of the long-lost prototype unit, of which only 200 were made.
Created before the original PlayStation, the machine was the fruit of a partnership between Nintendo and Sony, and featured both a SNES cartridge slot and a CD drive.
Infamously, before the machine was released to the public, Nintendo backed out of the deal by revealing at the 1991 CES event that it would instead work with Phillips – which eventually gave rise to the CDi.
Although pictures of the SNES PlayStation (also known as the ‘Nintendo PlayStation’) appeared to confirm its existence, the console was not shown actually working, leading to some questions over whether it could be an elaborate fake.
Now, Engadget has confirmed the legitimacy of the hardware, interviewing the owners of the machine, Terry and Daniel Diebold, and actually turning it on.
“[It’s] definitely rare in the sense that I got to confirm its existence amid its controversy because word on the street is that this doesn't exist,” said Daniel.
“But today, I got to see the real deal so I can't discredit it. And there's even an OS. You can't question it. It can't be fake. [Regarding] the chips we saw earlier on the logic board: NEC used to make gaming consoles, and Sony also participated here. And with Nintendo as part of this team, you just can't discredit this.”
Although the SNES portion of the console is shown to be operational, with the father-son pair sticking in a copy of Super Bomberman 5 to prove it, the CD half of the machine has apparently been disabled.
Daniel and Terry say they are working with Daniel Cheung of Restart Workshop to try and repair the machine.
All pictures below via Engadget http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/snes-...orking/0158791