Prototype SNES/PlayStation Hybrid Console Is A Blast From Early 90s Past
Pictures of a hybrid game console consisting of a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) outfitted with a CD-ROM peripheral built by Sony are making the rounds on the web, but before we get into that, let's backtrack a few decades and discuss the system that everyone assumed didn't exist. Grab the plutonium and set the DeLorean for 1988.
That's when Sony and Nintendo collaborated on a CD-ROM drive for the SNES. Their goal was to release a combined game console called the PlayStation that could play both SNES cartridges and SNES CD-ROMs. Three years later, Sony announced the system at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), only to find out that Nintendo had chosen to work with rival Philips. It was a stab in the back that Nintendo probably regrets at this point -- Sony would go on to release a standalone PlayStation console and become a dominant force in the game console market.
Whether Nintendo made the right call or not is irrelevant here. What matters is that the console was never built, and it was thought that no hybrid units existed after all this time. It turns out there might be at least one, assuming the pictures a Reddit user posted to Imgur are legitimate.
Unfortunately the Reddit thread is marked as private, though the user responsible, Dan Diebold, found his way over to AssemberGames' forum where he offered some commentary on the console.
"My dad worked for a company, apparently one of the guys he used to work with, I think his name was Olad, 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," Diebold explains.
Diebold says he hasn't had a chance to try and boot the system up as he doesn't have a power cord for it, but that it looks like it takes a common DC cable. The bigger question is, are the pictures legitimate or fakes? They certainly look real, though the top of the unit lacks the color damage shown on the bottom half.
If nothing else, there are a lot of gamers who learned a history lesson because of this.
That's when Sony and Nintendo collaborated on a CD-ROM drive for the SNES. Their goal was to release a combined game console called the PlayStation that could play both SNES cartridges and SNES CD-ROMs. Three years later, Sony announced the system at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), only to find out that Nintendo had chosen to work with rival Philips. It was a stab in the back that Nintendo probably regrets at this point -- Sony would go on to release a standalone PlayStation console and become a dominant force in the game console market.
Whether Nintendo made the right call or not is irrelevant here. What matters is that the console was never built, and it was thought that no hybrid units existed after all this time. It turns out there might be at least one, assuming the pictures a Reddit user posted to Imgur are legitimate.
Unfortunately the Reddit thread is marked as private, though the user responsible, Dan Diebold, found his way over to AssemberGames' forum where he offered some commentary on the console.
"My dad worked for a company, apparently one of the guys he used to work with, I think his name was Olad, 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," Diebold explains.
Diebold says he hasn't had a chance to try and boot the system up as he doesn't have a power cord for it, but that it looks like it takes a common DC cable. The bigger question is, are the pictures legitimate or fakes? They certainly look real, though the top of the unit lacks the color damage shown on the bottom half.
If nothing else, there are a lot of gamers who learned a history lesson because of this.
