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It\u2019s happening: the rare (possibly unique) Nintendo Play Station prototype is for sale. The auction house has opened up the bidding, and so far the price is sitting pretty at $48,000 \u2014 and the auction will be open for the next 21 days.<\/p>\n
In case you don\u2019t know what a \u201cNintendo Play Station\u201d is, you can read a quick primer here. In the smallest possible nutshell, it was a console that never existed outside of the crushed dreams of the fledging company Sony and a few prototypes destined for destruction. Terry Diebold, the current owner, decided to put it up for auction after years of showing it off, and it looks like the time is now. It\u2019s being sold by Heritage Auctions, an auction house known for carrying various rare collectibles \u2014 last December a sealed copy\u00a0of\u00a0Mega Man\u00a0<\/em>sold at one of its auctions for $75,000.<\/p>\n [Read:\u00a0Okay, fine, there is no Nintendo Switch Pro on the way (this year)<\/em>]<\/p>\n If it sells for that price, that\u2019d make it one of the most expensive\u00a0consoles ever. There have been a few that exceed that price, but most of them are just ordinary consoles dipped in gold or jewels. This is a piece of gaming history, up there with the likes of that sealed copy of Super Mario Bros<\/em> or that gold copy of\u00a0Nintendo World Championships<\/em>. Heritage Auctions agrees, saying in the item description:<\/p>\n This prototype has been around the world and back again, admired and appreciated by video game enthusiasts from all over. Even though this is the closing of this portion of its narrative, it will continue to remain a pivotal piece of video game history no matter where it ends up.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I mention this is a museum piece because I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d want to attempt to play games on it. The Heritage description mentions employees have \u201cplayed a couple of rounds of Mortal Kombat on it,\u201d but\u00a0<\/span>is quick to remind everyone that this isn\u2019t a console with exclusive games. It does, however, have the ability to play music, and has a few features that set it apart from both the SNES and the actual PlayStation:<\/p>\n Though the CD-ROM drive was not currently working when it was found in 2009, it has since been repaired by Benjamin Heckendorn, a YouTube personality known for his console repair videos. It now has the ability to play music CDs like the commercially produced PlayStation, but there is no proprietary software that\u2019s known to have been made during the prototype\u2018s development.\u00a0The prototype\u2018s small screen on the top of the console shows the user which music track is currently being played from the CD, allowing the user to listen to their own music and play a cartridge-based game at the same time.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Just for reference, Diebold obtained the prototype bidding on a lot from a bankrupt credit card company for a $75. Even if the bidding doesn\u2019t go any higher than $48,000 (and the figurative night is young, so I suspect it will), that\u2019ll still be a tidy profit for the man who\u2019s been bussing the console around to conventions where we could gawk at it for years. At the moment, we\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0see\u00a0who put in the current high bid, but we can only hope it\u2019s someone who\u2019s going to treat this thing with the care it deserves.<\/p>\n Proxy bidding (which is what those who\u2019re bidding on it now are doing) ends on March 6, whereupon the console will be up for a live floor auction.<\/p>\n \n Read next:<\/b>\n
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