
Nintendo Play Station Super NES CD-ROM Prototype - edent
https://comics.ha.com/itm/video-games/nintendo/nintendo-play-station-super-nes-cd-rom-prototype-sony-and-nintendo-c-1992/a/7224-93060.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515
======
byuu
The Nintendo PlayStation contains an undumped 4-bit NEC MCU for its CD
controller. Once that EEPROM bit-rots (it's already past its guaranteed
lifetime), the SuperDisc BIOS cartridge will no longer boot as-is. The two
fan-made games ported to the CD-drive will no longer function at that point,
and we won't ever be able to directly fix this, only to hack around and
approximate the original functionality.

I imagine this won't be a significant loss to its new owner, but it's still
unfortunate.

~~~
sgrove
Given your qualifications, what would you like to see happen?

~~~
byuu
Find the most qualified engineer in the world to desolder the surface-mount
MCU, read out its firmware using the documented debugging mode from the
datasheet, and then resolder the MCU back to the system. It won't happen, but
it would be nice for posterity.

~~~
parski
I'd love for this to happen. Then have a MiSTer code made for it or something.
Maybe a bsnes variation?

A girl can dream.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Fun Fact: Secret of Mana was originally designed on the Play Station. Much of
the game's content had to be cut to get it to fit onto a standard Super
Famicom cartridge after the add-on was killed.[0]

[0][https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-
games/co...](https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-
games/columns/pixels-and-bits/13744-Secret-of-Mana-Could-Have-Been-Great-With-
Its-Missing-Content)

~~~
SkyBelow
Do they have any further details of the cut content? Like images of cut
content, what plot was removed, etc.? I've seen numerous applications mention
the cut content but the descriptions are always very high level, like in this
article.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
In my experience, Squaresoft is pretty secretive about their development
process. Their staff will talk on the record about the process and drop
tidbits, like the interview above, about stuff that might have been cut, but
it's pretty rare that they'll go into any great detail or provide "beta"
screenshots. That stuff rarely happens unless we happen to find it dummied out
in the game code somewhere.[0]

For the rest, we sorta have to look at what came later and work backwards from
there to try to envision what the features might have looked like. For
example:

> One of the most significant changes was the removal of the option to take
> multiple routes through the game that led to several possible endings, in
> contrast to the linear journey in the final product. [1]

Since this system eventually showed up in the game's sequel, Seiken Densetsu 3
(Now called "Trials of Mana" after its Switch port localization), we can
probably assume that it would have worked _something like that_. It's also
_probably_ safe to assume that some of the other unused concepts from Secret
of Mana eventually found their way into SD3. But I'm always hesitant to get
too specific, since game developers change their mind all the time during
development.

One of the best examples I can think of for this would be the Soul Reaver
series, where the original title had a _huge_ amount of content cut in order
to deliver the game on time[2], instead ending on a cliffhanger and with the
intention that Soul Reaver 2 would finish it up. We have a pretty good idea of
what was _supposed_ to happen in the original conception of the story, because
we found a ton of leftover assets, voiceovers from unproduced cutscenes, and
design documents. There's even a sequence of the main character "gazing into
the future" with pieces of sequences that never occur (presumably they _would
have_ if the game had been finished as originally designed). By the time the
sequels Soul Reaver 2 and Legacy of Kain: Defiance were produced, however, the
story veered off into a much different direction. Some of the boss fights that
were planned for Soul Reaver 1 ended up eventually happening in SR2 or LoK:D
under very different circumstances, or were scrapped altogether.

[0][https://tcrf.net/Final_Fantasy_VII#The_Red_Man](https://tcrf.net/Final_Fantasy_VII#The_Red_Man)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_of_Mana#Development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_of_Mana#Development)

[2][http://thelostworlds.net/](http://thelostworlds.net/)

~~~
bsanr2
If you're into this, I would suggest looking into the still-developing story
of the defunct Fabula Nova Crystallis project (as well as FFXIV). What can be
gathered heretofore is wild.

------
runawaybottle
For anyone interested, the history of the original PlayStation is pretty
interesting (all the different collaborations Sony was attempting with
Nintendo and Sega before going it alone - mostly getting rejected by Nintendo
and Sega).

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation)

~~~
gryson
For more recently uncovered information about a possible deal between Sony and
Sega, read:

[https://mdshock.com/2019/03/18/sega-and-sony-new-insight-
int...](https://mdshock.com/2019/03/18/sega-and-sony-new-insight-into-the-
partnership-that-never-came-to-be/)

That article also gives insight into why Kutaragi/Sony wanted to partner with
Nintendo.

A quote by Kutaragi:

“I wanted to start up a business that would become a new major income source
for the company in the future… [Sony executives] thought it would take too
long to start a new business from scratch with venture capital. So the only
way to initiate change was from the outside. We could join forces with the
best-performing company in the field. We would sell them our technology,
establish a track record, and use that as the springboard to future success.
That was my reasoning.”

Also, from historian Reiji Asakura:

“Nintendo was concerned that its business would eventually be taken over by
Sony if Sony continued to drive product development. Although Nintendo was
dominant in the game-machine market, the company was fully aware that Sony had
a superior research-and-development operation and thus had the potential to
outstrip its competitors in the area of technological advancement.”

References are in the linked article.

~~~
nck4222
Those quotes are interesting. Seems like the prevailing opinion is that
Nintendo made a mistake cancelling this deal with Sony because it opened up
the door for Sony to become it's largest competitor.

In reality it seems like it was Sony's intention all along to use this as a
stepping stone to competing with Nintendo directly anyway.

~~~
jerf
Also, I'd say that "Sony's generally better at the tech" has basically come
true. But Nintendo adapted into its current position, which is a pretty nice
position to be in. Had they taken the deal, it's possible they could have
gotten complacent and gotten sidetracked away from focusing on game quality.

~~~
dfox
The focus of Nintendo on gaming and not technology is even larger that it
seems, because the hardware and software engineering of at least Wii and WiiU
(and probably even of GameCube and Switch) was almost completely outsourced.

~~~
numpad0
Indeed, they always had that Intelligent Systems Co. within their HQ campus,
as if engineering jobs needs to be “elsewhere”.

------
maxbaines
A UK games journo and general publicist Ryan Brown tried to crowd source to
put this in a museum

[https://twitter.com/Toadsanime/status/1227908339767574528](https://twitter.com/Toadsanime/status/1227908339767574528)

~~~
phkahler
What's telling is that neither Nintendo or Sony give a flying fsck about this.
The real reason people are willing to pay so much is nostalgia, then pile on
some novelty and rarity. They'll claim it's an important historical artifact,
which it may be. But even in the distant future it will not represent the
culture of the day, it's just an interesting oddity that never made it to
market.

~~~
michaelt
You're not wrong, but it seems to me you could say that of 99.9% of private
collecting.

Unless the collection becomes so extensive you and it gain international
renown, demand for collectables is all driven by arbitrary, subjective human
passion.

------
ryanmercer
The teardown done by Ben Heck:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug-
CyGXMabg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug-CyGXMabg)

The repair done by Ben Heck:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh91IO9cV48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh91IO9cV48)

The finally working video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaIfPuziJ-0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaIfPuziJ-0)

~~~
colejohnson66
Working in quote marks. He did an very impressive job, but it’s only half
working. The cartridge port works, but he couldn’t get the drive to read.
Shame. I hope someday, someone can get that working.

~~~
kalleboo
Did you watch the final video? He got the drive to read, play audio CDs
through the bootstrap SNES cartridge and then run a home-brew game off of a
CD-ROM (no original games exist to test with so the CD format and hardware
capabilities were reverse-engineered from the ROM).

"he couldn’t get the drive to read" is completely false. It boots a game off a
CD-ROM!

------
smush
Semi OT -> Sometimes I'm baffled at how people don't know about rare things
like this, but I wonder how long that can last.

Do you think the 'boxed up in a random lot, IDK what it is, some computer
thing' behavior we've seen up to now with many rare electronics, games,
computers, etc. will go away over time as more people grow up with internet
access and web search?

Let's take something that is equally 'dead' in terms of not being made any
more: the Samsung Taylor, a dev windows phone. A few devs got some, but
otherwise it is gone to the wind. Just to look at it, it looks like a slate
smartphone, pretty innocuous. But if you were to search its model number,
you'd immediately know you had something rare and valuable to a certain niche
(which I admit to being in).

~~~
ginko
I'm a bit into hunting for old film cameras and you'd be surprized how many
people barely do any checking before putting things on sale (or worse, just
throw them away). I wonder how many old 'Nintendos' ended up on the landfill
that way.

For instance here's three old Agfa folding cameras:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Agfa_Sup...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Agfa_Super_Isolette.jpg)

[https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images2/1/0311/07/agfa-
au...](https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images2/1/0311/07/agfa-
automatic-66_1_1f1b2193571631efb499b730198202d0.jpg)

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Agfa_Iso...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Agfa_Isolette_L.jpg)

One's barely worth anything, one's worth quite a bit, one's extremely rare.
Would you know which is which just from looking?

~~~
derefr
I mean, if by “putting them up for sale” they’re putting the thing on eBay as
an auction, that’s not exactly mal-adaptive behaviour. The market
will—hopefully!—recognize the value and set the price.

------
whatitdobooboo
A great, great podcast on the whole Nintendo/Sony early saga is:

Business Wars -> Nintendo vs Sony series

Highly recommend.

[https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wondery/business-
wars/e/544...](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wondery/business-
wars/e/54473555)

------
excalibur
Wonder what's up with that "NEXT" port. It looks like a cross between USB and
HDMI, but predates development of the former by 2 years and the latter by a
decade. Would be interesting if it were an early implementation of concepts
that were later standardized as USB.

~~~
ginko
Looks like something akin to the serial i/o port of the original playstation:

[https://www.slashgear.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/12/iFixit-...](https://www.slashgear.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/12/iFixit-PlayStation-teardown-2.jpg)

Also if you think that looks like an USB port, check out the link cable for
the original gameboy.

~~~
simias
I think that's right, the fact that it's called "next" seems to imply some
kind of chaining as well.

~~~
monocasa
Or it means "Nintendo EXTension" or something similar. I wouldn't read too
much into their naming schemes wrt what that means for feature set.

------
branon
This is pretty insane. Ostensibly this is even rarer than other Sony oddities
such as as the Net Yaroze[0] or the Japanese PSX[1]. I wonder if it truly is
the last Nintendo/Sony "PlayStation" in existence.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSX_(digital_video_recorder)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSX_\(digital_video_recorder\))

~~~
djmips
Net Yaroze is not particularly rare.

~~~
cbmuser
Neither is the PSX which you can easily buy used in Japan.

~~~
kalleboo
Yeah, saw one lying around the Junk section of HARD OFF for not much. It's
only rare in the western market.

~~~
ndiddy
A working one is much harder to find, the hard drive is signed to the
individual unit so when it breaks it's impossible to replace and you end up
with a brick.

~~~
rasz
How are they paired? is it using ATA password like Xbox? HDD serial number?
its all easily bypassable nowadays.

------
seibelj
This is one of those situations where $31k seems expensive now, and when it’s
resold in 20 years you’ll see it move for $1mil. Rare things like this tend to
increase in value enormously.

~~~
eloisant
The thing is, we don't know about that. Maybe it will. Maybe in 20 years less
people will be collecting vintage video game consoles.

~~~
reaperducer
I think you're right. Video games aren't like furniture that gets handed down
from generation to generation and increases in value. They only have value to
the people who remember them.

In 20, 30, 40 years the vast majority of people who cared about these machines
will be dead. Those who still care will be such a minority that there won't be
upward price pressure.

It's the same way you don't see people going nuts for Sperry and Burroughs
gear today.

~~~
Dirlewanger
Get ready in a couple decades for the original Xbox to be on auction house
blocks.

~~~
lostgame
The problem with that is how common the original Xbox is. In North America, at
least, the system was fairly popular; even if it made Microsoft very little to
no money at the time.

------
Waterluvian
Can someone teach me what a Buyers Premium is? There's just 20% added on top
of the current price. Is that basically the fee that the auction house is
taking?

~~~
eof
That’s exactly what it is.

------
Ragnarork
I feel this truly belongs to a museum.

~~~
vanadium
I'd like to think the National Videogaming Museum in TX would have put up an
offer if they felt the seller was willing to work in good faith, but based on
some comments I've seen from some of the Directors on Facebook about their
intersections with the seller at conventions, the impression I get is that's
pretty much a non-starter.

And the NVM having probably the largest one-of-a-kind prototype system
collections on Earth, it'd have been the natural home for the Nintendo
PlayStation. That they want no part speaks volumes, and I'm sure there's a lot
there left unsaid in the public eye.

No idea who it'll go to now, but it's probably going to be someone with deep
pockets or a collective (like another museum, perhaps) with a fairly wealthy
network.

------
flippyhead
I found The Gaming Historian to an excellent source of history about this kind
of thing. I don't doubt he's covered this very device at some point.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/mcfrosticles](https://www.youtube.com/user/mcfrosticles)

------
turdnagel
Sony’s industrial design in the 90s and early 00s was superb.

------
dbish
Looks like Palmer Luckey is one of the bidders. It's getting high up there:
[https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/1228115750381948928](https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/1228115750381948928)

------
simias
Are the specs of this device well known? I wish this could get into the hands
of an emulator developer so that this thing could be preserved in code form.
It'll probably end up in some hoarder's collection though unfortunately.

~~~
runawaybottle
There’s some specs here: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_NES_CD-
ROM](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_NES_CD-ROM)

------
alt-enter
_We at Heritage can attest the prototype is working, as we 've played a couple
of rounds of Mortal Kombat on it using a Super Famicom cartridge._

That gave me a good laugh :). This collaboration reminds me of the Panasonic
Q. Nintendo's collaboration with Panasonic that was a hybrid version of the
GameCube with a DVD player:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panasonic_Q](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panasonic_Q)

------
scoutt
It looks like something from a weird parallel universe.

~~~
Dirlewanger
I can't even fathom competing companies today ever working with each other
like this. Then again, Sony wasn't a competitor yet in the early 90s.

~~~
owaislone
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/20/18632374/microsoft-
sony-c...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/20/18632374/microsoft-sony-cloud-
gaming-partnership-amazon-google)

------
jolmg
What's with those bids? People are bidding $525 for N64's Golden Eye? It's
going for $10 at Ebay. Is having it in a sealed box in pristine condition
really that valuable?

~~~
rasz
Heritage Auctions is creating a new market for sucker^^^former comic book
speculators.

------
starpilot
Nice domain.

------
busterarm
Seeing graded, sealed video games makes me angry. Some of the games in this
auction are legit rare and haven't been played enough.

I'm glad emulation is a thing.

