What you need to know
- Sony and Nintendo once collaborated on an unreleased console.
- A prototype of the Nintendo PlayStation is now up for auction.
- Current bids stand at over $200,000 and only keep rising.
March 6, 2020: The Nintendo PlayStation has sold for over $360,000. This sets the record for the most expensive item of video game memorabilia ever publicly sold, according to Kotaku.
This is something you won't be able to buy with any spare change lying around. The historic Nintendo PlayStation console, what was supposed to be a collaboration between the two companies before deals fell apart decades ago, is up for auction. At the time of writing this article, the current bid is at $205,000. You can only expect that number to go up and up. The auction is set to end on March 6, so you have another three weeks or so to get your bids in.
We even have a little history behind this exact unit, which was created around 1992, according to Heritage Auctions.
At one time, this particular unit was owned by the founder, first president, and first chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. Olaf Olafsson. Olaf eventually left Sony to join Advanta Corporation, and became its president in 1998. A little over a year later, Olaf left Advanta to join Time Warner -- but he left his Nintendo PlayStation prototype behind at Advanta. Roughly around this time, Advanta filed for bankruptcy and began gathering up everything in their corporate office to sell at auction. As the story goes, the Nintendo Play Station prototype was grouped together with some miscellaneous items that was boxed up with a group lot, the contents of which were veiled. A nice Easter egg for the winning bidder, indeed!
Now the system is owned by Terry Diebold, a retired employee of the Advanta Corporation. It was repaired in 2017 and can now play music CDs, but there doesn't appear to have been any games made for the ill-fated console.
This is definitely way out of my price range, but for now I can at least admire the pictures, and you can too.
