As we try to wade through waves of big new stories and game launches today, we’ve come across something that should make our older readers happy. (I was born in the early 1990s and think it’s quite cool, if that counts.)
Do you remember how PlayStation came into existence? At some point, Nintendo wanted a CD-ROM drive for the Super NES, and Sony quickly came in with a solution and high hopes of getting involved in the video game market. Shortly afterwards, one of the great betrayals in gaming history happened, and Nintendo chose to stick with cartridges instead. This led to Sony developing what would become the first PlayStation console out of spite (or so we like to imagine).
Few prototypes of the early Nintendo-PlayStation hybrid exist, and one of them was sold off a few years ago, leaving fans wondering about its nature and the first ideas the companies toyed with before the working relationship broke. Now, via retro gaming news site Time Extension, we’ve learned about the existence of an earlier model of those prototypes, and it now belongs to the United States’ National Videogame Museum:
The chunky Sony MSF-1 does indeed look like an even earlier model of the system that was never meant to be. There’s no “polished retail casing” or proper buttons, and quite honestly, it looks like an entirely different thing when you compare it to the SNES PlayStation that we saw years ago. Regardless, it’s a significant part of gaming history that deserves its place in the spotlight.
The National Videogame Museum (not to be confused with its UK counterpart) is located in Frisco, Texas. At the time of writing, it’s unclear when the Nintendo PlayStation will be part of the exhibition after the 4th March announcement, but the museum is promising it’ll be a key part of its collection.
