Nintendo PlayStation controller prototype sells for $35,000 at auction

Just prior to the 3D console era getting its proper start with Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation, Sony and Nintendo were in a partnership that produced a scarce few "Nintendo PlayStations" — and an August 23 Heritage Auctions auction for one of those limited-run controllers saw an artifact of this partnership sold for a whopping $35,0000. Most of the original 200 Nintendo PlayStations are thought to have been destroyed, so this find and sale may end up being one if, not the only sale of its kind.

Back in February, we covered the full Nintendo PlayStation console being listed for auction at $350K, and its final sale in March cost the final owner $360,000. These are some pretty dramatic price points to meet for such old console hardware, particularly console hardware that doesn't even have exclusive games. A rare video of the console in action can be seen from Engadget below, and functionally, it does kinda make the Nintendo PlayStation seem like an elaborate SNES in all but name. Considering PlayStation was intended to be something of a "SNES CD", though, that makes sense.

Fortunately for the health of the gaming industry at large, Nintendo and Sony's partnership ended up going awry. 

While it's hard to judge the intent, the original nature of Sony and Nintendo's deal would have ended up giving Sony a disproportionate degree of power over Nintendo characters and property, which The Big N was obviously not a fan of. This led to Sony being betrayed by Nintendo's subsequent partnership with Phillips for the accursed Phillips CD-i, and PlayStation going on to become its own brand separate from Nintendo's influence. While the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64 consoles both had compelling hardware in their own right, the PlayStation's disc media made it by far the best choice for RPGs and large-scale cinematic games in its era. The N64's fast cartridges were both more limited in storage capacity and more expensive.

The existence of the Nintendo PlayStation, as well as the Japan-only Nintendo 64DD add-on for Nintendo 64, also goes to show just how early Nintendo understood the downsides of gaming on cartridge media. While Nintendo didn't make the full pivot to console disc games until the 2001 GameCube release (and dropped them by the 2017 Switch release), the existence of the Nintendo PlayStation dates Nintendo's adoption of Nintendo gaming on disc as early as 1992.

Knowing the history behind the Nintendo PlayStation project, these sky-high auction prices do start seeming a little more reasonable. But we aren't going to try and convince you you're missing out on the greatest Nintendo PlayStation games ever made, because none ever were made. Instead, you have the modern 3D console gaming industry.