Almost two years after the Nintendo PlayStation prototype was discovered, popular modder Ben Heckendorn was finally able to restore the console to working condition.
The Nintendo PlayStation just suddenly started working, giving a glimpse of what could have been if Sony and Nintendo continued with their short-lived partnership.
What Is The Nintendo PlayStation Prototype?
The Nintendo PlayStation prototype is the product of a brief team-up between Sony and Nintendo.
While Sony and Nintendo are currently rivals in the video game industry with the PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch, the two companies collaborated in the early '90s for the development of a video game console.
Sony was tapped to add a CD-ROM to Nintendo's SNES, but the partnership soon came to an end due to money matters. Sony wanted to keep all the revenues generated by the CD licenses, to which Nintendo did not agree with.
Before the partnership was broken off, about 200 prototypes of the SNES-CD were created. However, the console, compatible with both SNES cartridges and CD-ROMs, was considered to be a myth as it was never seen in public.
That is, until Dan Diebold discovered one in a box of junk that belonged to his dad Terry, who won it from an online auction. The prototype was later confirmed to be an authentic one and that it was operational, but the CD drive did not work.
Heckendorn tore down the Nintendo PlayStation in July 2016, finding that the console's interior largely resembled that of the original Sony PlayStation but with some Nintendo chips. He then stated that he believed he could repair the Nintendo PlayStation's CD drive to restore its full functionality.
Nintendo PlayStation Suddenly Starts Working
Ever since the Nintendo PlayStation was discovered, various homebrew and emulator makers created CD-based games that would work with the console. However, efforts to get the games to work on the Nintendo PlayStation have been unsuccessful, as Heckendorn has not been able to get the CD drive to properly communicate to the console's system.
However, Heckendorn revealed that the CD drive of the Nintendo PlayStation suddenly started working literally overnight.
"I was working on this yesterday and the CD-ROM wasn't even detecting the disc," Heckendorn said in the new video, but when he came in the following day to work on the console again, the Nintendo PlayStation's CD drive just suddenly started to work.
"Did a magic elf come in overnight?" Heckendorn asked.
Heckendorn went on to test some of the homebrew that was created for the Nintendo PlayStation. A game titled Super Boss Gaiden resulted in an error message, but a simple puzzle game named Magic Floor was able to load through the console's CD-ROM. The game had minor graphic glitches, but they were easily fixed after Magic Floor's developer took a look and tweaked some code.
Heckendorn was able to accomplish the restoration through the replacement of bad capacitors and implementing several fixes and adjustments to the Nintendo PlayStation.
With the Nintendo PlayStation up and running, the search for software specifically created for the console is on. It is rumored that Secret of Mana, one of the most popular RPGs of Square, began as a project for the ill-fated device.
