Nintendo-Sony PlayStation
In the late 1980s, Nintendo and Sony formed a partnership to create the Nintendo PlayStation. The idea was to incorporate a CD-ROM into the popular Super Nintendo entertainment/gaming system, but the partnership dissolved and the prototypes of the gaming system were all thought to have been destroyed. One of the 200 prototypes (created c. 1992), was spared when Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson, the founder and first president of Sony Computer Entertainment (a division of Sony Corporation), kept it when he left Sony and went to Advanta Corporation in 1997. In 1999 he moved to Time Warner, but appears to have left his gaming console behind.
In 2009, Advanta filed for bankruptcy, an office auction took place, and the Nintendo PlayStation prototype was one of the items sold. Terry Diebold, who worked at Advanta, purchased a bin at the auction that contained the piece for $75.
The rare Nintendo-Sony system was found in Diebold’s attic by his son, and they recently decided it was time to sell the one-of-a-kind item. A number of reports state that he turned down an offer of $1.2M before putting the game up for sale at auction…REALLY?…you turned down over a million dollars?! So, I guess you now know where this is going – Heritage Auction’s presale estimate was in excess of $300,000, and the lucky new owner probably bought it against the reserve, he paid ‘just’ $300,000 ($360K w/p). And if you are wondering who bought the game…reports state that it was Greg McLemore, the founder of Pets.com; he plans on building a museum to showcase his collection of games, trade publications, and art.