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Hands-On With the Nintendo PlayStation (engadget.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the still-waiting-on-the-xbox-dreamcast dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Several months ago, we got a look at a weird bit of technology: a Nintendo PlayStation prototype made in the late '80s during an unusual partnership between Sony and Nintendo. Despite cries of "hoax" and "fake," the console turns out to be real. Engadget got to try it out, X-ray it, and even open the device up to try repairing the CD drive. They brought in Daniel Cheung, a retro console technician from Restart Workshop, and he said, "I got to see the real deal so I can't discredit it. And there's even an OS. You can't question it. It can't be fake. Going back to the chips we saw earlier on the logic board: NEC used to make gaming consoles, and Sony also participated here. And with Nintendo as part of this team, you just can't discredit this."

51 comments

  1. Too many cooks in the kitchen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    and like all great chefs... one stole the recipe, one got burned, and the third screamed at the other two to GTFO!

    1. Re:Too many cooks in the kitchen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "and like all great chefs... one stole the recipe, one got burned, and the third screamed at the other two to GTFO!"

      Ok, how the fuck is the parent post off topic? The whole "Too many cooks" line is a fucking metaphor. Essentially it was saying the collaboration between Nintendo and Sony didn't work because one "cook" stole the recipe meaning Sony took the idea of the Playstation from this and used it against Nintendo, the "cook" that got burned. I swear, sometimes the ones that get mod point are autistics that can't understand metaphors.

    2. Re:Too many cooks in the kitchen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1) I think the "like all great chefs" part was unnecessary for the metaphor.
      2) If Chef #1 is Sony and Chef #2 is Nintendo, who the fuck is Chef #3?

    3. Re:Too many cooks in the kitchen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NEC, RTFS

  2. X-Rayed a computer?? by Nutria · · Score: 1

    Isn't that contraindicated to the health and well-functioning of ICs?

    --
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    1. Re:X-Rayed a computer?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wondered about that too, especially if there were eeproms.

    2. Re:X-Rayed a computer?? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      Some was thing there was some kind of suicide bomb in there.

    3. Re:X-Rayed a computer?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't that contraindicated to the health and well-functioning of ICs?

      No. If it were an issue then people would be suing airports for more than just "privacy" violations since all their electronics flow through X-Ray machines. However photosensitive devices (EPROMS) may have issues.

    4. Re:X-Rayed a computer?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Purportedly the wave length required to erase EPROM differs substantially to that of X Ray. So, no. The EPROM is not in danger of erasure.

    5. Re:X-Rayed a computer?? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      Have you been through an aiport with a laptop any time in the last, oh, forever?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    6. Re:X-Rayed a computer?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not what I've read.

    7. Re: X-Rayed a computer?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correct, my laptop has been through airport x-rays plenty of times. Never a problem with any variant of memory. Eprom, eeprom, flash, ssd hdd etc.

    8. Re:X-Rayed a computer?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Purportedly the wave length required to erase EPROM differs substantially to that of X Ray. So, no. The EPROM is not in danger of erasure.

      Yep, you flash them with Ultraviolet and even then it has to have a window on the chip for it.

    9. Re:X-Rayed a computer?? by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure most ROMs are Flash-based these days.

    10. Re:X-Rayed a computer?? by citizenr · · Score: 1

      Yes, this is why you buy new phone and laptop after every flight!

      --
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    11. Re:X-Rayed a computer?? by Agripa · · Score: 1

      Flash based ROM uses floating gate technology and can be erased just like an EPROM.

    12. Re:X-Rayed a computer?? by Agripa · · Score: 1

      X-rays will erase floating gate memory but it would take 10s of thousands to 100s of thousands of medical x-rays to do so which is completely feasible with a commercial x-ray generator. The IC however would be damaged requiring high temperature annealing to repair.

  3. Windows CE for Dreamcast by tepples · · Score: 2

    from the still-waiting-on-the-xbox-dreamcast dept.

    That exists. Xbox was contracted from "DirectX box". A few dozen Dreamcast games were made with Windows CE, which included DirectX.

  4. flat earthers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Despite all evidence to the contrary there are people that firmly believe the earth is flat... so yes people will attempt to discredit this.

  5. Don't get it by ArchieBunker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is the social media age. A team of people probably worked on this at one point. How hard would it be to try and track someone down? Same goes for how awful and unplayable some NES games were. Can't we find ANYONE who worked for LJN and ask them some questions? Like all this stuff is centuries old and we're guessing at the original intent?

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:Don't get it by ledow · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Qualified electricial engineers who were working within some of the world's largest companies in 1991 (when I was barely in secondary school?). They'd be about 60-something by now. Probably retired. Certainly not in the "social media" generation, in any large way. And probably still subject to NDA's.

      Most of those people would have had a small part personally, be long out of the industry, and likely can't talk without checking with legal departments at companies they left years ago anyway. And most likely they are Japanese, I'd assume?

      Good luck with that.

      There are still coders online from the ZX Spectrum era, writing games and answering questions. Julian Gollop, for instance, has just released an update to Chaos. But... they are either celebrities or not all that interested in a pet project they knocked out over 20 years ago, most probably. Alan Cox used to write ZX Spectrum games. See how much information about that is online from "the man" himself. Not a lot.

    2. Re:Don't get it by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      And probably still subject to NDA's.

      Every NDA I've seen was undated. How long are they good for in practice? Are all the NDA's permanent, or only so far as the knowledge still would give an advantage? At least the military NDAs, though permanent, are tied to classification, so when something's unclassified, the NDA around it ends.

      --
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    3. Re:Don't get it by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

      So anyone that old is off the grid and unreachable? I doubt anyone would care what NDA they signed back in 1991.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    4. Re:Don't get it by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      Qualified electricial engineers who were working within some of the world's largest companies in 1991 (when I was barely in secondary school?). They'd be about 60-something by now. Probably retired. Certainly not in the "social media" generation, in any large way. And probably still subject to NDA's.

      Most of those people would have had a small part personally, be long out of the industry, and likely can't talk without checking with legal departments at companies they left years ago anyway. And most likely they are Japanese, I'd assume?

      You also forgot one major factor - this was the product of Japanese engineers, too, who aren't well known for their openness. The Japanese gaming industry is one of secrecy - rarely do you get the openness that's present in the western gaming industry.

      So all the big people "in the know" are restricted from talking about it, and given it's been nearly 25 years, memories have long faded among the smaller people.

    5. Re:Don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you *are* a fucking idiot. you are what's wrong with slashdot.

    6. Re:Don't get it by sad_ · · Score: 1

      Qualified electricial engineers who were working within some of the world's largest companies in 1991 (when I was barely in secondary school?). They'd be about 60-something by now. Probably retired. Certainly not in the "social media" generation, in any large way. And probably still subject to NDA's.

      6 degrees of seperation should enable you to find these people quickly. somebody always knows somebody who knows somebody that was involved in something.

      --
      On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
  6. It always surprised me by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    That Nintendo didn't manage to kill Sony as a competitor with legal wrangling. They were always really good at that sorta thing (ask Namco about their Sega Genesis games :P ). Apart from that this is one of those pivotal moments in the game industry I always love to hear about. Like when EA bluffed Sega into giving them a sweetheart deal on Sega Genesis licensing in exchange for not sharing their tech to get around the Genesis lockout chip (turned out the chip didn't work, though to be fair EA didn't know that, but Nintendo woulda told EA to go pound sand).

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  7. They should've asked someone who was alive then? by guruevi · · Score: 2

    I knew there were rumors of a Nintendo-Sony hybrid back then in the early 90's. It was going to be announced at a big con but never came to be.

    Here's a 2012 article on the subject: http://kotaku.com/5876374/the-...

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  8. Hardcoregaming101.net by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    Did a pretty cool serious of videos on their site interviewing as many folks involved in the Japanese gaming industry from the 80s and 90s they could. They'll selling a dvd of the entire thing but a lot of it's on their site/youtube for free.

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  9. Nintendo's Sega-CD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The console is likely just an SNES with a CD-ROM drive attached and periphery hardware to probably play back audio CD music and mix said music into the audio signal before being put out to the DAC. In other words it's like the Sega-CD or Famicom Disk Drive, a way to access mass produced high density cheap media for aging systems. I seriously doubt it had any enhanced graphics capabilities or unique coprocessors.

    An interesting relic of the failed partnership between Nintendo and Sony and the history of video games, but probably nothing special hardware wise.

    1. Re:Nintendo's Sega-CD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now hold on, there is also plug-in game cartridge, and inside that is the added RAM. This is consistent with the 1993 SNES-CD document that was released earlier.

      I can't find an image of the reverse side of the cartridge, so all I can say is that it has 3 RAM chips and a socketed programmable ROM on it... maybe. It could also be a programmable MCU with internal ROM. But it is such a low prototype number, that after they built it, they probably realized they needed more CPU oomph and brought in a 32-bit chip on later prototypes.

      Yes internally on the mainboard there is only the low-level EFM/spindle motor controller chip and interface chips. Finding a datasheet on that EFM chip, the CD drive was 2X speed. Otherwise it is a fairly typical SNES chipset (the 2 separate PPUs version).

    2. Re:Nintendo's Sega-CD by SScorpio · · Score: 1

      The Sega-CD did have its own coprocessors that enabled more complex games.

      I can't find sources, but I remember reading years ago that several prototype SNES-CD games were later made on the Playstation. For some reason Biohazard(Resident Evil) keeps springing to mind, but my Google-fu is failing to find any information as all I see are articles about this prototype hardware.

    3. Re:Nintendo's Sega-CD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That seems quite unlikely, or at least the titles developed for the SNES-CD would have almost nothing in common with the later PS1 products due to the massive leap in hardware capabilities (e.g. 3D renditions on SNES hardware was... not great, even with SuperFX in the mix).

      One game that was however initially developed for the Nintendo/Sony "Play Station", but reworked and released for the standard SNES when the CD was announced to not materialize, was "Seiken Densetsu 2", aka "Secret of Mana". Ted Woolsey, the English translator of Squaresoft's games in this era, mentions this in an old interview from 1994 with Swedish gaming magazine "Super Power" (which later switched its name to "Super PLAY"). See Wikipedia on Secret of Mana.

    4. Re:Nintendo's Sega-CD by SScorpio · · Score: 1

      That seems quite unlikely, or at least the titles developed for the SNES-CD would have almost nothing in common with the later PS1 products due to the massive leap in hardware capabilities (e.g. 3D renditions on SNES hardware was... not great, even with SuperFX in the mix).

      Not later games, but early games in the original PlayStation's life. The SNES-CD had it's own processor which would have provided some early 3D support.

      I did know about SD2, I believe I also heard that the SNES version of Magic Knights Rayearth was also going to be a CD game that they then cut back.

  10. LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    domain is for sale and link is broken, sorry.

  11. Re:They should've asked someone who was alive then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    that's the same console.

    there were only a few hundred of them made, and they were sitting in a warehouse at sony japan for some time. since the sony/nintendo/philips/nec(hudson) four-way broke down and they all backstabbed each other, only to eventually come together to finalize the cdrom format, the units were never sold as nintendo didn't want anything to do with anyone after that debacle.

    nintendo didn't touch optical again until the gamecube, and they decided to use their own format because they were still burnt by the bad deal. sony released their snes-less playstation, and philips and nec eventually left the market to stick to electronic components.

    relevant captcha: salters

  12. It's a Playstation world. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I went to statcounter the other day; I usually check OSes and, occasionally, browsers.

    Just out of curiosity, I wanted to know about consoles (I don't own any).

    Two countries for Xbox, one for Nintendo, a few without statistics -- in almost the entire world remaining the Playstation has the lead. A bit unexpected for me, specially the low ranking of Nintendo -- it seems they have some great ideas. What happened?

    And Xbox leads in MX... I expected more... from Mexico! :-)

    1. Re:It's a Playstation world. by drewsup · · Score: 1

      Nintendo never kept up hardware or gamewise, they bet the whole farm on Mario, and lost.

    2. Re:It's a Playstation world. by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

      You are so right. There is nothing out there called Pokemon. Harvest Moon is just an almost lost prototype that was never produced. Animal Crossing is just vaporware.

      I will admit that Nintendo doesn't typically produce dickthrust combat games.

    3. Re: It's a Playstation world. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your sarcasm on Pokemon and Animal Crossing is justified but Harvest Moon? It's neither extremely popular or even Ninendo exclusive. Outside of weaboos it's basically unknown

    4. Re:It's a Playstation world. by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      I give credit where it's due for the WII in 2006. Cutting edge where Nintendo set the stage of not losing $$$$ for each console sold where Sony and MS lost billions hoping to make it up by game royalities. Notice today they have crappy low end hardware with integrated graphics.

      Nintendo recovered for a few years as a result and needed it badly in the middle of the last decade. I recall it outselling the PS 4 briefly after the surge during the holiday season as parents noticed the WII was $100 when the great recession started and of course most kid games pre-teen were still WII based at 1st while teenagers prefered Sony.

      Man did MS screw up with the WII U though :-(

      Actually both Sony and Nintendo screwed up as cell phones are the preferred media platform for games with tablets for the young age group. No reason for Johnny to want a DS when his iphone can run many of the cool games too.

      --
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    5. Re: It's a Playstation world. by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      Yes, there was a Playstation 2 Harvest Moon, once.

      There is a Harvest Moon subculture. It's mostly female players.

  13. technical details by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Informative

    someone did a rundown of the internals.

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  14. The trouble with early CD Systems by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    was RAM. You just didn't have enough RAM to do complex games. So you got a lot of games that were just like their cartridge ports but with some FMV and CD audio thrown in. The only exceptions were RPGs, but those hadn't really caught on yet. There were some indications of success with games like Mortal Kombat on the Sega CD, but the load times were terrible and the game wasn't enough better than MK on the SNES/Genesis to justify the $200 price tag for the CD. Not when MKII for SNES was on it's way. If you want to see a starker contrast look at the two launch titles for the Turbografx-CD: Street Fighter and Monster's Lair. The former was a good port of a mediocre game and the latter was bested by the Cartridge Genesis Version. That experience would have set you back $750+ tax in 1990 dollars.

    What CDs did well in the 90s was anime style graphics, but it would be at least 5-10 years before that stuff had enough of an audience to support expensive peripherals. It makes me wonder what would have happened in NEC had poured the money they wasted on the US CD launch into advertising and a bigger launch.

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  15. Re:They should've asked someone who was alive then by spiritplumber · · Score: 1

    Philips did the CD-i and if you want to know what kind of games came out for it, just look for CD-i on youtube.

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  16. The concept came about in 1988 but the actual prot by blinkingblythe01 · · Score: 1

    please correct this in the article description

  17. Re: The concept came about in 1988 but the actual by blinkingblythe01 · · Score: 1

    The concept came about in 1988 but the actual prototype was built in 1991. Please correct the article description

  18. Re:They should've asked someone who was alive then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivJlZCjfxfI

  19. but is it a fake? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i think the summary could use more sentences telling us it's not a fake