Rare ‘Nintendo PlayStation’ auctioned for £275,000 after owner ‘turned down $1.2MILLION’

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AN ULTRA-RARE “Nintendo PlayStation” console has sold £275,000 at auction – despite the owner “previously turning down” $1.2million (£915,000).

Created nearly 30 years ago (but never released), the “world’s rarest console” can play both cartridges and discs.

The Nintendo PlayStation is an ultra-rare unreleased console

Plans to flog the console at auction were first revealed in December, with the auction kicking off last month.

And over the weekend, the console was sold for $360,000 (£275,000) to a gaming collector named Greg McLemore.

He created Toys.com and wants to create a permanent museum using items from his vast collection.

The item was officially a Nintendo console, but was stamped with Sony branding and was dubbed the ‘Play Station’.

The console was designed to play both cartridges and discs

But the project was scrapped before release, and the two Japanese tech giants went on to release their own ‘next-gen’ consoles separately.

In 2009, a man named Terry Diebold unwittingly bought the prototype as part of a lot of abandoned property from a former Sony executive, according to a Kotaku report.

The device was rediscovered by Diebold’s son in the family attic in 2015, attracting huge interest from the gaming industry.

Ever since, Diebold and his son have been touring the “Nintendo PlayStation” around conventions.

But Diebold said he was tired of spending his own money showing it off – and wanted to finally realise the console’s value.

“I can’t keep losing money,” Diebold told Kotaku.

“I’ve put a lot of work into this by travelling with it and we have made nothing on it.

“Every trip that we…have taken with it has cost us money out of pocket.”

Diebold’s dream of having the console on show has been realised, but he may have lost out on some big money.

“We turned down $1.2million from someone in Norway,” Diebold revealed.

He’s still made a killing though – Diebold paid just $75 (£57) for the original lot that included the Nintendo PlayStation.

Sony went on to launch the disc-only PlayStation without Nintendo two years later

This particular unit is believed to be the only one not destroyed, and may have been owned by the founder, first president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment.

The device’s strange history began when Nintendo partnered with Sony to develop two new products.

One would be a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES, and the other would be a Sony console that could play both cartridges and discs.

As many as 200-300 prototypes of the latter – dubbed the “Play Station” – were created between 1991 and 1992.

But the deal eventually fell through, and Sony switched to developing its own console.

This was the PlayStation, which was first released in Japan on December 3, 1994.

And Nintendo then released its own Nintendo 64 – which still used cartridges – in June 1996.

McLemore, who now owns the console, has more than 800 coin-operated machines, plus other games, art and magazines.

And he told Forbes that he now wants to create a museum.

“I’m looking to not have this machine just buried in a closet somewhere,” he said.

He described the console as “the single most expensive thing I’ve ever bought outside of a house”, speaking to CNN.

“It was worth it, especially when combined with the rest of my collection,” McLemore added.

Nintendo released the N64 console four years after the Nintendo PlayStation was scrapped

The idea of combining multiple consoles into one is still inspiring gamers everywhere.

Earlier this year, gadget geeks created the ultimate mega-console with an Xbox, PS4, Nintendo Switch and gaming PC inside.

The total estimated cost of the console was more than £7,600 ($9,970).

In other news, Microsoft recently unveiled its new Xbox Series X console with a bonkers vertical design.

A recent PS5 “leak” gave us an early look at the console and controller ahead of its 2020 release.

Sony’s PS5 has been tipped to cost over £450.

And find out why both the PS5 and the Xbox X Series could be the last consoles you ever own.

How much would you have paid for this rare piece of gaming history? Let us know in the comments!