Rare Super Famicom prototype zooms to $40k bid at auction

[Shawn Knight]

Rare opportunity: Nintendo collectors with deep pockets have the rare opportunity to get their hands on an early Super Famicom prototype that looks an awful lot like the pre-production model featured in gaming magazines in the late 80s.

The Super Famicom (known as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in North America) was the successor to the original Family Computer. That system debuted in Japan in 1983 before finding its way to American test markets as the original NES in late 1985. Nintendo wasn't in a hurry to release a follow-up but pressure from competitors like Sega and its Genesis prompted a rethink.

Nintendo launched the new console on November 21, 1990, and sold out of its initial batch of 300,000 units within hours. A redesigned version, the SNES, arrived in North American in the summer of 1991.

The prototype Super Famicom up for auction differs from the production model in that it includes a headphone jack and volume wheel, much like the Nintendo PlayStation prototype that surfaced in 2015. Eagle-eyed readers may also notice that the controller ports are left-aligned instead of centered, and the expansion port appears on the front of the console instead of the bottom. The bright red power switch stands out like a sore thumb (but in a good way).

As of this writing, bidders have just over four days to vie for the console. The high bid sits right around 6 million yen, or around $40,000, and is sure to go higher. For comparison, the Nintendo PlayStation brought around $360,000 at auction in 2020. It could be worth far more than that now, as it is believed to be the only example to have survived after Nintendo and Sony had a falling out during development.

The SNES that eventually found its way to North America looks much different than the Super Famicom. According to Lance Barr, who designed the chassis for the NES and SNES, he felt the Super Famicom was "too soft and had no edge."

At the time, Nintendo was considering future modular components (hence the expansion port on the bottom of the machine). Barr said he thought the Super Famicom didn't look good when stacked (or even by itself), adding that it had a kind of "bag of bread" look.

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Rare Super Famicom prototype zooms to $40k bid at auction

 

[Neatfeatguy]

That's cool and all and I guess because it is a prototype that it adds to the value, but if you took a normal SNES you could easily convert it to play Super Famicom game cartridges. My brother and I did it years ago, had a couple of SNES that we left alone and took a third one and converted it to be able to play Super Famicom cartridges.

To do it all you need to do is cut out the plastic tabs inside the cartridge slot. Once you do that Super Famicom cartridges can be inserted without issue. The big difference between SNES cartridges and Super Famicom ones is that all SNES cartridges had two small slots/indents on the back of them and the Super Famicom did not. The plastic tabs inside the SNES are what kept the Super Famicom games from going into the SNES. As for SNES games, you couldn't just put them into a Super Famicom because the SNES cartridges were a little bigger in size so they didn't slide into the Famicom system.

We had a couple of games for it, but neither of us could read or speak Japanese so it was kind of pointless. I tried playing the games, but couldn't understand a thing.