We’ve recently taken a very detailed look at the “Nintendo PlayStation”, perhaps the most notorious of all unreleased consoles, but something from the same era that’s even rarer is Nintendo’s repeated efforts to create a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES, which ultimately came to nothing.
As Chris said at the conclusion of his feature, “the real Holy Grail of SNES CD-ROM hunters has yet to be found: a prototype of the 32-bit add-on that Nintendo was planning to release. Should that, or games that run on it, ever be found, that would be a fascinating glimpse at a long-lost Nintendo game platform.”
That add-on was supposed to clip underneath an existing SNES console, just like Sega went and did with its Genesis/Mega CD combo, and while we still haven’t found one (if any prototypes ever existed in the first place), LASTFANTASY (via Attract Mode) has gone and built a pretty good likeness of one using a SNES, its Satellaview attachment and the guts of a PlayStation 1.
I like how by cutting away at the Satellaview and dropping a CD-ROM door in there it ends up looking pretty close to one of the only images we’ve ever seen of the SNES CD-ROM:
In terms of how it works, it’s pretty easy! Here’s a video showing him playing the SNES component, attaching the PS1 drive then jumping straight into it:
I love the detail he’s put into the presentation of it just as much though. Like the original Sony x Nintendo PlayStation logo on the controller, and the fake spine art for a Super Famicom CD release of King of Fighters 98.
You can see more pics and videos at LASTFANTASY’s Instagram page.