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Palmer Luckey is currently the highest bidder for the Nintedo Playstation prototype; claims to be a huge video game preservationist.
- Thread starter Chessguy1
- Start date
There's nothing unhinged about stating the importance of this device. Nobody is suggesting it's on the scale of the Ark of the Covenant as an artifact among all items in the history of the world, but it is an important artifact in the history of video games.
Unreleased prototypes aren't common and in fact many are pretty rare. Unreleased prototypes that are that old and still work also contribute to the rarity. Then add on the fact of how significant this prototype is to the history of video games and you have an item that is very important to not have it disappear in a private collection. Saying we got everything out of it makes it okay to disappear is short sighted. This isn't just any old prototype; it's impact has a huge profound impact on the game industry and where things are today.
Now I'm not blaming the original owner for this as they've done plenty and I think they've earned their right to recoup and even gain from it, but that doesn't change the fact that this is something that shouldn't disappear either because we got to see it. You say it doesn't mean it's not being preserved, but the fact is we don't even know if it will be properly preserved either. Good preservation takes care and storing it in proper conditions. We're putting it on faith that if it's put in someone's private collection that it will be properly stored. I would have much more faith in a proper institution that knows how to handle such a device for preservation and is kept in a way that it doesn't disappear forever.
I agree with all of this.
Also I wonder why Sony doesnt try and bid. That would be an amazing thing to have on display somewhere.
The guy said he approached both Nintendo and Sony about it and they weren't interested.
He says he even spoken to Yoshida about it. lol
Really?
Thats just hard to believe. No one at Sony wants to obtain this is so strange to me.
This is the thing I watched - but of course, the guy also has his own narrative to everything too so who knows. lol
The interview starts at like 6 mins.
Oh absolutely not.
But I wonder how much Sony would fork over for it?
Man, I want this thing - I would try and program it, see my SNES CD games running on real hardware. But I would never pay $300k+ for it.
It was a group with the specific goal of posting anti-Hillary memes to billboards and selling t-shirts with those memes, that then used Palmer Luckey's "celebrity" status as a donor to appear more legit. Whether he really was the one who posted the letter that group said he was, we'll never know. Personally, my belief is he gave them $10,000 as a juvenile troll move because he thought it would be funny (and was politically anti-Hillary) - when you have $700 million, $10,000 is nothing, and he's never said anything public that sounds like the extreme people in that group.
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Palmer was friendly with former Breitbart editor and alt-right fuckboy Milo Yiannopoulos. He was running in those circles. At some point, "it was about the memes" stops being a valid defense.
Having your twitter avatar be the anime villain responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people just trying to play a game - this dude doesn't remember why he did it if i remember correctly - is... something. There are so many other VR/Futurist reps in fiction to choose from, WTF?
This thread is reminding me how shitty of an experience reading History of the Future turned out to be.
This thread is reminding me how shitty of an experience reading History of the Future turned out to be.
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Palmer runs a defense company that creates software designed to scan for people crossing the border. He is a cartoonishly evil dude and he does not care.
Zuckerberg himself testified before Congress saying Palmer was not fired over a political view. He could have lied or misconstrued things but taken at face value has always made me wonder what shitty thing must have gone down to be cause for leaving/removal that never got out.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10626705/palmerluckey.jpg)
www.theverge.com
Mark Zuckerberg says he didn’t fire Palmer Luckey out of anti-conservative bias
Mark Zuckerberg told Sen. Ted Cruz that Facebook’s hiring and firing decisions weren’t based on politics, including the departure of Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey.
www.theverge.com
On the plus side (unless this has changed) all that thing can do is play SNES games. So he would be dropping a stupid amount of money on a glorified SNES. I get the historical significance of it but currently it's a SNES with a useless disc drive. I mean, without disc software it's more of a historically important but fun curiosity that shouldn't be worth anything even close to $300,000.
This is the only part of your argument that matters. Luckey hasn't proved he can do this and that's the primary concern.
How significant a prototype it is doesn't matter, the fact it's been extensively studied and shown in public as much as it has mitigates any concerns about what could be learned from further study of it (which is nothing). Its importance doesn't mean it has to be stopped from going into a private collection or else some great injustice has occurred. Nothing will be lost apart from years of people taking the same picture of it sitting inside a glass case.
Emulation developers are still going back to the original hardware for accuracy checks decades later for the regular SNES, one of the most popular pieces of hardware that is extensively documented and millions of units available out there. And they likely will have needs to confirm on hardware for a long time. If prototype software is found for the system, which is very possible to exist out there, then the original hardware is vital in that process and who has it can make that process incredibly difficult.
The significance of the artifact absolutely matters. I don't see how you can say otherwise. There being tens of thousands of PS4 prototypes in existence is less important than having this prototype because this one is more significant, more rare, and has a much more profound impact on the industry. You keep saying because people have seen it and documented it, that it's okay for it to disappear. Why is that okay? It's one step away from someone destroying it. Would you be okay with that if someone destroyed it since it's been well documented? Think of how many artifacts that exist out there that have been well documented; are we okay with all of them being stored away in a private collection because of that fact? Your reasoning that it's been well documented making it okay to have it go away is an awful stance to have. It's not just for now but for the future as well.
On that note, he funded Trump with a company called Fiendlord's Keep.
Yes, I'm aware. If this happens, that would suck. However, I argue that it's unlikely more software will be found or made available and that it's not "very possible" (the project didn't get very far, after all), and in the case that any did arise that did require more investigation of the hardware that wasn't too invasive (byuu talks about decapping chips in that article, remember), I think you're being assumptious that 1) a public institution would definitely allow access to the hardware and 2) that a private collector would definitely disallow it. This set of circumstances occurring is at such a vanishingly low chance that it doesn't bother me, sorry.
It disappearing into a private collection is not "one step away from someone destroying it". Of course I wouldn't be okay with someone destroying it, but preservation =/= public access as much as either of us would like that to be the case. It's not "okay", it sucks; it's a sub-optimal outcome and it would of course be better for it to be in a museum or similar, but it doesn't affect our understanding or knowledge of the history of the console itself or the events of the industry surrounding it. If all we had was that old magazine scan from the 90s that ended up being accurate and just confirmation that this prototype existed and nothing else, this would be an untenable situation. But it's not.
This is absolutely not true... Luckey will eventually lose interest and it could end up in better hands.
It got far enough that Nintendo pissed Squaresoft off by canceling it without warning, because Secret of Mana on CD was already larger than any SNES cart, and had to be majorly reworked to fit on a cartridge. And far enough along that there were functional units (such as the one found/on auction), supposedly there were hundreds of production units when the project got canceled.
It can play SNES CD games, if any prototypes are ever discovered. Until then, it can play homebrew SNES CD games, which were created using the BIOS ripped from this device.
Sure it is one step away which isn't to say it's exactly the same level as destroying it. If someone puts it in their private collection and is never to be seen again, then only that one person has access to it and to the rest of the 7 billion people on this planet, they will never see it again. It's impact of disappearing like that is effectively the same as if it was destroyed since now only one person or a handful of people have access to it. The only reason it's not quite as bad is it still exists and there is a possibility it is uncovered once again some day but even if it is, who knows what state it will be in. If not well taken care of, it's also one close to being effectively destroyed. If it never shows up again, it's really not that different from being destroyed to the rest of the world. Such an artifact should not disappear into a private collection and hand waiving that it's fine because we got to take pictures of it and some people got to analyze it is awfully short sighted of the long term preservation and access to such an important artifact in gaming history. We should never be okay with or fine that a significant artifact is allowed to disappear into a private collection just because we have detailed documentation of the artifact.
This^
The proof is in the pudding though. We'll see how he follows up with this when it's all over. I would love to virtually walk up to this console and play it on a virtual CRT all through VR. That's something I want of all old consoles but it would also be a nice way for younger people to actually see this stuff a few decades from now when most old consoles are all in landfills and mancaves.
According to the owner, he rejected an offer over 1 million dollars from a collector in Norway. Time will tell, but I doubt it's getting to that height in this auction.
Okay definitely not the same guy then, lol. But I knew I recognized the name. The Oculus and the donation stories rung the bells. Thanks!
He went on to work for a company that is helping making survielince tech for trumps Border wall.
Just for memes right?
Also got caught attending Trump's rallies with other deplorables. More Memes?
I just noticed that the auction has been dropping and is back to 300k... I guess people are pulling out.