Editorial: Gaming / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube / Instagram / News / Discord /Telegram / Google News The history of video games is rich in canceled projects and even some that fell short of becoming a reality. In some cases, even more extreme, the testimony of what happened seems lost forever but the coincidences are responsible for joining paths and this has allowed that 3 decades later the portable console that a company developed unaware of Nintendo’s plans with the Game Boy.
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Rare’s Playboy: the console that succumbed to Nintendo’s Game Boy

An investigation by Time Extension shared details and images of Playboy, a portable console that Rare developed in 1989. Yes, the name is controversial because it is the same as the American erotic publication, but at the end of the 80s that was the plan of the British company. The console, apparently a unique piece, was located in the Retro Computer Museum in Leicester, England, and is owned by Pete Cox, a Rare worker, who lent it for exhibition allowing a historical record.

I have no idea where you got this from but yes, this is the thing we built in 1989 to show to Nintendo, except that they announced the GameBoy at the exact time we did this. I wrote the demo code. It was based on our RAZZ board arcade hardware. @DamienMcFerran— Paul Machacek (@Paul_Mach1) August 31, 2022

The post caught the attention of Paul Machacek, who revealed that he was part of the project and handled the demo code. According to the information, this portable hardware was based on the RAZZ board developed by Rare and had a Japanese color LCD screen that one of the members had adapted from a portable TV. Basically, it was a prototype model but with a notable advance and possibilities for the future, since the brutal consumption of batteries still had to be addressed. The Playboy would be shown at a technology event in 1989 looking for a company to give its support guaranteeing the development of the project with a view to a commercial launch. In that same place was Nintendo, a company on the rise and Rare thought it would be a good idea to present the console pending a favorable response. Unfortunately, the Japanese company surprised everyone with the revelation of the Game Boy and, according to the official version, it is said that Tim Stamper, director of Rare, sadly returned to the place where the team was to tell them that Nintendo had presented its portable console. and had practically stolen the event. Still here at WTTSpod.
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