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[Rich!]

Was looking around online, and came across some information about the Super Famicom from two years before the Japanese release. Lots of really interesting stuff, including an AV Input for backwards compatibility (lol, xbone) and other removed functionality such as a headphone socket. Hopefully posting the scans here is alright (the magazines are twenty years old!). I'll remove them if requested.

Headphone jack, composite input and Famicom compatibility. As noted on this website,

"The SFC is completely incompatible with the Famicom!!"
The page explains how the SFC has no backwards-compatibility with the old Famicom. The SFC will, however, have an A/V input on the back which will accept the A/V signals of the "Famicom Adaptor", the redesigned Famicom with A/V outputs.

Hmmm, that sounds familiar. Sort of like an upcoming microsoft console! You can see the phono inputs on the back of the prototype in these shots. Apparently, there was nothing stopping you plugging other video devices into it. Hell, you could even plug in a cable or satellite box if needed.

The controller had thinner shoulder buttons, fully concave buttons and a different naming scheme for them.

Some higher quality shots of the console as well as Dragonfly - the Pilotwings prototype.

There's far more on the webpage - http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/SFC_1988Q4.html

It's interesting anyhow. Very cool to see features that Nintendo came up with two decades ago are still being introduced to consoles even today.

 

[Gazunta]

Cool find, thanks for posting it.

That would have been a nice looking console

Spoiler

instead of the perfect looking one we ended up with

 

[Rich!]

Cool find, thanks for posting it.

That would have been a nice looking console

Spoiler

instead of the perfect looking one we ended up with

It really does look more of a toy than the eventual SFC design. Very 80's too. The final SFC looks great even today. This..wouldn't have so much.

 

[Deft Beck]

Fascinating! Always cool to see prototype consoles.

 

[kasane]

Those screenies looks sharp.

 

[PaulExcellent]

Oh, now that just sounds nice.
I do like the final design we got, though...

 

[Rich!]

Some more images from a year later (1989). The final design of the console is coming together:

The AV input at the back is gone. Looks the same as it did at launch there, but...

...the headphone jack is still present. Makes it seem like a last minute removal. Wonder why it was removed? Was there a mega-drive revision available that had no speaker jack already on the market, or was that after the SFC launch? And holy shit at that cable length for the controller - were they expecting people to be playing it from five miles away? (I wish my Super Famicom Controllers had longer cables....)

I'm guessing that EXT is the same as what ended up on the bottom of the console (satellaview). Has a nice sliding door there on the front!

 

[Yes Boss!]

Somehow I vaguely remember seeing some of this previously.

In any case...thanks for sharing. Fascinating stuff that it still looks very famicom-ish. Nothing beats the final design we received, though. Pretty much the perfect looking videogame system, the Super Famicom.

 

[Mellahan]

I have scans of the redesigned Famicom somewhere. Nice closeups of the form factor. Will look later.