Hello everyone, Today I scored some PlayStation controllers that I sure as hell can't find any information about. They sure don't look like anything I have ever seen - even a pad marked as a "prototype" that you can see pretty much looks like a regular DualShock 3... So far I have been told by a few people that they are either some sort of prototype PS3 controllers or controllers shipped with early devkits - but no concrete evidence on that. For a short while I have entertained the idea of the pads being from a PS2 or PS3 display kiosk... but so far every kiosk I have seen uses regular controllers. I bought 6 (six) controllers in total, all of which you can see in the pictures below. As you can see the first thing that stands out is the top of the controller. The edge has been lengthened almost in line with the regular protrusion where the triggers are. The texture of the plastic is that of a PS2 controller - so is the basic shape and the triggers. The surface even has that "glitter" that a regular PS2 pad has when you shine light on it. Each DualShock has a sticker on the back that says: "This device has not been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. This device is not and may not be, offered for sale or lease or sold or leased, until authorization is obtained. --------- This device is being imported for testing (evaluation) or suitability for marketing only and not for sale. 3-202-737-01" Five of the controllers have a piece of the motherboard protruding from the top which includes LED indicators, what appears to be an optic fiber (?) connector and a mini-USB plug. On the side there is a 14-pin connector that was originally covered by something similar to black electric tape. The tape is missing on two controllers. One of the controllers has only a mini-USB connector with another one hidden below behind tape. An optical connector is also there, although it is recessed into the inside of the case. A later revision, perhaps closer to an actual DS3...? Now to peer inside a little. Quick note: the tape that covers the 14-pin plug gets in the way of opening the controller, so not wanting to rip it off, I only took apart the ones where the tape is missing or part of it is unglued anyway. Here is how the 5 controllers (with the protruding piece of board, LED's, optic and mini-USB plugs) look like when the back cover is removed. They all look the same inside, only the series number changes on the battery. The sticker reads: "Sample Ｃｅｌｌ Ｔｙｐｅ：US323450A7T Ｒｅｌｅａｓｅ ：2006/3/2 Ｎｏ． ：0018" I wasn't able to peer deeper inside this controller, because the battery is glued to the board and the last screw is right under it. ...fortunately one of the pads came with a missing battery, so I was able to snap some more pictures and take apart the rest. Guess the missing battery lowers the collectors value but oh well... Perhaps worth noting is that the pad you see in the above pictures is marked MSU REV5.1 ALPS and has a Toshiba (Japan) chip on it, marked T6UM2EFG-0101. One of the controllers that I could open the back of, but couldn't totally get inside because of the battery getting in the way definitely had a Sony chip on the board, but I wasn't able to snap good pictures of that because the front of the case was getting in the way. Here is the sixth controller that doesn't have the board protruding out, instead a mini-USB flush with the casing with a second one under it masked with tape. This one has a totally weird silver casing with I assume is the battery and comes with two boards sandwiched together instead of one. That's all for now. In case anybody needs more pictures I will be happy to assist, the controllers are in my possession. Please let me know everything you might know about them. After a few hours of searching, the only mention of such controllers that I found on the Internet is here on ASSEMbler forums: http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/another-prototype-of-playstation-3-controller.42408/ In the thread it is said that: Well, these have what looks to be an optical input (??) AND mini-USB... The guy I bought them from has eight (!!!!) more, but first I'm scoping out information on what this is, exactly. Will look into checking their value in the future but please keep in mind that this is not a sales or a price check thread and the controllers are absolutely not for sale at the moment. I don't have a PS3 at the moment to test if they work, but I was told that an update to Sony's firmware some time ago disables the use of test/proto/dev controllers on official hardware. Who knows? They look nice on the inside. Cheers!
They're some of the oldest PS3 controller prototypes, but there are many of them I have NOT seen the 14 pin cutout however so that is a nice addition. Borman's video shows it off fairly well. These controllers are more plentiful but are still nice collectors pieces. Now if we could just find a second sample that i found...
Thanks for the replies! Man, I swear I spent a couple of hours on Google yesterday and all I could come up with is that old ASSEMbler thread and pictures of the PS3 boomerang controller and a later prototype that looks exactly like a regular production DualShock 3. Thanks for the video! Guess I wasn't looking hard enough, but then again I was busy opening each controller to see what's what... I wonder how come I couldn't dig up any more information on them... no teardowns, good pictures, etc... that's why I tried my best to describe them in my first post. Do you guys have any idea as to which dev kit these came with? Is that really an optical connector in the controllers? What was it used for? What about the 14pin thing? Programming, perhaps? What do you mean by second sample? Cheers!
Early PS3 developers got them as well as sony engineers. They were used in place of a Sixaxis before it was finished just to get the development going for the most part and refine as they went. USB, Pins, and that other port are all used for power/communication/debugging. Some even had 2 mini USB ports. There's a firmware that they work up to but past said firmware they no longer work. They came with DECR1000A systems. Some later revisions likely didn't get these but they were quite plentiful. Second sample - theres a controller I had (now owned by Jackhead) that so far only 1 has been seen/found. It was a very strange engineering sample. Was from a time when they were still making the Sixaxis sensor for the controller. Theres lots of variants for the ones you have, but there haven't been any more of the one I had which is surprising to me. You can look in this thread if you're interested. http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/ps3-beta-2-controller.60082/
Thank you very much for all that information. I've seen some pictures of PS3 dev kits in my search, but they all looked like they had a regular DualShock 3 (which I guess is the Beta 3 version?). None with the controllers I got. So the ones I have are Beta 1 controllers, which in turn came in many variants: - LEDs and optic sticking out, one mini-USB plug (I have five of those) - two mini-USB plugs (I have one) - others, with just the optic connector...?
As Borman added they may have been shipped with pre-DECR hardware. In this case it'd be DEH or CEB model ps3s (of which i dont think we've had any leave Sony's grasp except for a few QA flagged ones for DEH). These controllers are hard to place but the ones with the pins are for sure older than the ones without.
great pictures, many thnaks! I I need one with pins for my collection... Anyway, you can test the controller with a retail one and a adapter like a cronus max v3. I use all my prototype controller on retail units PS3/PS4.
I don't have a Cronus, unfortunately... I have tried plugging the controllers via mini-USB to a regular Slim PlayStation 3 and all I got was the occasional blink of an LED from the controller during system startup, besides that they don't work because of the firmware. They look clean inside though.
