Rarest revisions of common consoles.

What would be the rarest revisions of common consoles?
I don't mean limited editions like a Final Fantasy themed PS3 or a Resident Evil Xbox 360.
I mean hardware revisions, something like an RGB compatible N64 or a very early SCPH 1000x PS2.
So please, share your knowledge.

 

The later SCPH-90001 versions of the slim ps2 use a standard figure 8 power connector instead of an external power brick. They're not terribly rare, but they're less common and conveniently dont need a special power supply.

 

Perhaps one of the Famicom revisions, like the Titler, Twin, or the one built into a TV?

 

In Japan, there were versions of the Saturn made by JVC and Hitachi. Both versions had different start up screens and the Hitachi version had a MPEG1 decoding card built in.The rarest is the Hitachi Game & Car Navi Saturn. Even rarer is the version with LCD screen. Only 2000 units were made and half them was the LCD screen version. Yesterday, a boxed none LCD version was sold for close to US$3000 on Ebay.

Another of console made by 3rd party, was a Gamecube made by Panasonic that play regular size DVD, the Panasonic Q.

The PC Engine, aka Turbographx-16, had UFO shaped Shuttle version. There was another PC Engine with LCD screen, not the TurboExpress. But the laptop version, PC Engine LT.

The Dreamcast had a version that was built into 1st gen iMac looking TV.

The rare NeoGeo CD versions, at least outside of Japan, is the front loader(actually 1st version of the console made) and the CDZ(with bigger memory cache, so somewhat less waiting time).

 

Those diver version Dreamcasts are very cool looking, but I wonder how many have actually been used.

 

Sega Master System revision halfway between SMS and SMS II, sold only in the Soviet Union just before it collapsed. The serial number suggests that at least 1000 were produced, but only one has been discovered so far.

 

That reminds me that the Soviet Union had a large selection of cloned game&watches.
These are not that that rare and can be had starting from 20 EUR.

 

Yes, lots of clone systems in the Soviet Union. One of the more interesting is a consolised clone of the ZX Spectum called "The Hobbit". What's interesting about this weird SMS version is that it seems to be an official console, perhaps the first console to get an official release in that region.

 

I forgot the first console to combine MegaDrive(Genesis) and MegaCD(SegaCD) was the Wondermega, sold under both JVC and Sega brand in Japan only. The 2nd reversion of the Wondermega, minus the wireless controllers and S-Video output, was sold in the US as the JVC X'Eye. I still remember get a brand new JVC X'Eeye when my local electronic store was selling them at US$99.

 

Last year a shop in my country was closing down and they had a ton of brand new Xbox systems.
They were brand new Crystal 1.6 systems for 49 EUR. If it wasn't a 1.6, I would have bought one.
Do you still have the JVC X'Eeye ?

 

No. I thought I had left it at my parent house. When I went through my storage boxes in the garage of my parent house, I couldn't find it. Then I realize that I had left it at the company I used to work for. Anyway, I miss it so much that I bought a broken JVC X'Eye on Ebay and I fixed it by replacing the cover lid switch.

 

How about the Super Famicom built into a Sharp TV? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Famicom_Naizou_TV_SF1

Panasonic Q? not massively rare, wouldn't turn one down though!

Or the Sony Bravia KDL-22PX300? LCD Tv with build in ps2!

 

Not all crystal XBOXes are 1.6, It'd be great if people would stop spreading that rumour..

 

I've always thought the Aiwa CSD GM1 was one of the rarest Sega Genesis/CD combos. It's certainly one of the more unusual versions of the Sega Genesis consoles.

 

Yeah, the Aiwa Mega-CD is pretty darn uncommon, I only see them pop up a couple of times a year in Japan even. For as few as there are it makes me think there is a shipping container somewhere filled with them that was never sold. Or at least I can dream

 

I've never even seen an Aiwa Mega CD in the box. It sure would be nice if a shipping container or warehouse full of them were discovered in the near future. On a similar subject, the Laseractive system isn't nearly as rare, but its still an uncommon variant of the Sega and NEC hardware. Lastly, I think the FM Towns Car Marty is fairly rare.

 

In Japan, Sega had released the TeraDrive that was 386 PC integrated with a Mega Drive. Then later in Europe, Amstrad also released the Mega PC(386) and Mega Plus(486).

 

The earliest PlayStation 2 consoles were the SCPH-10000, SCPH-15000 and SCPH-18000, which were released in only Japan (Hence the last 2 digits are always zero for these models). There were several minor variations to each model, some which were obviously made for SCE to exhaust their stock of old console parts:
SCPH-10000, GH-001, ROM 1.00
SCPH-10000, GH-001, ROM 1.01
SCPH-15000, GH-003, ROM 1.01
SCPH-18000, GH-003, ROM 1.20
SCPH-18000, GH-008, ROM 1.20

All of them had the CXD9566R SSBUSC, which gives them a PC CARD slot. Other than the GH-008, the earlier mainboards have the CXD9542 EE that has a number of bugs.
It's worth nothing that while the SCPH-18000 has a modern boot ROM (similar to the SCPH-30000), its boot ROM is incapable of supporting its CXD9566R SSBUSC and so it still needed a system driver update to support a HDD unit.

Some of the SCPH-18000 units were made by SOLECTRON, which didn't seem to have manufactured any other PlayStation 2 console model.

Sometime ago, I got a SCPH-15000. Traditionally, these Protokernel sets (SCPH-10000 and SCPH-15000) do not have warranty seals but mine has one. Other than a release for banning the buggy DVD Player v1.00, I think that SCE was clearing their stock of the old boot ROM chip with the SCPH-15000 because its MECHACON (CXD102064, v1.8) can already support the KHS-400B/C and has support for some of the newer S-commands like READ MODEL (Although it will return a blank because the model name field in the EEPROM is blank). Based on the release dates, the SCPH-15000 probably had the shortest lifespan.

 

What about the slim PS2's ? From what I can tell, they are all more or less common.
Oh and thanks for the info.

 

SCE was known to make revisions, without making new releases of them as a whole new model. For example, we have the "v12" and "v13" versions SCPH-70000 series consoles. I don't know their official mainboard numbers are, but the fact is that there were changes to its mainboard by SCE to solve the problem with its MECHACON crashing.

The SCPH-90000 series was another one with at least two revisions. Sure it was common... but the units produced earlier had ROM v2.20 instead of v2.30. The latter had support for updates removed.

There is also the SCPH-37000, which I don't think was ever released anywhere else other than in Japan. But don't quote me on this because I didn't dig very much into this.

For mainland China, they appear to have gotten only one console release: SCPH-50009. It has ROM v1.90 (As with late SCPH-50000 series consoles), with a special region created for it; NTSC-C for China, so its system executable and data folders are BCEXEC-SYSTEM and BCDATA-SYSTEM.

Of course, there was the PX300, which had boot ROM v2.50 (The late SCPH-90000 series had v2.30) and wasn't sold worldwide. Okay, that's not really a PlayStation 2 console, like the PSX (DVR unit) is.