An extremely rare Nintendo PlayStation prototype (also known as a SNES-CD) has been found in an attic in America.

As reported by Polygon, Dan Diebold found the console – one of only about 200 made – a couple of years ago, but has only now managed to get photos of it online.

The console came into the possession of Dan's father Terry when he worked as a maintenance man at a company called Advanta Corporation, whose president was former Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Olaf Olafsson.

When Advanta went bankrupt, Terry Diebold was ordered to throw a pile of stuff out, and that’s where he found the console.

"He kept a bunch of stuff from there," Dan Diebold said. "My dad has tons of old systems and shit. He keeps everything."

The system is missing its power cord, but Diebold does have an unmarked cartridge and an unmarked CD to try out once he gets it up and running.

The Nintendo PlayStation was developed by Sony and Nintendo and unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in 1991. It was to be compatible with SNES games as well as well as titles released for the SNES-CD format.

However, at that same event Nintendo announced that it was working with Dutch rival Philips instead, and the partnership was over.

While the Nintendo/Philips partnership ultimately failed to produce any hardware, Sony used its prototype tech to develop the first PlayStation console.