The original PlayStation almost became a plug and play console in Brazil!

Sony clearly had an idea long before the PlayStation Classic on how to squeeze a bit more life out of the original PlayStation, but that idea looked more like something you would expect on a shelf of strange plug-and-play consoles than from an official Sony workshop. According to a story shared by industry veteran Brian “Biscuit” Watson, Sony was working on a device called PlayStation PUGA, a sort of DualShock controller with built-in PlayStation 1c hardware, battery power, composite video cable, and a memory card slot. The device was reportedly intended for the Brazilian market, where import restrictions made normal availability of consoles difficult, so local production of such a plug-and-play solution made a lot of sense.

The best part of the story, of course, is not just that the PlayStation 1 ended up in the controller, but the reason why the project never came to fruition. According to Watson, the problem was the licensing fees for games, and not just with third parties, but even within Sony itself. In other words, Sony had to negotiate with Sony, and even there, things couldn't be agreed upon. The prototype reportedly worked very well, had about ten games on a 4 GB card, used four AA batteries, and could last up to 20 hours of operation. In the end, it remained just another piece of lost PlayStation history, a reminder of a time when even big companies were willing to experiment with ideas that today sound almost too fun to be real.