PSOne Gold a History
The PSOne is the second release of the Playstation 1 (PSX) model. A smaller footprint in size than the PSX, the original PSOne gray was painted gold for this VIP E3 invitation.
There are a few variations of the PSX/PSOne colors. Gold is the rarest and most sought after!
Developer: Sony Computer Entertainment
Manufacturer: Sony
Product family: PlayStation
Type: Home video game console
Generation: Fifth generation
Lifespan: July 2000 — 23 March 2006*
Units sold: 28.15 million
Controller input: DualShock
In a cool act of video game history circa 2013, E3 decided to send out a VIP invite in the form of a gold PSOne.
Notch, the creator of Minecraft received a Gold PSOne in 2013 for the E3 event.
Quick Facts
Release: Unlicensed
Region code: NTSC-U/C
Rarity: It is estimated that between 1 and 50 of this variation were made and only 4 owners* are shown according to Console Variation’s website. *(4.1.2022)
Releases: United States
Additional Info: (Not made of actual gold.) This is a gold PSOne, Given to the V.I.P people of companies such as Microsoft, Ubisoft to Invite them to the E3
Accessories: Unknown at this time (Power cord, controller, AV RCA cable)
A paper disc was inside saying “you are invited at E3”
That’s all well and good but what about the inside of the device? Here is one record of someone that has opened one previously and the pictures that were taken. Please note the special board marked OK on the inside photos.
Flash forward to 2022
Recently one of these units has been acquired and verified as one of the original 50 units.
After opening the device to validate its authenticity there were a few noticeable things that stood out.
- The board marked with a QC mark holds the audio of the original PSX boot sequence.
- The original design was wired from the daughterboard to the back hinge with a small button switch to play the sound when you open the lid. This was apparently cut and reworked to use a flat switch that is off when the case is open, but closed when the device shell is put back together and the 6 screws have been tightened down.
- The gold color was painted on with some light overspray on the inside of the shell, but there isn’t any paint present on the electronics. This indicates these were handmade and the additional boot audio daughtercard were also installed by an electronics engineer.
- Power for the audio daughterboard is wired (white/gray) to the main PCB near the back 7.5v power plug.
Detailed pictures
After reviewing the original PSOne field service manual it’s apparent that the audio board made to play the PSX boot was added after the fact.
PSOne FSM: http://www.psxdev.net/downloads/SCPH-100_5th-Edition.pdf
Audio Board Review
The audio board is not working and playing audio on this unit. After further review, there are 3- LR1130 button batteries on the daughterboard that need to be replaced. They are the originals from 2013 and are bulging/dead.
We are replacing these tomorrow and will update everyone with the status and hopefully a video with the sound!
Testing results: It’s working like new!
Further testing of the motherboard traces also indicates that these weren’t made to play games and were only for the E3 event. We wonder if Sony made these from dead units and designed them only to play the audio.
The daughterboard audio card does indeed use the 3- LR1130 batteries and is not wired to external power. The 2 wires that lead back near the power supply are connected to the main power/reset button on the top left of the PSOne.
Thanks for reading and please add any questions you may have about the PSOne Gold.
Update 6/28/2022
This PSOne in the article is up for bidding at Heritage Auctions. Please take a look.
https://comics.ha.com/itm/video-games/gold-sony-psone-console-e3-2013-vip-promo-/p/7288-173001.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515
