Sony And Nintendo's Failed Partnership Gets Explained By A Cartoon Sean Astin

You know who Sean Astin is, right? You should! He's Rudy from Rudy. He's Samwise from The Lord of the Rings. He's Bob from Stranger Things. He's also — as it turns out — a fan of video games. This actor with the great (but misspelled) first name apparently has a side hobby in which he turns himself into a cartoon and talks about geeky stuff. The very first episode of What You Don't Know, which launched today, covers the failed partnership between Sony and Nintendo on the original "Play Station."

It's quite entertaining, actually.

We have to admit: Mediajuice — the company behind the video's production — did a heck of a job with the animation in this one. The clips weren't half bad, either; anytime you can pay homage to The Fonz, you should do so. More importantly, however, the video provides an accurate breakdown of what went wrong between Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo thought the deal sucked, so it partnered up with Philips instead. A spurned Sony went on to make a console of its own — one that would simply be called "PlayStation." And the two companies have each gone on fairly interesting journeys ever since.

The PlayStation changed the video game landscape as we know it. Today, the PlayStation brand is the strongest it's ever been. Nintendo's partnership with Philips didn't quite pan out (so much so that Nintendo won't even acknowledge the CD-i Legend of Zelda titles). But Nintendo has managed to stay alive thanks to two major hits: the Wii and, now, the Switch.

A prototype of that "Play Station" console — the one that would've joined Sony and Nintendo together in video game matrimony — is set to be auctioned off in February 2020. Today it's just a look at what could have been. It symbolizes a business relationship gone wrong. But it could fetch quite a bit of money because of its role in the stories of both Sony and Nintendo.

Who knows: maybe Sean Astin will buy it.