A game collector by the name of Anthony Bacon has believed that he's found evidence to a long-standing rumor: the existence of a canceled SNK developed console.
Anthony Bacon is a collector from Chicago who runs a YouTube channel called Video Game Esoterica. The channel's content ranges from rare video game hardware to reviews of video games running on different console versions. For example, Bacon covered an unreleased prototype copy of a Samurai Showdown game, one of SNK's flagship franchises. In a video that was uploaded to his channel, a piece of hardware was brought to his attention, believing it to be linked to a canceled console that was in development by SNK.
This started when a friend of Bacon bought a series of SNK branded motherboards off of Yahoo Auctions, where he was then asked to investigate the properties of these boards. In Bacon's video documenting his findings, he believes the motherboard belongs to the company's "SNK Millennium." This was a console that was meant to be a successor to the Hyper Neo Geo 64, which had signaled SNK's foray into 3D gaming before being shelved 2 years after its release due to little support.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Bacon explained some of the details that were behind this motherboard. He explains that the board itself matches the branding and timeframe of the rumored console. The board however contains nothing other than the ability to get power. No game development kits or games are present on there, much to the dismay of Bacon. "You could probably get a Hello World message running on it if you spent six months trying to figure it out, but I think it's more of a very ornate showpiece that shows a little bit of SNK's history that just kind of went missing and is not really well known about now," Bacon said.
The rumors of the "SNK Millennium" had first shown up around 1999, as a competitor in the console market. Nothing did come from those rumors. The last Neo Geo console released was the Neo Geo Pocket Color, right before the company was sold to Playmore in 2001. This motherboard however is evidence that suggests that the console was in development before it was canceled.
The board has since been sent back to the original owner, with Bacon currently sifting through the BIOS file to decompile the coding. While SNK is currently focused on its current roster of games, like the upcoming King of Fighters 15, the possible existence of a lost piece of SNK history being found is still incredible.
Source: Eurogamer