What If the Nintendo Play Station was actually released?

The original Sony PlayStation, from our timeline

We still would have probably gotten the Sony PlayStation (one word)

As mentioned before (you're paying attention, right?), part of Sony's deal with Nintendo was allowing Sony to release their own branded console that played both cartridge and SNES-CD games. Even if the financial terms of that agreement (the ones that caused the split in the first place) had been changed to the point that Nintendo would be agreeable to them, it's more than likely that this clause would remain.

It's worth considering, however, that if Sony wasn't getting as much revenue from the games on SNES-CD as the original agreement had stated, they wouldn't have had a whole lot of incentive to make their own version of the Nintendo Play Station. However, it would have gotten into the gaming business to begin with, and with more of a head start than they actually did now.

So, not only would Sony be a name associated with gaming by the time they released their own PlayStation, they would have also had the experience in creating gaming hardware, avoiding any mistakes and bugs that occurred in the real timeline.

Essentially, Sony would have been, more or less, a console generation ahead of everyone.

Then again, so would Nintendo...