• 7 Gaming Systems that Were Epic Failures

[Distinct]

I guess he forgot about the SEGA Saturn, that system was also a major flop. It did have a few fantastic games on it: Panzer Dragoon, House of the Dead, SF Alpha 3, Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter, Shining Force III, Burning Rangers & NiGHTS. Oh.. and it also had 32 megabits of storage inside of it!

For those of you that think the Dreamcast should be on the list, are absolutely crazy. The Dreamcast is by far the most underrated system of all time. Not only did it have a huge list of unique 1st and 3rd party games, it jump started the CONSOLE(not PC) online gaming culture.

 

[joseph85]

[citation][nom]theangrygimp[/nom]How sad that you don't even know how popular it had gotten. Sega headquarters in japan set an insane minimum number of units to sell or they were closing the system making shops worldwide, and it still almost sold enough to pass the mark in the U.S.. It didn't go over as well in japan, but still, it was far from a failure considering the number of units and games sold in that brief amount of time. It also had some great ideas and some great (and terrible) games that were quite good looking for its time. Plus 4 player ability right out of the box was another great idea, along with built in lan card. The amount of people STILL playing some dreamcast games (like SF3:3rd Strike) that never got reasonable ports to any other game system yet, should show how beloved it was for the time. Its r. What I would give for a decent port of SF3:3rd/echo/sonic/SanFranRush2049/MvsC2 on my PC.... I had so much fun playing with my buddies in those games.[/citation]
SFIII already has a better port on the PS2. I agree with everything you said until you got to the bit about "GD rom's were also using what was probably one of the better copyright systems to be used so far". That's untrue as the games were easily copied with the right hardware.

 

[Guest]

NeoGeo was the console champ when it was out..... 32x should be #1.....

 

[waffle911]

Apple Pippin. From Wikipedia:

Bandai manufactured fewer than 100,000 Pippins (reported sales were 42,000) before discontinuing the system; production was so limited that there were more keyboard and modem accessories produced than actual systems.

Other stats:
80 games released in Japan
18 games in U.S. plus 6 discs that came with the unit
Most games could also be played on older versions of Mac OS (System 7 mostly, with some titles working on OS 8 and even a few on OS9)
Guess what the controller connector was called. Applejack. The controller had a trackball right in the middle, in addition to s;lightly more traditional button and d-pad controls.
Optional modems ranged from 14.4~33.6 Kb/s.
Logo was unmistakably 1990's Apple-esque: using the same 6 colors (and in the same order) as on the old Apple logo; each of the 6 letters was a different color, the letters were in extra-bold Helvetica font.

Contrary to popular belief (in the 90's), you could in fact say "Apple" and "Games" in the same sentence. Of course, that sentence would go something like this:
Apple and Games are like the north poles of two magnets; they are forever doomed to repel one another.

 

[nonameno12]

I loves my ngage.
Loves my ngage!

Seriously, if the bloody thing hadnt broken its screen I'd still been using it. Smartphone, media player, way to strike up a conversation - it had it all!

 

[resonance451]

Terrible article with an insulting nature that's not clever at all. If you guys want to be witty, start with being somewhat factual and at least CLEARLY separating your opinion columns from your news feed. An asterisk and qualification at the bottom of your "article" isn't enough.

Quite seriously, you need to fix a lot of things, THG.

 

[mpasternak]

Just co backtrack

I dont think any of the current generation consoles can be considered failures. They all have some fault or issue, However Failures? Not.

Last counts.
Xbox 360 has sold 28 Million units with 661 available titles. (108 exclusive)
PS3 has sold about 22.73 Million units with 457 available titles (101 exclsuive)

 

[captaincharisma]

@mpasternak

if they were going to pick a failure for this generation it would be a flip of the coin. xbox has its insane hardware failures and PS3 has it high price.

 

[Guest]

The controls looked so bad that I was afraid that I might arthritis after just a few minutes of playing the N-Gage.

Bad flame. You should have tried it before accusing with such disgust. N-Gage is a solid platform it just lack the support from game maker and hardware(it doubles as a phone make it hard choice as people already have phone and buying just for the game. shud have more choices of phones like today) N-Gage is a very good phone despite the lack of camera. No problems on the keypad just comfortable. Although the QD version is bad as it has its radio removed and cheap and uncomfortable keypad. Overall, N-Gage is a really nice memory, still plausible and I like

 

[anhxeom]

One other machine that many never knew even existed.......

Search Google for the Pioneer LaserActive.

It was a Sega Genesis, a TurboGrafx 16, a PC, and a karaoke machine all in one! It was crazy expensive!

 

[Guest]

Turbografx units sold - 10 million
Game Gear units sold - 11 million

This is a really poorly researched article. Being 3rd place is not epic fail, some of these systems still made a pretty good run they just weren't on top. Others weren't even intended to be mainstream like the Neo Geo, they weren't aspiring to 50% potential market penetration. The Sega CD is somewhat debateable, it was an expensive add-on when few others were buying CD's, whereas the 32x was a much dumber move.

"Epic Fail" would be something more like the Mattell Hyperscan or the Philips CD-i. Even the 3DO is more deserving of being on this list since it set its sights and arrogance so high and so few bought it compared to the hype. This ARTICLE is epic fail.

 

[yodoso]

Game gear shouldn't be on this list. Just as people before me said, it lasted for years. Also, even to this day, 10 million units sold is considered pretty good. This system was definitely not a failure, grab some recharagle batteries and you're cool.

 

[Guest]

This from Wikipedia. "the Neo Geo's fourteen-year official span of support from its manufacturer makes it the second longest-lived arcade or home console system ever produced. Only the Atari 2600, which was supported from 1977 until 1992, had a longer lifespan." I would hardly call that a failure. Did you actually do any research before posting this crap?

 

[kuri]

The line, [• This story, marked with a • is weekend entertainment content only and should not to be considered factual ]
should not excuse a complete lack of research.
On the Turbografx, "Fighting Street" was not some rip-off but an official adaptation; in fact it's the only console version of the first game in the now legendary Street Fighter series, where Ken, Ryu and Sagatt make their first ever appearance.
Definitely worth checking out, though not for the reason you mention.

 

[Guest]

Very poorly researched article. There're plenty of classic original titles on both the PC Engine and the Mega CD. Half an hour of digging around online would have revealed this.

 

[hillarymakesmecry]

Sega CD - It was hard to use - The 32x-sega CD games were too complicated
3DO- Road Rash was great, I liked the system
Game GEAR - It was alright until someone at church stole it. I had a huge battery pack that attached to the bottom.
Atari Jaguar - I ended up trading a guy this for a Genesis. I couldn't find games for it and the games were too expensive. AFter a while it seemed like the games were all over bargain bins and I wished I still had the system. It had two 32 bit processors (which made it superior to every other system on the market)

 

[rubix_1011]

Who wrote this article? It sounded like a 13 year old wrote it for a project for english class. "I don't like it 'cuz it sucked, and it wasn't good'.

That's pretty much what how it came across, without any reference to sales numbers, broken/returned items, other hardware or technical reasons the above listed items were failures.

Heaven forbit that a tech-review site would actually have review of the tech instead of the opinion column of the local Jr. High School's essay winner, 'Things in life I was disappointed in'.

 

[Guest]

I had and loved both the Jaguar and the Dreamcast. I also had the Saturn. I played the Jaguar and Dreamcast a hell of a lot more than the Saturn. The Saturn had NO games for it at all!

The Dreamcast was such a versatile system that could do so much. It was small and cheap as well. The Jaguar had some cult classic games on it that were hella addicting.

You can't knock these systems for being the first of the generation. Sure, the N64 and PSX were going to be better than the Jaguar. They came out almost 2 years after it! Same goes for the Dreamcast, the Xbox and PS2 both came after it, when DVD technology was cheaper and more readily available.

 

[bill gates is your daddy]

[citation][nom]zaxonr34[/nom]What about Playstation 3? Is it really a gaming system or just a another blue-ray player? Most of the people I know who bought one only use the blue-ray capability. I'd like to see a survey of PS3 users who actually play games on it. I believe PS3 should be added to the list.[/citation]

I would have to agree. I think if you actually sat down and figured all the numbers up I have to believe that the PS3 would fall into the same category.

 

[deathblooms2k1]

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom][citation][nom]umm wrong , with the release of teh Jasper main baord , the overheating is a thing of the past , not to mention teh ahrdware ing eneral is greatpwoer wise , also the fact that world wide 360 is in the nubmer 2 spot for sales any one that calls this afail is a moron, sure overheating issues are bad , but when you talk about epic fails , the heart of the issue is these question : Are people buying it ?? are teh game awsome on it for the time period ?? and the answers are YES and YES, when it comes to the 360[/citation]umm. how would a fanboy know? the jasper systems haven't been out long enough but i am sure they will get the E74 errors. people! be smart and spend the extra money and get a PS3 instead of buying the cheap xbox 360 and having it replaced every few months especially sense they give you a refurb system back. the neogeo had tons of good games like the crashbox but the price of the system and games is why it was considered a failiure and the bad hardware is why the 360 will always be known as a failure the dreamcast should definetly be on the list cause like most failed systems it has a cult following. heck the 3do was probobly on the market longer than the dreamcasti don't know why they have sega cd on the list because that was more of an add-on then a whole system just like the 32x. and lets not forget the sucessor to the TG16 which was the NEC TurboDuo[/citation]

Well you took a swing at the 360 and the dreamcast what about the regular xbox. Lets not forget sony's other competition... themselves PS2 vs. PS3.

 

[hillarymakesmecry]

I've had a 360 for 2.5 years and never once had an RROD. I never stand it upright and I keep it out in the open. If you stand it up in a box it's guaranteed to burn up.

 

[jrnyfan]

The TurboGrafix wasn't that bad, Bonk was an ok game but IMO the Virtual Boy was awesome, I wish I had bought one instead of just renting it from the local video store.

 

[Guest]

Wow, now THAT is indeed some cool stuff!

RT
www.anoweb.alturl.com

 

[Guest]

This is, by far, one of the most amateur articles I've ever read on tomshardware. I realized this when he lumped "Fighting Street" in with what he refers to as "rip-off" titles. Fighting Street was the first Street Fighter game ever released for a home console, not a rip-off. It was renamed for reasons unknown to me.

Do some research, homie.

 

[Guest]

Proofread much? Ever?

And why not add the Bandai, 3DO and the Philips CD-i and make it a Top 10?

The Neo Geo was the best system no one every owned.