• 7 Gaming Systems that Were Epic Failures

[Guest]

Here we have seven gaming consoles that we think were the all time epic failures of consoles.

• 7 Gaming Systems that Were Epic Failures : Read more

 

[JeanLuc]

The Neo Geo is cult classic how can you include that and not a system like the 32X or the Atari 5200!

Saying that I agree with pretty everything else on the list, the Virtual Boy....................what pills were they taking.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

I disagree with the game gear's placement on the list. It lasted for years and was far better than the game boy. Yes it was big and yes you had to buy rechargeable batteries but it had some great games and great graphics for the day. I just wish they'd released the mega gear properly.

 

[cliffro]

Hmm, its not as big of a failure, but the Sega Master System seemed to not sell well in the states, and I only had 1 friend that had one, and honestly I had never heard of it till I saw it at his house, The TG16 and Neo Geo, however I knew of and lusted after.....alas I grew up poor, my first and only console was the Playstation.....

 

[hemelskonijn]

This list seems to be a personal list since epic fail's like the 32x and the 3DO are missing.
Also the atari jaguar was a great system and the most advanced in its time but it had flaws we also found in the saturn and some other consoles.
The Jaguar ran a multi chip setup so if you wanted to get the best out of it you had to program for each chip in stead of porting games to one of them.

To call the NeoGeo an epic fail is a lot like saying "i am a moron".
It seems like you wanted to make a list of epic fails but chose to only use systems every reader on tom's knows or worse you never even heard of machines other then these.

 

[bpogdowz]

only stupid because you tried to over clock it

 

[Zoonie]

"By Bestofmedia Team" LOL! I guess noone wanted to take credit for putting NeoGeo in the list. You guys are gonna get alot of **** for that

 

[avericia]

How did you guys miss the Sega Dreamcast?

It came out in 1998 and was discontinued in 2001 and I doubt anyone here bought one

 

[afrobacon]

[citation][nom]avericia[/nom]How did you guys miss the Sega Dreamcast?It came out in 1998 and was discontinued in 2001 and I doubt anyone here bought one[/citation]
Much like the PS3 the Dreamcast outperformed the competition, but the lack of games and price tag left much to be desired.
...Also, I remember there being talk that the first group of consoles sold could play games from other systems; not sure how much truth there is to this.

 

[industrial_zman]

[citation][nom]avericia[/nom]How did you guys miss the Sega Dreamcast?It came out in 1998 and was discontinued in 2001 and I doubt anyone here bought one[/citation]

If I'm not mistaken the Dreamcast came out in 1999, remember the release date was 9-9-99. It was a head of the game by the first console to include internet access and options like a motion activated fishing rod (precursor to wii's motion sensors today) mouse and keyboard. but sadly the choice of using Giga-Disc over DVD media was it's downfall. Yes, I owned a Dreamcast. After it's retirement, I turned it into a Linux box.

I also owned an N-Gage QD; a great phone, horrible game platform.

I am going to cry foul here. The Sega CD was not an independent platform. how can it compete in the console wars? it required you to have a Genesis first. By this logic the 32x and Super Gameboy should be lumped into the same category.

I'm surprised to not see Sega VR on the list. it was the whole reason why Nintendo rushed the Virtual Boy on to the market only in a monochromatic screens. After the epic Virtual Boy failure, Sega decides not to launch the VR.

I have to agree with Spanky Deluxe on that point, the Game Gear should not be on the list. if you wanted another portable device pick the Atari Lynx. battery life so horrible that I always had to leave it plugged in while playing.

 

[depressingsteve]

[citation][nom]hemelskonijn[/nom]This list seems to be a personal list since epic fail's like the 32x and the 3DO are missing.Also the atari jaguar was a great system and the most advanced in its time but it had flaws we also found in the saturn and some other consoles.The Jaguar ran a multi chip setup so if you wanted to get the best out of it you had to program for each chip in stead of porting games to one of them.To call the NeoGeo an epic fail is a lot like saying "i am a moron".It seems like you wanted to make a list of epic fails but chose to only use systems every reader on tom's knows or worse you never even heard of machines other then these.[/citation]
The issue with the Neo Geo wasn't that is was bad system because it was really cool, the problems was the price.

 

[zenneth]

My only complaint with this list is the horrendous editing. How did the amount of errors this article contained get past the person responsible? To those of you complaining about why or why not this or that console did or did not make the list I offer this: it was 7 consoles, not 9 or 10; and they included these consoles because, regardless of what you think of them, they were failures. They performed under market appreciation and hence are gone except for those you may find on ebay or craigslist.

 

[cletus_slackjawd]

Panasonic 3d0 should take #1 spot. Overpriced, no desirable games, not even worth the space on a HDD for emulation. Sega CD should be taken off the list, they actually made some decent games for it. The Sega 32X should have taken it's rightful place on the list though. Fun article. Virtual Gameboy "HAHA" remember playing demo at Sears and thinking WTjavascript:%20void(0);F.

 

[jerreece]

Hmm. I knew a kid who had a Game Gear back in it's day. I thought that thing was a pretty awesome little machine personally. Granted not every kid owned one, but I wouldn't have thought back on it as an epic failure.

 

[mavroxur]

I have to disagree with Neo Geo & Turbo Grafix 16's placement on the list. First, the TG16 was a very capable system even without the CD drive attachment. It's not like it had any competetion for the first part of it's life, going up against the likes of NES and SMS. Because it didnt take off in the United States doesnt really make it a failure, as it did very well overseas. And as far as the Neo Geo, yes it was expensive. Yes, the games were expensive. But it was also several times more powerful than the next closest console of the time. It was an Arcade in your living room. $600 back then was high, but people also spend thousands on gaming rigs today for the same reason. If you want the Aston Martin luxury, you pay the Aston Martin price. I dont understand why the 3DO was left off the list, it was a horrible failure, more so than most of the systems on the list.

 

[SlyNine]

32x isn't on it, Gamegear is on it. I think this list is an Epic Failure.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]SlyNine[/nom]32x isn't on it, Gamegear is on it. I think this list is an Epic Failure.[/citation]
Let's not forget the lack of Phillips CD-i.
Mah boi, this failure is what all true consoles strive to avoid.

 

[tpi2007]

This list has some serious flaws.

Beginning by being written in the first person, but the writer being "The Bestofmedia Team" What is that anyway ? Shouldn't it be "Tom's Hardware Team" ? And who said what ? And didn anyone proofread it ? Please, even weekend entertainment shouldn't be plagued with 'glitches'.

Second, you are looking at the Game Gear from the wrong perspective. It was the second most successful hadheld console of the time. And the most successful color one. That is a fact. The Game Boy had a head start, better battery life, more games nad a lower price. But the Game Gear had more powerful hardware and more action packed games. And a plethora of accessories the Game Boy could only dream about. You could watch tv on it, and even buy an adapter to play Master System Games directly. In the early nineties you didn't have technology to go much further.

I had both the Game Boy and the Game Gear, so I can make a fair comparisson. They wore both good, but for action packed games the Game Gear was the best. No question. Try the Atari Lynx. THAT was an epic failure.

Oh, and the Neo Geo ? What about the Amiga CD 32 ? Try that instead. That was a proper failure.

 

[NuclearShadow]

The game gear was a great handheld in my opinion. If only they made the battery life more acceptable I'm sure they would have taken the handheld throne. Its hardware was basically a portable Sega Master System which was quite amazing for a handheld at the time.

Also the Atari Jaguar was a piece of crap but it did have a few good games. Syndicate on it was a blast.

Also you failed to mention the unbearable load times of the Sega CD.

 

[Orion1024]

Obviously this list is subjective, but to say the Jaguar was the worst system because of bad games and poor construction just isn't true. There were good games like T2K, Iron Soldier I & II, Rayman, Power Drive Rally, Super Burnout, Doom, Wolfenstein, AvP, etc. Quite a few good ones right there. I've never seen any problems with poor construction and I've got two Jaguars. I will say the controller was OK, but bulky...certainly better than 7800 controllers, though.

 

[Division]

Neo-Geo should definitly not be on this list. The system came out in 1990...and they were still making games for it up untill 2004 with the last release of Samurai Showdown V. Its the longest lasting and supported console system in history.

Price was definilty its downfall....but I sure remember saving up for this system doing odd jobs as a kid. I could only ever afford 3 used games total.....but you couldn't find better quality games on the market when this thing was released. The graphic quality and sound were unmatched....and its the very first system to use a memory card.

If Neo-Geo's prices were more in line with Super Nintendo and Genesis at the time.....Neo-Geo would have been king of the hill.

 

[zaxonr34]

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.

 

[theangrygimp]

Is anyone reading the
"• This story, marked with a • is weekend entertainment content only and should not to be considered factual"
Part at the end of these stories marked with an "•"

I definitely think the neogeo could have been great if it were not for the insane cost of the games. Seriously, who wants to buy a console cartridge that costs as much as the arcade's cartridges in the multi-game stand up cabinets. While it will always have classics such as Samurai showdown series, and some of the better 2D drawn graphics for its time, its $200 a game concept was just silly, even for today. I wish they would of tried a Bleem-like concept after the NeoGeo's death. Not like they don't have a lot of people still playing some of those classics illegally anyways, but I'd pay $5 a piece for some of those classics to play on my PC when I'm bored. If anything, the NeoGeo CD machine was waaay more of a failure, at least the cartridges were pretty much the same boards in the arcades, so at least they could be used by arcade owners for tournament fun.

 

[mpasternak]

going to dipsute NEo Geo again. yes it was extremely costly. But it was by no way a failure of a system

if you want to call the most epic of epic fail for a console? than you put Atari Jaguar up there as it killed Atari's attempts to stay in the console market

but my Number 1 or 2 would be the Sega Saturn. This console killed Sega. Not the Dreamcast. But the Saturn. Sega's first CD attempt was overly complex for the time. 3 distinct processors. a distinct graphics processor all made for the programming of games on this console to be extremely difficult for the yield results. the outcomes of all the programmers efforts were barely anything far an above the genesis.

It was the Saturn that sent thousands of programmers and the dozen or so of exclusive Sega publishing houses running away to Sony and nintendo. Dreamcast was a great system, but itw as too late. The developers were long gone because of the Saturn and it was only a matter of time.

The Saturn killed Sega. that is epic fail. one console to crush the main business of an entire company'

 

[anhxeom]

A few people got it right...
The Turbo Grafix 16 should not be on the list. I owned one when it was first release and had many games for it. It did really well against the NES and the Sega Master until the Super NES and Sega Genesis arrived. It was advertised as the next generation console with 16bit conpared to the 8bit the other two rivals. Although it did not get as popular as the NES and the Sega Master, but no way was it an "Epic Failure".

The 3DO should be on this list. It was a powerful system with very good graphics, but it was extremely expensive at the time. All the major electronic chain that carried it always had it hidden away in some corner of their store where they had all their high end equipments. It wasn't advertised as a gaming console but more of a "multimedia" machine. Many of their games were interactive movie style games, which not too many people care for. I bought my 3DO at the end of it's life cycle when it was redesigned to a slicker low profile design, and it was heavily discounted. I had Road Rash, Need For Speed, Return Fire,Star fighter, and Street FighterII Turbo. Ultimately, it was the high price and marketing strategy that brough it down.