Biggest System Failures

Ok, we know that the N-Gage will be on this list but I mean the others.
I'm asking this because I saw an episode of Filter (G4)
and when they asked this question a lot of people said "sega systems" or "dreamcast, saturn, 32X". I know, the people they interviewed are mostly mainstream idiots that wouldn't know a failure if they had a flashlight and a map but still, it makes me ask a question--What systems would you consider a failure and why?

Virtual Boy
Tiger game.com

In terms of expected sucess
Sega Dreamcast
Nintendo N64
Atari 5200

For flat out failures
Nintendo Virtual Boy
Atari 7800
Atari Jaguar
Tiger Game.com
Panasonic 3DO
Phillips CD-i

I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

Add-ons in general have never been sucessful so I'll put the
Sega CD
Sega 32X
Nintendo N64DD
Sony Playstation

thundr51 said:

. . . and when they asked this question a lot of people said "sega systems" or "dreamcast, saturn, 32X".

Click to expand...

Isn't that amazing? the only system that Sega made that might be called a failure was the Saturn and only because it didn't take off in the 'States. Saturn did pretty well in Japan. And the DC did wonderfully but couldn't bridge the gap in cash that was the result of Saturn's nosedive here in the the US. (Not counting stuff like 32x and Sage CD which never pulled their weight either).

As for failed systems, yeah, the game.com came to mind, however the biggest failure to me has always been the 3DO. The arrogance with that release was just mind boggling. An insane price point coupled with the boast of it being the future platform for all set top everything made me laugh even then. Obviously, enough other people were laughing as well because it sold like complete crap from the get go.

Those Phillips Interactive pieces of crap are up there too, but I don't even know if you could call those gaming platforms.

Think we should add the neogeo hyper 64 to the "flatout failures" list. Even though it IS a neat system it failed horribly.

How about the:

Amiga CD32 and Commodore CDTV? I believe they enjoyed a year or two of mild success in Europe, but they were complete and utter failures in the US market.

As much as I hate to say it I knew the NEC PC-FX would end up dead quicker than a speeding bullet. The idea of a game system soley set up to do games that more or less were all ANIME, and the fact that the user base was going to be of only Otakus of it... it was destined to fail. There were some cool games for the system, but sadly only ONE shooter that I'm aware of and mostly games that involved pick your path, or strategy games... that even for Japan, it just didn't sell. The PC-ENGINE was the best thing NEC did, and the PC-FX was a real quick "Yeah man, that's cool." Wish it wasn't so, but it is. Same thing could be said for the BANDAI PLAYDIA... had more games for it... but up against SONY's system it wasn't even a competition.

MD20XX / Storm Rider

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the NEC SUPERGRAFX.

There are a total of 6 or 7 games available for it, but for some reason, I refuse to sell mine. It looks cool and the games are all pretty great!

While we're at it, let's not forget VM Labs' NUON platform.
Again, like the Supergrafx, about 7-8 games were actually released for the platform. To be fair, this was a DVD player chipset addition that also played games, but VM Labs touted this as a competitor to the PS2 back in the "Project X" days. Tempest 3000 and Iron Soldier 3 are quite good, but the rest is pretty meh.

Freelancer said:

How about the:

Amiga CD32 and Commodore CDTV? I believe they enjoyed a year or two of mild success in Europe, but they were complete and utter failures in the US market.

Click to expand...

I think my brother and I had one of only a few NTSC CD32's back in the day.

It was another case of "lets add-on a spiffy intro to a standard A1200 looking game and stick it on a cd", much like the CDTV was to ECS/OCS software.

'Twas a shame, really.

I'm really not sure if the N64 was a failure.

It was kind of a hot item with Pokemon stadium you know.

Once Gamefaqs had a poll asking what's you favorite game genre.

RPG players consumed something like 60% of the site.

http://cgi.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.asp?poll=1401

That was 30K+ people.

It leads me to ask, even in america, if a system can be successful without excellent RPGs.

Remember, not everyone who votes in the polls are forum users there. So not everyone is an idiot gamer.

Some of the systems listed I have to admit I would have to list as well, but some strike me as odd
Ex:


N64- I wouldn't really say that it's a failure. It managed to last quite a while in the market and lots of great games available. It had at least 2 generations of games. I know lithy put this under certain terms, but I know others that would say it was a flat failure.

-i'm drawing a blank now...

Anyway, what would you guys say qualify's a system as a failure? Low sales, terrible games, price, availability, lifespan, library size?

-edit: posted the same time as E.W. Great minds huh?

Im surprised no one mentioned the Gamate yet. A very unappealing name for a really lousy system. I used to own one of these and they really sucked. If you never heard of it, i cant say im the least bit surprised.

Atari Lynx?

I just sold mine in March.

I had a few games for it and I thought it was a nice a system.

If you looked at as a videogame system, you would appreciate it, especially if you were into Atari arcade games as I was.

But if you looked at as a portable gaming system:

a) too big (even the second version I had was too big)

b) battery usuage killed longevity

c) lack of "real" 3rd party support

Whatever though, I had a great time playing Road Blasters, Stun Runner, Gates of Zendocon, Ninja Gaiden (arcade game), Warbirds, Hard Drivin' (personal fave), Rygar (aracade game), and Blue Lightning.

I guess overall it was more for the arcade gaming fan.

Well,

Saturn was a failure in the US... Japan had great stuff, but the US market really passed it over!

32X... yeah

DC was sort of a failure if you look at it from a system standpoint, it barely lasted the entry of the PS2... Now that was really because a lot of people bootlegged games, and others wanted to wait to see what was next out of the gate from Sony and Nintendo (not to mention MS).

So... I can see where they are coming from. I loved the saturn and the DC, but I admit... they did die premature deaths, which in this market can be seen as a failure.

On the other hand, they were no Game.com or N-Gage... ick!

-Nick

Gorka said:

Im surprised no one mentioned the Gamate yet. A very unappealing name for a really lousy system. I used to own one of these and they really sucked. If you never heard of it, i cant say im the least bit surprised.

Click to expand...

I was actually going to mention that one, but I forgot the name. I do remember the Gamate (there was an ad for the US version of it called the "Power Pro" in the December 1990 issue of GamePro...I may be able to provide a scan of the ad if anyone is interested).

The Gamate looked similar to the 1st gen GBA and used a larger green/black Dot Matrix Screen, like the original Gameboy of that era. The games themselves were no-name clones of old classics like Breakout, Tank Force, and so forth. I think it was priced at $69.95 which was about $20 less than what the GB sold for at the time. I never saw any in stores.

There was also another system that EGM briefly covered in a Nov or Dec 1991 issue called the Watari Supervision. It was a Gameboy clone with a similar design, except the screen moved for a better viewing angle. This I actually saw in some department stores, believe it or not! It only had a few games, and many were similar to the Gamate's retro classic titles like Breakout, pong, etc. The Supervision's gimmick was the fact that you could buy a special cable that would output the video to a standard TV! Obviously a feature that the Gameboy could have used in the early 1990's. This system came and went rather quickly.

So here's my personal compiled list of obscure system failures:

* WATARI SUPERVISION

* GAMATE / POWER PRO

* NUON

* NEC SUPERGRAFX

* COMMODORE CDTV

* AMIGA CD32

There've been some great suggestions, here's a few more (not necessarily the biggest, but failures none-the-less):

- Turbo Express (great portable TG-16, no one bought it)
- NGPC (utter failure in US)
- JVC's X'Eye (a.k.a. WonderMega in JPN) (licensed hybrid of a Genesis and a Sega CD?)
- Sega Nomad (came out 5 years too late)
- Sega CDX (cool, but no audience)

Wonderswan is getting to be a certified commercial failure, its slice of the market is so teeny and is just holding on by sheer inertia from Bandai's deep pockets.

bokmeow said:

Wonderswan is getting to be a certified commercial failure, its slice of the market is so teeny and is just holding on by sheer inertia from Bandai's deep pockets.

Click to expand...

Is that right? I always thought it did somewhat well in Japan, all things considered. Seeing all those games and hardware revisions may have been somewhat misleading...

bokmeow said:

Wonderswan is getting to be a certified commercial failure, its slice of the market is so teeny and is just holding on by sheer inertia from Bandai's deep pockets.

Click to expand...

I was personally afraid to list the wonderswan, because despite no US market at all, it seemed to sell rather well, and I didn't know how much money Bandai pumped into the system just to keep it afloat.

More important, what was the cost benefit ratio for getting all those square games on the system?

Neo Geo. It died so hard that the only people keeping it alive are hardcore fans and collectors.

mog said:

Neo Geo. It died so hard that the only people keeping it alive are hardcore fans and collectors.

Click to expand...

now, now, I wouldn't call a system that is still being supported by non-homebrew games as a "failure"

I think it's important here to distinguish between systems that were sold with a mass market in mind, and those that came out for different reasons. Yes, making money is the primary motivating factor for any company to release a game system, but there is a big difference in what qualifies as a success or a failure for the parent company. N64, despite outselling the Saturn and the Dreamcast, would have to be viewed as a global failure, since Nintendo definitely saw their market penetration shrink something fierce when competing against the PlayStation (and viewed against the all-out global success of the SuperFami/SNES).
Dreamcast was a success as far as engineering and user satisfaction, it just withered on the vine thanks to negative image of Sega because of past failures (and subsequent PS2 worship by third-party developers).

As far as it's peers, nothing comes close to matching the success of Nintendo's GameBoy. It's no surprise that Sony is marshalling their resources to put a dent in a market that Nintendo has owned lock, stock and barrel for so long.

XBox may well end up being a failure for Microsoft. Having your best third party company (Sega) backing out of bringing major releases and having ZERO market penetration in Japan is definitely a bad sign. This system is still a giant welfare project for the company...still dumping tons of money into trying to make it a success. Given how dependent this industry is on Japanese originated content, you have to question how successful any hardware maker can be with no major support from the big Japanese third-party company.

thundr51 said:

What systems would you consider a failure and why?

Click to expand...

The Gibson.

That system was hacked so fucking fast and thoroughly its absurd. Total failure.

How could nobody mention the system that failed before it ever got off the ground... the M2?

It was to be the successor to the 3DO, and it seemed to look pretty impressive from what I saw (I believe that either D or D2 was originally slated for this system). But I think the system wound up having some of its ideas incorporated into DVD players...

Also, the Lynx could have been so much more, if it weren't for Atari's general-and-yet-not-quite-so-drastic incompetence. (Hell, didn't they manage to stay above water even up to their demise?*)

*I mean the demise of Atari proper--not of the intellectual property thereof which got passed to Hasbro, Infogrames (where it eventually "took over" its host), et al.