Ads

Best offers

Ads
All about Miscellaneous
 Latest Miscellaneous articles
Exclusive Interview: Nvidia's Ian Buck Talks GPGPU

Exclusive Interview: Nvidia's Ian Buck Talks GPGPU
With Snow Leopard and Windows 7 both offering GPGPU capabilities, we wanted to talk to Nvidia's Ian Buck. Not only is he one of the fathers of Brook, the programming language ultimately adopted by AMD/ATI, but the head of Nvidia's CUDA group as well. Read More

  • Beamforming: The Best WiFi You’ve Never Seen
    Forget 802.11n Draft 2.0. The future of video-capable WiFi depends on a signal-boosting technique called beamforming. We put the pioneers in this frontier through some real-world testing to find out which technology is going to change the wireless world. Read More
All Miscellaneous articles

Newsletters


  • Ask your question about IT issues
  • Post

Partners

The Games selection

crazy : Xiao Xiao 7 A great fight scene from the animation movies Xiao Xiao.
crazy : Interactive Boogy Pick one of the 3 songs, hit on the correct keys matching this boy's dance moves.
Ads

Sponsored links

• 7 Gaming Systems that Were Epic Failures

Next news
10:11 AM - May 23, 2009 by Bestofmedia Team

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

7. TurboGrafx-16:
In the late 80's and early 90's the TurboGrafx-16 was marketed as an arcade-style gaming system with a 16-bit video graphics chip. While the graphics were an upgrade over the NES and Sega, the games were for the most part unoriginal rehashes or lame rip-offs—check out "Fighting Street"—of the releases from other systems. Adding to the problem of the games was the fact that you needed to use a CD attachment to truly get the full benefit of the system. Alternatively, you could use the a standard game card that looked like a SD card on steroids.  The TurboGrafx-16 was, at times, a fun system but the stiff competition and the difficulty of getting premiere titles in America ended this gaming console by the mid 90's.

6. Game Gear:
When Sega's Game Gear was released in late 1990, it seemed to be what every gamer was looking for but couldn’t get from Nintendo. The Game Gear had a lot of cool features including a backlit color screen and tons of games. It even had an optional adapter to watch TV on! This all sounds great, so what was the problem? Well it was crap. The Game Gear felt like union scabs that had worked for Willy Wonka built it. Aside from the low-quality craftsmanship, the Game Gear was powered by 6 AA batteries, which lasted for about 3 hours. This was only 1/3 the time of the Game Boy. The Game Gear did sell more then 10 million units, but durability, price and size concerns left it as the ugly step bother to the Game Boy.

5. Sega CD:
This CD attachment for the Sega Genesis was supposed to bring the user to the next generation of gaming. Life like graphics, in depth games and 3-D rendered screens were what we were promised. Instead we got giant pixels, games that did not work and  “Night Trap.” Night Trap was possibly the most over-hyped game ever made. It also directly lead to release of the ESRB rating system. I cannot think of too many great things about the Sega CD. This is mostly because I could never get a game to work it.

4. Virtual Boy:
Even the greats like Nintendo are not immune from making horrible, horrible system choices. The Virtual Boy is probably the most ridiculous looking system on this list. I cannot help but think of the Stephen King classic “Lawnmower man” when I see some one wearing one of these. To our friends reading this that may be prone to motion sickness or epileptic seizure you may want to avoid these puke goggles at any cost.

3. N-Gage:
The Nokia N-Gage was a hand-held system that doubled as a cell phone! I don't know any one who has bought or played one of these. The controls looked so bad that I was afraid that I might arthritis after just a few minutes of playing the N-Gage.

2. Atari Jaguar:
This is probably the worst gaming system ever made, but I have my own reasons for putting it number two. The Atari Jaguar was full of faults. Bad games, poor construction and questions of it really was 64-bit seemed to plague the Jaguar. I, on the other hand, always seem to dwell on the controller. The Jaguar's controller was the most insane controller I have ever seen. I am not a 100% sure on this, but I believe it had somewhere near 9,000 buttons. It was so beefy that you could kill anyone that questioned you for owning it. The Jaguar went on to end Atari's claim in the home gaming industry and left the company’s legacy in pieces.

1. Neo Geo:
If you were lucky enough to own one of these—I wasn't—you had to get your fill at an arcade. The Neo Geo had some of the most classic games such as Metal Slug, Fatal Fury and 2020 Super Baseball. The games looked great, they were fun and it the system was pretty well built. So what is the problem? The problem was the price to get your hands on one of the system. It cost over $600, and games were easily over $100 each! This low rating for the Neo Geo is really more over my jealousy of not being able to own one. SNK actually made a fairly good system. The Neo Geo has gone on to inspire game developers for the past 15 years and will continue that trend for the next 15.

Runner-ups to this list included the 3DO and Apple Bandai.

[• This story, marked with a • is weekend entertainment content only and should not to be considered factual ]

Source : Tom's Hardware US

Talkback
Add your comment
JeanLuc 05/23/2009 4:36 PM
Hide
-3+

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 05/23/2009 4:44 PM
Hide
-10+

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 05/23/2009 4:51 PM
Hide
--1+

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 05/23/2009 6:04 PM
Hide
-3+

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 05/23/2009 6:16 PM
Show
Zoonie 05/23/2009 6:25 PM
Hide
-2+

"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 05/23/2009 6:29 PM
Show
afrobacon 05/23/2009 6:58 PM
Hide
-1+

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


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 05/23/2009 7:17 PM
Hide
-2+

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



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 05/23/2009 7:17 PM
Hide
-2+

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.


The issue with the Neo Geo wasn't that is was bad system because it was really cool, the problems was the price.

zenneth 05/23/2009 7:19 PM
Hide
--2+

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 05/23/2009 7:26 PM
Hide
-2+

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 05/23/2009 7:29 PM
Hide
-5+

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 05/23/2009 7:49 PM
Hide
-1+

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 05/23/2009 8:38 PM
Hide
-4+

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

WheelsOfConfusion 05/23/2009 8:51 PM
Hide
-7+

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


Let's not forget the lack of Phillips CD-i.
Mah boi, this failure is what all true consoles strive to avoid.

tpi2007 05/23/2009 8:57 PM
Hide
-6+

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 05/23/2009 9:38 PM
Hide
--1+

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 05/23/2009 9:41 PM
Hide
--1+

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 05/23/2009 9:48 PM
Hide
-2+

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 05/23/2009 10:01 PM
Hide
--1+

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 05/23/2009 10:22 PM
Hide
--1+

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 05/23/2009 10:38 PM
Hide
-1+

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 05/23/2009 10:52 PM
Hide
-0+

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.

anhxeom 05/23/2009 10:54 PM
Hide
-0+

I forgot...

Another one that should make the list is the Atari Lynx

Zoonie 05/23/2009 11:00 PM
Hide
--1+

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



LOL!

theangrygimp 05/23/2009 11:08 PM
Hide
--1+

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


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 GD rom's were also using what was probably one of the better copyright systems to be used so far. 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.

leafblower29 05/23/2009 11:20 PM
Hide
-1+

Where's the Philips CD-i?

icebain 05/23/2009 11:39 PM
Hide
--1+

Sega CD had some of the most classic RPGs ever made! Not to mention games like Blackhole Assault! classic fighting game

manadrain 05/24/2009 12:01 PM
Hide
-0+

I may be the one person who enjoyed playing the 3DO. Yes it was highly overpriced when it was released. However I can't forget the number of hours playing games like Wing Commander 3, Return Fire, Return Fire Maps of Death, Alone in the Dark, Road Rash, and Dragon's Lair. I think the 3D0 had many good games for the system but the price of the system was very high. I believe 800 when it was released. I think I picked my first one up when it was 399.

The one system I didn't see mentioned is the Phillips Cd-I. Now I have been playing games since the Atari 2600 and Coleco. I also went through the pain of trying to get R.O.B the robot to work with the NES and games Gyromite and I believe the other one was called Stack-em or something similar.

I pulled out my old Atari 2600 several years and let my son see what type of games I grew up playing. I told him about the many games I played for the C64 as well. I really liked Racing Destruction and Bolder Dash Construction Kit. I also mentioned Zork and how it was all text based adventure. He was like no graphics...what fun is that.

It is amazing to see how much games have changed over the years. I have seen many changes since I started playing them. I would have to agree that the Virtual Boy may be one of the biggest we really should have not built this systems in the history of gaming. Just thinking of the painful red looking Mario (red everything) trying to play tennis just hurts my head. This system may as well be dumped in the same landfills with the countless ET games for the Atari.

jimmysmitty 05/24/2009 1:01 AM
Hide
--1+

afrobacon :
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.



I think you mean the ability to play burned games. And yes it does as well as the Dreamcast has the ability to play emulators and ROMS from older systems (SNES, Gameboy, Game Gear ect....). The Dreamcast was awesome. But no DVD drive killed it when the PS2 hit even though it had the graphics capability and the best size ever.

And how is it that that one Panasonic Disc Drive (forget the exact name) that was the bastard child of Nintendo that had the God awful Zelda games (I know, how can there be a bad Zelda game, right)?

That was more of a failure than the Virtual Boy TBH.....


Sponsored links

Related articles

  • This Week's Hot News: March 9 - 13

    With the hype surrounding Windows 7, people are paying close attention to each new build of the operating system in-the-making. The latest build is is 7048 and the changes just keep coming-- especially when compared to the public beta build 7000. Build 70

  • Hot News: February 23rd-28th

    Make a 3-core Phenom II a 4 Core! Sony's PlayStation sores; Windows 7 Updates. Don't miss this week's hot news. Check out our weekend wrap-up.

  • This Week's Hot News - April 20th to 24th

    This week's hot news is going to be a little different. We're inviting you to help us test out a new tool called JogTheWeb designed for wrap ups.