Bad Consoles

Video games have come a long way and the industry has seen some fantastic systems and some amazing technologies, but for every NES there is an Atari Jaguar waiting in the wings and in this essay I will go over some of the worst consoles in video game history. We will begin with a system that many people do not remember, and for good reason. The Atari 5200 was the follow up to Atari’s successful Atari 2600, the 5200 was meant to replace the 2600 just like the Xbox 360 is meant to replace the Xbox. The 5200 suffered from a number of difficulties but the most prominent was the controller malfunctions. The Atari’s controller was notorious for not working and it also suffered from the problem of using a numeric keypad which just doesn’t work well for video games. Another problem was the size, it was large enough that there was a compartment that was supposed to be used for holding the controllers. The 5200 didn’t have the games or the support that the 2600 had because of the untimely crash of 1983 that left Atari in shambles. While the 5200 did not do well it was not nearly as bad as some of the failures that followed it.
In the early 1990’s Sega and Nintendo were vying for the top spot in the video game industry and out of the rush to “one-up” the competition, Sega created a CD based attachment for their Sega Genesis/Megadrive console, this attachment plugged onto the side of the Genesis and used CDs to play games instead of cartridges. The CD allowed for the use of “full motion video” something that cartridges were not capable of. But the problem was in the fact that the video was small, pixilated, and took forever to load. Just like other early CD consoles (Playstation, for example) the load times were a big problem, another problem with the system was the lack of good games, for the most part they were second rate productions that used the “full motion video” as a crutch instead of a tool. But the Sega CD itself wasn’t the real failure; the real failure was the follow up attachment the Sega 32X. I actually have a 32X and it really is a waste, the games were supposed to be much better but the graphics weren’t too terribly special and the price tag was pretty high too ($150, a bit steep) not to mention that the 32X was released only about half a year before the Sega Saturn, so it was a real waste of money. Not only was Sega’s marketing shoddy but the system went back to cartridges, a huge mistake. Sega had told the world that CDs were the future but then reverted back to cartridges only to then use CDs for the Saturn, the company looked like they had no idea what they were doing and it cost them when they eventually released a good system, the Sega Dreamcast, but they couldn’t sell it because of their tarnished reputation. The Genesis attachments single-handedly led to Sega leaving the hardware race and only producing software.
If that’s not enough fail to last you a lifetime let’s talk about the Phillips CD-I. Another early CD based console this one suffered from the same problem that the Sega CD suffered from, the tech was not there yet, not to mention the fact that Nintendo allowed them to make three of the worst Zelda games ever to be released, if you want to know more about those you can check out the AVGN’s review, he can actually speak from personal experience, unlike me (although I think I was spared on that one)
While Nintendo was getting the N64 ready for launch they felt that they needed to release a console to tide over the fans, unfortunately they released the Virtual Boy. This thing was the biggest piece of garbage to ever come out of Nintendo, it was suppose to use multiple screens to create a 3D effect and to simulate reality. It was a view screen on a stand, not a very good design and it only had two colors; black and red. There were only about 20 games released and none of them really worked that well because the system itself was garbage. The only memory I have of this thing was when it was in a Blockbuster store and I wanted to play it, I was only 7 or 8 years old, and the dumb thing fell off the stand and gave me a bloody nose, if I never see one of these things again it’ll be too soon. Virtual reality seemed like a good idea, I still like the idea of feeling like I am in the game, but it was more shallow 3D than virtual reality. It’s short life span was indicative of the market reaction and to this day it stands as one of the worst consoles ever.
The Atari Jaguar was another attempt by Atari to reenter the frontrunners of Sega and Nintendo in the early 90’s but it failed for similar reasons to the 5200. The controller was a monstrosity, numeric keypad, fire buttons on the top left and right spaced out as far as possible and it was even bigger than the original Xbox controller. There wasn’t any real third party support and its claim to be 64 bit was too radical to gain enough support to get people away from their Genesis or their SNES.

The final failed console on my list is the 3DO, the failure of this console was the management by the creator, Trip Hawkins, he created a CD based gaming console that was highly advanced for 1993 but he licensed the rights to make it to a third party, so he could focus on producing software. The problem was that the console manufacturer couldn’t make much money on the system itself, the real money was in the games, so to break even they needed to sell the units for $700 each. This was a huge amount of money in 1993 (it still is today) and it didn’t sell, because it didn’t sell people didn’t make games for it and it failed due to a lack of sales and a lack of support from software manufacturers.
Video games have hit bumps on the road but eventually technology is worked out, many times great ideas are squandered by bad business or by lack of support however these consoles will live on as some of the worst to ever be seen. To be fair many of the ideas were pretty innovative and good but either the technology or the management wasn’t there to make the systems a success.

Credit to:

AVGN “Atari 5200” Episode

Play Value “Failed Consoles” Episode