Hi There, Am Pam
12-21-2006, 03:33 PM
Consoles tend to fall into a few categories. There are ground-breaking consoles which catch fire and hold onto dominance for a long time. Then there are consoles which literally catch fire because their owners douse them in kerosene because they're too embarrassed to be caught with a Phillips CD-i. Then there are consoles which do alright, but don't quite establish a strong following. It is the flammable consoles this thread is dedicated to.
I don't think there is a single worst console, but these are all consoles which teenage boys sank their money into in order to be cool, only to find out that they're known as the "kid who actually bought an Atari Jaguar".
- Speaking of Atari Jaguar, the Jaguar is certainly among the worst. I was actually interested in it before it came out. Then I saw the controller. And the crappy games. And the fact that their "64 bits" was a bit of a stretch. I'd still love to have one, if for no other reason to own an Atari Jaguar.
- Virtual Boy - Another system I was excited about. It seemed like Nintendo wasn't sure if they were marketing it as a portable, or a separate entity. I remember it starting to fail before I could get a chance to play it, and once I did, I could see why it failed. I thought the 3-d aspect of it was pretty cool, but more in a "I'm in a retail store and playing for 5 minutes" kind of cool. I'm sure owning the damn thing was a whole different matter.
- 3DO - Certainly the specs were good for their time, but once you've played a FMV game, you realize how crappy they are. Throw into that a $700 price tag, and the PS1's price & success, and this thing was doomed to fail.
- N-Gage - Ahh yes, this thing was hyped like crazy. And instantly panned as soon as it came out. Next.
- Sega's post Genesis line up - I remember thinking that Sega had won a huge market share, and would probably be around forever. Then they released the "32x" upgrade. And then the Sega CD. Followed by the Sega Saturn. Then the Dreamcast. Now the Dreamcast was pretty kick ass, even if just for the emulation, but Sega really shot itself in the foot by releasing a bunch of half-ass upgrades which they didn't plan to support. The release of "Night Trap", starring Dana Plato, further cemented Sega's motto, "We hate our customers".
These are the major ones that I could think of. Anyone else care to add to it? There certainly were a lot of crappy consoles out there, and if you include the early consoles which only played pong, or had translucent screen overlays which could... *gasp*, simulate color! It just hard to compare those to the consoles where lots of money was invested & hoped to become the next big thing.
I don't think there is a single worst console, but these are all consoles which teenage boys sank their money into in order to be cool, only to find out that they're known as the "kid who actually bought an Atari Jaguar".
- Speaking of Atari Jaguar, the Jaguar is certainly among the worst. I was actually interested in it before it came out. Then I saw the controller. And the crappy games. And the fact that their "64 bits" was a bit of a stretch. I'd still love to have one, if for no other reason to own an Atari Jaguar.
- Virtual Boy - Another system I was excited about. It seemed like Nintendo wasn't sure if they were marketing it as a portable, or a separate entity. I remember it starting to fail before I could get a chance to play it, and once I did, I could see why it failed. I thought the 3-d aspect of it was pretty cool, but more in a "I'm in a retail store and playing for 5 minutes" kind of cool. I'm sure owning the damn thing was a whole different matter.
- 3DO - Certainly the specs were good for their time, but once you've played a FMV game, you realize how crappy they are. Throw into that a $700 price tag, and the PS1's price & success, and this thing was doomed to fail.
- N-Gage - Ahh yes, this thing was hyped like crazy. And instantly panned as soon as it came out. Next.
- Sega's post Genesis line up - I remember thinking that Sega had won a huge market share, and would probably be around forever. Then they released the "32x" upgrade. And then the Sega CD. Followed by the Sega Saturn. Then the Dreamcast. Now the Dreamcast was pretty kick ass, even if just for the emulation, but Sega really shot itself in the foot by releasing a bunch of half-ass upgrades which they didn't plan to support. The release of "Night Trap", starring Dana Plato, further cemented Sega's motto, "We hate our customers".
These are the major ones that I could think of. Anyone else care to add to it? There certainly were a lot of crappy consoles out there, and if you include the early consoles which only played pong, or had translucent screen overlays which could... *gasp*, simulate color! It just hard to compare those to the consoles where lots of money was invested & hoped to become the next big thing.