Failed Console/Media platforms.

TheMightyTen · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:06

I was chatting to a work colleague over lunch and we got to discussing his Betamax gene (i.e. His ability to adopt products that are doomed to fail) Some of the failed platforms we could remember were:

Commodore CDTV
Commodore CD32 (Although really this failed because Commodore went bust)
Phillips CD-i
Atari Jaguar
The addons for the Megadrive; Mega CD and 32X

He argued the 3DO, Saturn and Dreamcast were failures as well but I felt that although they didn't last the course as maybe their competitors they were still relatively succcesful.

Is there anymore that people can think of?

antijoke · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:09

Playstation.

Nismo · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:13

Virtual Boy

orderoftheflame · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:15

TheMightyTen said:
He argued the Saturn and Dreamcast were failures as well but I felt that although they didn't last the course as maybe their competitors they were still relatively succcesful.

The Saturn really was, and in the end lead to SEGA having major problems when the Dreamcast came out (major developers not wanting to support it etc).

This coupled with extremely strong competition ended up with SEGA leaving the console market.

A massive shame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn#End_of_an_era

TheMightyTen · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:15

Nismo said:
Virtual Boy

Good call, and someone here as just reminded me of the Atari Lynx as well.

Fortyseven · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:16

HD DVD
N-Gage

antijoke · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:18

My comment of Playstation may seem a trolling one, but the original version of Playstation never made it forward so I guess it suits your requirements.

Plus it's one to make you look uber geeky to your friends who might not know the origins of Playstation.

bsoltan · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:19

Neo Geo
Neo Geo Pocket
Gizmondo

Strife212 · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:24

PS3 LOL

TheMightyTen · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:26

orderoftheflame said:
The Saturn really was, and in the end lead to SEGA having major problems when the Dreamcast came out (major developers not wanting to support it etc).

This coupled with extremely strong competition ended up with SEGA leaving the console market. A massive shame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn#End_of_an_era

It seems quite odd now with the way people feel about Sony but at the time of the announcement of the release of the Playstation it was greated like a breath of fresh air was blowing through the console market. It had been Sega vs Nintendo for so long I think Sega fell foul of sense of complacency brought about by their comfortable position over the previous generation (ala 3DFX did in the graphics market and to some extent NVidia have the last couple of years)

TheMightyTen · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:28

anticonscience said:
My comment of Playstation may seem a trolling one, but the original version of Playstation never made it forward so I guess it suits your requirements.

Plus it's one to make you look uber geeky to your friends who might not know the origins of Playstation.

Ahh you mean SNES-CD

TheMightyTen · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:33

bsoltan said:
Neo Geo
Neo Geo Pocket
Gizmondo

Gizmondo definitely counts as does Neo Geo Pocket but I find it hard to agree on the Neo Geo itself because of the position it held spanning both the Home and Commercial Arcade markets.

antijoke · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:35

TheMightyTen said:
Ahh you mean SNES-CD

Yes.

TheMightyTen · 21 Jul 2010 at 14:44

An American colleague has just pointed out the Bandai Pippin to me, I vaguely remember it at the time but it was never realeased in the UK.

Also I'd have to add the PC Engine/Turbografx

Ysmalari · 21 Jul 2010 at 16:20

The Spectrum +3, it was basically a plus two but with a disk drive.
However it didn't use the standard floppy formats so it was destined to fail and was definitely the beginning of the end for Spectrums

Abooie · 21 Jul 2010 at 16:24

Strife212 said:
PS3 LOL

You laugh but the PS3 has lost Sony more money than the PS2 made; it's lost more than the Xbox 1 lost.

That being said, it's future is safe and it has some of the generations best exclusives.

It all depends how you define failure. Xbox 1 was a financial failure but sowed the seeds for the Xbox 360 and was a good console with some great games.

'Wes · 21 Jul 2010 at 16:26

Playstation.

TheMightyTen · 21 Jul 2010 at 16:28

Abooie said:
You laugh but the PS3 has lost Sony more money than the PS2 made; it's lost more than the Xbox 1 lost.

That being said, it's future is safe and it has some of the generations best exclusives.

Also add the fact that it has probably been one of the key factors in Bluray triumphing over HDDVD.

Nexus · 21 Jul 2010 at 17:10

The Mega-Drive addons were pretty ridiculous with hindsight.

I did own a Mega-CD, which I wanted because I played Sonic CD at a friends house and loved it. What I do remember though was that the Mega-CD itself actually came with a lot of games and the ones available at retail tended to mostly just be updated versions of Mega-Drive games with CD sound, at a higher price.

The 32X further stagnated the market, by having different combinations of what worked with the Mega-Drive, or Mega-Drive with Mega-CD and then the 32X attached. It made no sense at all. I believe 32X games were very few and at least £60 each also.

I think all the console manufacturers ever since have learned from that mistake by Sega.

pingwing · 21 Jul 2010 at 17:17

Neo geo pocket colour

god i miss that! My best mate had one and it was so much fun! (like a portable arcade machine)

No ones pointed out laser disc as an older failed media platform