Top 10 Gaming Console Failures

#10 Neo Geo

The most famous arcade game console Neo Geo, production of SNK Japan. Neo Geo was introduced in the year 1990 and provided the best ever games of that era which include the famous games of all time King of Fighters, Metal Slug and Fatal fury. Neo Geo provided its customers with all types of games from strategy to action and from arcade to role playing games. It ruled the gaming market for nearly ten years in spite of a very high cost. The only problem was the lack of advancement in the technology of Neo Geo. It loses the market and was retired in the year 2001.

Neo Geo

Neo Geo Consoles

# 9 SEGA Saturn

SEGA Saturn was a successful set, a true 32 bit machine built for gaming. The machine was a bit expensive which reflected that it is slightly more powerful than Play Station. The hardware of the SEGA Saturn was nice but the software caused great problems. This failure caused the SEGA to lose its market, in the following next two years they released a better version of it and admitted their flaws and discrepancies. SEGA lost 260 million dollars and a vast amount of its employees.

Sega Saturn Console

SEGA Saturn screen shots

# 8 The Original Xbox Gamepad

The brand company Microsoft manufactured sixth generation gaming console to provide gamers with real time gaming experience with improved graphics quality of games. Still everything is not perfect whether how much experienced you are, first launch is marked encounter criticism. The Gamepad was heavy, cumbersome and boring sort of structure. The Gamepad was a mere failure of sixth generation gaming console.

The Original Xbox Gamepad

The Original Xbox Gamepad (Comparison)

# 7 Nokia N-Gage

Nokia N-Gage was a product of famous mobile company Nokia, generally meant to provide and introduce gaming experience in cell phones. The following reasons led to the failure of Nokia N-Gage i.e. it wasn’t a capacitive touch-screen phone, the phone key pad did not facilitate full gaming experience due to lack of buttons and the screen was daftly in portrait.

Nokia N-Gage

 

# 6 Apple Pippin

The iMac company is not a pre birth successful company, like others they too faced ups and downs. Their hard work is the key which for the cause of which they are enjoying their fame today. There were times when Apple products were a mere junk. The Pippin was a product of Apple Company in early nineties. It faced failure due to over pricing and lack of brilliance as compared to similar priced gaming consoles i.e. Playstations. Another reason for the unpopularity is that it had only 18 games under its name at that time, later on manufacturing partner Bandai tried to increase its library by introducing many new games but the failure was inevitable for Pippin.

Apple Pippin (screen shots)

Apple Pippin console

 # 5 Atari Jaguar

Jaguar was the last brand of Atari after which the Atari brand retired due to heavy loss. Atari was already going down and its 64 bit Jaguar machine totally killed it. The brand got bankrupt causing a permanent extinction. The Jaguar didn’t have the power or a third party support to compete with the supposedly inferior consoles from Sony and SEGA.

Atari jaguar console

Atari jaguar console/ accessories

# 4 Virtually Every CD-based Console

Compact Disks played the vital role for the extinction of old cartridges using consoles. The plague spread so widely in the whole world and disket drive consoles lost their importance. The new and latest consoles using refined models and optical drives were way too efficient and better than older version of consoles. The sole reason why Nintendo lost it’s important in the same era and why Playstation took control over the market of gaming so rapidly. Nintendo lost significant amount of market share due to its stubborn attitude toward enhancement. CD based consoles rule the market now.

Virtually Every CD-based Console

Virtually Every CD-based Console

# 3 Current Generation Manufacturing and Design

As the era progresses new players and latest technologies step in. The most famous flaw was observed in the sixth generation models of gaming consoles Xbox 360’s Red Ring of Death and Playstation 3’s Yellow Light of Death. The problem of Xbox 360 was observed in about one third of all the units manufactured and a lot of various simple problems for example weak soldering and airflow flaws. These flaws were latterly removed in the latest versions of Xbox 360.

Red ring of death (Xbox-360)

Yellow light of death (PS-3)

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# 2 SEGA Mega Drive 32X

SEGA Mega Drive 32 X was the production of SEGA which met ultimate failure just like Atari jaguar, the philosophy behind the launch of such a drive at this stage was an inevitable failure we wonder why SEGA took the risk. The 32X failed due to the same reasons of Atari, lack of game library, over pricing and software problems.

SEGA Mega Drive 32X

SEGA Mega Drive 32X (screen shots)

# 1 Virtual Boy

Virtual Boy, a production of Nintendo of the 19^th Century gave a physical look of a very advanced model of gaming consoles. It consisted of Goggles, Tripod stand and a game pad. The Goggles were meant to provide a full parallax 3D game play and is available in every color of the rainbow. The visual quality was extremely poor, no graphics, limited gaming library and uneasy to play with. The device rests on the stand and you peer into it just like old Mutoscope peep show. The console rested a year in the market facing fatal failure and ultimately retired by the Nintendo Company in the year 1996. Nintendo a marvelous company of 20^th Century which made many records due to its perfect hardware encountered worst failure in the year 1995 with the release of Virtual Boy. Virtual Boy after providing a huge economical loss to Nintendo Company lies at top ten number ones in our countdown for top ten Gaming Console failures.

Virtual Boy

Virtual Boy (screen shots)