Failed consoles you never heard of until *blank*

That stupid "debate" about SEGA Master System and seeing the Amiga thread gave me an idea. Popularity or lack of-of gaming system can really depend on region.So it's likely there are systems you never heard of until much much later or were taken by surprise when you saw a kid with the *blank* system.

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I will start with SMS. I stated this before but it wasn't until 1998 I even heard of it and even then saw it briefly on a retro game shop. I had no idea what it was but said SEGA on it. The clerk told me in 10 years it's the only one he had seen and until they got it in he wasn't even aware it existed.


3D0/CDi Wasn't until an issue of EGM 1998 I heard of them in a gaming magazine talking about past failures and other systems about to die.


Turbografx16 I didn't even know existed until the very early 90s when a friend owned one. We played Bonk and then in 1994 my teacher brought one to class and I played Vigilante. After that, I never touched one until I bought my own 6 years ago.


Various SEGA system offshoots. Wondermega, Mega Jet, and others. Not until I was a member of some SEGA game forums in the early 00s did I see mention of these.

I joined here about ten or eleven years ago, and at that point had never heard of some of the rarer MegaDrive offshoots (like the WonderMega). The Apple Pippin was totally new to me around two years ago, as was that weird one built into DVD players (bultje has one).

Also the Gizmondo, I read about it last year; that thing was quite ahead of its time. And I always remember seeing a Turbo Express in the movie 'Enemy Of The State' and wondering what it was, I thought they'd perhaps made it for the film.

lol, I remember the Gizmondo and the disaster it was. At the time it was hard for me to avoid the news. If you mean the Nuon, yeah EGM covered it when it was project X. A video game console built into a DVD player licensed out. I think less than 10 games cmae out and one of them was a version of Tempest.

The closest I can think of is the early consoles like Astrocade I had memories of, but could remember the name of or be sure I wasn't just thinking of something else. The internet helped me confirm that there really were so many pre-8-bit generation consoles.

Like Black_Tiger, my answer revolves around early, pre-crash consoles that I either never saw at all, or only have very fuzzy memories of reading about.

More specifically: I have a very vague recollection of reading about the Astrocade, and maybe the AdventureVision too, oddly enough. But as far as I know I never heard a thing about the Channel F, Studio II, Arcadia 2001, Microvision, or Vectrex until the 2000s when I joined AtariAge.

As for post-crash consoles, I knew about most of them thanks to gaming mags -- 3DO, Jaguar, etc. -- and BRE Software catalogs: "Neo Geo? What the hell kind of system has games that cost $199 each?" And I knew about the CD-i via its infomercial.

I remember being excited for the Gizmondo, especially since it had quite impressive specs for the time. Even the games were quite good looking, don't thing there was a bad looking one of the bunch. However the result was underwhelming and it didn't do too well either by poor advertisement or otherwise.

Well, It's hard to call the TG-16 a failed console since it did pretty well in Japan and still managed to have a small US presence (better than the SMS). But here in Europe it didn't even start and I never heard of the thing until I found out about this game called "Rondo of Blood". Thank you ROM sites and emulation for enabling me to try out such a wonderful little machine.

I somehow didn't know about the Amiga either, though unlike the TG-16 it was relatively well known around these parts.

Some that I had never heard of included the Bandai Pippin (or whatever name it goes by), FM Towns Marty.

And of course, the even more obscure ones. The likes of Super A'Can, Casio Loopy, etc.




http://i66.tinypic.com/9kp75i.jpg

I remember being surprised when I first came across home light gun games that predated the NES. I didn't know there were a handful of systems like that in the '70s. I was used to consoles like the 2600 and Intellivision, and I associated earlier stuff with Pong and Mattel sports games.

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

Well, It's hard to call the TG-16 a failed console since it did pretty well in Japan and still managed to have a small US presence (better than the SMS).

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I doubt the TG16 outsold the SMS in the US. SMS games have always been much easier to find in Canada (which is usually very similar for sales) and the US, in my experience.

Growing up, there were a number of gaming magazines that touched on all the consoles of the day. For example, I was a Gamepro subscriber in the early 90s, and they ran articles about all of the consoles of the time, even the ones from other regions or ones that have become relegated to obscurity over the years. Each issue was massively thick, probably 200 plus pages.

So, for the guys who were into video games in the late 80s/90s, it was easy to be aware of everything out there. I can't vouch for the earlier generations though. Not sure how the 70s kids kept track of the glutton of consoles back then.

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Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater

I doubt the TG16 outsold the SMS in the US. SMS games have always been much easier to find in Canada (which is usually very similar for sales) and the US, in my experience.

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Probably not, but that's not necessarily what I mean by presence. Did Kanye West tentatively title an album Master System? Don't think so.

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

Well, It's hard to call the TG-16 a failed console since it did pretty well in Japan and still managed to have a small US presence (better than the SMS). But here in Europe it didn't even start and I never heard of the thing until I found out about this game called "Rondo of Blood". Thank you ROM sites and emulation for enabling me to try out such a wonderful little machine.

I somehow didn't know about the Amiga either, though unlike the TG-16 it was relatively well known around these parts.

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Saturn did well in Japan but overall PCE/TG16 sold 10 million worldwide and Saturn just over 9 million.

AFAIK the TG-16 only sold 6 million worldwide, which is still a respectable number.

Amiga CD32. I didn't know much about it until long after the fact. A console Amiga would have been loads of fun, but seriously it didn't have a chance in the console market against the comparatively well-entrenched Nintendo and Sega offerings of the time.

Atari XEGS. Another oddity I knew next to nothing about, until decades after its demise.

Does anyone remember the Tandy Video Information System? 'Cos I sure don't. XD

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

AFAIK the TG-16 only sold 6 million worldwide, which is still a respectable number.

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No, it's not. That is very much a failed console. 6 million is abysmal even for the time.

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Originally Posted by SegataS

No, it's not. That is very much a failed console. 6 million is abysmal even for the time.

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Well, depending on the site I've seen everywhere from 6 million (wikipedia) to 10 million (also wikipedia) to 15 million (vgsales).
The Master System sold 10-13 million worldwide and I don't consider it a failed console. I guess if you consider failure to be "not in the lead" then yeah I guess?

Here in Portugal the Master System was really well known, in fact I saw more of then than the NES (not sure if that reflects the sales numbers). Locally it was very successful.

SMS is still being sold in Brazil so we don't have any final numbers on SMS. Not being in the lead doesn't make it a failure otherwise PS3/360 coming behind Wii at 101 million at over 80 million would be a failure. No manufacturer would consider 6-10 million a success at all. Notice how they didn't try again.

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Originally Posted by SegataS

No manufacturer would consider 6-10 million a success at all. Notice how they didn't try again.

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Well, technically they did, with the SuperGrafx and the PC-FX (both of which were terrible ideas). Similarly Sega also tried again despite a "failed" console (SMS). And again after another "failed" console (Saturn).

The GC and Wii U were failures, didn't keep Nintendo from trying again (and succeeding).

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Originally Posted by SegataS

No, it's not. That is very much a failed console. 6 million is abysmal even for the time.

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But I don't know if thats an accurate number. Like the PC-Engine outsold the Mega Drive in Japan by a lot, and the Mega Drive sold 3.5 million in that territory.

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

Well, depending on the site I've seen everywhere from 6 million (wikipedia) to 10 million (also wikipedia) to 15 million (vgsales).
The Master System sold 10-13 million worldwide and I don't consider it a failed console. I guess if you consider failure to be "not in the lead" then yeah I guess?

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From what I heard, the Master System was profitable. If the console was profitable and had a long lifespan(yes and yes), then it was a success.

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

The GC and Wii U were failures, didn't keep Nintendo from trying again (and succeeding).

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I won't call the GameCube a failure, it was a lukewarm success. Similar to the Game Gear.

The Wii U was an indisputable commercial failure.

Gamecube made a good amount of profit and Nintendo's entire business is consoles. NEC was not a games company. They tried they failed they got out. SEGA tried again because they were a games company and the console business was too tempting to not try again.

The Wii U was a total failure. Hell I bought one but I don't regret it since the systems has an amazingly great line up of games.

I knew nothing of the Intellivision until I was much older and only ever saw a small mention of the ColecoVision in the C&VG guide to consoles. Yet both were successful in North America, just not so much in the UK I guess

Had never heard of the Master System, Sega CD, or Saturn until around 1999 or so after getting a Dreamcast. I legit thought that Sega was just Genesis and then Dreamcast basically. Even though I knew more about Nintendo, I never heard of the Virtual Boy until the early 2000s.

A kid I was friends with in school would always tell me about his 3DO and all the weird games on it and it was the first I'd heard of one, that was around 2000 as well. I found out about the Jaguar around that time too and was briefly under the delusion that since it was a 64-bit console like Nintendo 64, that Atari had returned with something awesome that I was missing out on (didn't realize it was actually already dead and ancient history). Stuff like Turbo Graphix, CDi, the various pre-crash consoles other than Atari, I'd never heard of up until YouTube came along.

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Originally Posted by SegataS

No, it's not. That is very much a failed console. 6 million is abysmal even for the time.

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NEC and Hudson made money off the system and that what counts, tbh I don't think NEC ever cared that much about the USA or Europe at the time. Very much like Square or Enix (which didn't even bother at all with the West in the 80s or early 90s) you could make quite a lot of money from the Japan market. That was when Japan was actually into home console gaming, not like now with its focus on mobiles and HH. Maybe thanks to the excellent gaming press in the UK, the only system that caught me off guard was the Action Max; Only when Retrogamer did a small feature on the system a year or so back, did I even know of the system existence

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Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater

I remember being surprised when I first came across home light gun games that predated the NES. I didn't know there were a handful of systems like that in the '70s. I was used to consoles like the 2600 and Intellivision, and I associated earlier stuff with Pong and Mattel sports games.


I doubt the TG16 outsold the SMS in the US. SMS games have always been much easier to find in Canada (which is usually very similar for sales) and the US, in my experience.

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Tbh in the 8 bit generation I think the Atari 7800 actually outsold the SMS in the USA which is quite sad considering each systems library of games lol

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Originally Posted by AlecRob

Tbh in the 8 bit generation I think the Atari 7800 actually outsold the SMS in the USA which is quite sad considering each systems library of games lol

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Never underestimate the power of cheap. :) Plus backwards compatibility with the VCS library, of course.

But seriously, there were a lot of gaming systems bought by parents and grandparents who went to the store and picked whatever was cheapest. (That's how I got my Atari 5200 as a kid.) $79.95 was a very attractive price in 1986, especially since "it's better than Nintendo 'cause it can play your old games too".

I can only speculate how many Master Systems were bought on clearance, at clearance prices, but I suspect it was a high % of the ultimate US userbase. I definitely saw a lot of SMS games in the wild back when I was yard sale- and flea market-ing, and have literally never seen a TG-16 game anywhere but game stores. I frequently saw 7800 games too.

Clearances can be awesome for building a library. I got so many Intellivision games that way in the '80s. And 90% of my N-Gage games were $2 clearances from Boxing Week in 2005.

SMS2 models were in small enough supply in NA that they probably didn't contribute much to the overall total sold. Maybe discounted SMS1 units in 1989/1990 did. I definitely bought a lot of cheap SMS games new in 1990.

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Originally Posted by goldenband

Never underestimate the power of cheap. :) Plus backwards compatibility with the VCS library, of course.

But seriously, there were a lot of gaming systems bought by parents and grandparents who went to the store and picked whatever was cheapest. (That's how I got my Atari 5200 as a kid.) $79.95 was a very attractive price in 1986, especially since "it's better than Nintendo 'cause it can play your old games too".

I can only speculate how many Master Systems were bought on clearance, at clearance prices, but I suspect it was a high % of the ultimate US userbase. I definitely saw a lot of SMS games in the wild back when I was yard sale- and flea market-ing, and have literally never seen a TG-16 game anywhere but game stores. I frequently saw 7800 games too.

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I hardly ever see SMS games in the wild here in the US, in fact I see Saturn and SCD games more often. But I see 7800 games more than any of the aforementioned systems.

In modern times SMS carts at my local retro shops exist. Where I got my SMS and most of its games.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

NEC and Hudson made money off the system and that what counts, tbh I don't think NEC ever cared that much about the USA or Europe at the time. Very much like Square or Enix (which didn't even bother at all with the West in the 80s or early 90s) you could make quite a lot of money from the Japan market. That was when Japan was actually into home console gaming, not like now with its focus on mobiles and HH. Maybe thanks to the excellent gaming press in the UK, the only system that caught me off guard was the Action Max; Only when Retrogamer did a small feature on the system a year or so back, did I even know of the system existence

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I totally miss when the Japanese were into consoles, I don't like how the tables have turned where North America and Europe are much more dominant with console developers.

And I also have no idea what HH stands for.

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Originally Posted by AlecRob

Tbh in the 8 bit generation I think the Atari 7800 actually outsold the SMS in the USA which is quite sad considering each systems library of games lol

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It was probably brand recognition

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Originally Posted by Yharnamresident

I totally miss when the Japanese were into consoles, I don't like how the tables have turned where North America and Europe are much more dominant with console developers.

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Me too and HH stands for HandHelds and Japan aren't very good at them these days either. I find the Switch a complete joke. Best stick with the Neo Geo Pocket and PSP lol.

Don't know if this exactly counts as "failed" but I had no idea until recently that LCD games got more advanced than the simple Tiger games we used to play in the 80's and 90's. I'm guessing these games were popular in other countries because I never heard of them in the US. For example Sonic Adventure LCD lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCr8ybaHpmE