The 10 Lamest Game Consoles Ever

GameDaily has an amusing piece looking at the 10 lamest consoles to hit the market. Older flops like the Jaguar and Action Max join the new graveyard-bound contenders likes the N-Gage and the Gizmondo. From the article: "Ignore, for a minute, manufacturer Tiger Telematics' financial woes, the former executive's much-publicized, million-dollar Ferrari crash and the Swedish Mafia ties. What really irked us about the GPS- and Windows CE-sporting handheld (capable of playing games, movies and music, plus wireless multiplayer) was its sixth-rate software library and similarly styled functionality. Some hated on 2005's biggest portable flop for its abominable games, like Colors or Momma, Can I Mow the Lawn? We just dug the fact that even after dropping $229 on one, you'd still get hit with online ads three times a day." And they're going to re-launch it. Again! Have to love their enthusiasm.

Comments

Paraphrase, for the link a'feared

[johnfink]

10: Virtual Boy 9: Gizmondo 8: Saturn 7: Action Max 6: CDi 5: N-Gage 4: Lynx 3: 32X 2: 3DO Interactive Multiplayer 1: Jaguar

Jaguar

[gt_mattex]

I don't know if I would call the Jaguar lame. It was certainly unsuccessful however I remember going over my friends house to play it and it was pretty awesome as far as I remember.

On the other hand the NGage was a certifiable steaming pile of failure both financially and from a user's perspective.

In Saturn's defense

[Dr. Eggman]

In defense of the Sega Saturn, it did quite well in Japan. It was so lame in the US because Sega's President didn't send over alot of the games that made it popular in Japan because he didn't think they were the kind of games Americans liked. While it may not have been Worldwide successful, I certainly don't think its one of the top 10 lamest console ever; just one of the lamest of the truly widely known consoles.

Re:In Saturn's defense

[poot_rootbeer]

While it may not have been Worldwide successful, I certainly don't think its one of the top 10 lamest console ever; just one of the lamest of the truly widely known consoles.

I would actually say that's true about the entirety of this Top Ten list. I was expecting to see some truly obscure and truly lame hardware on here, like Tiger Game.Com or Atari XEGS, but it was not to be.

It's funny...

[the dark hero]

Funny how the 3DO not only compares to the PS3 in price range, but also in the same ugly design.

MOD PARENT "MICROSOFT FANBOY"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the PS3 is ugly, the Xbox 360 looks like a PC with it's sides bashed in.

Re:MOD PARENT "MICROSOFT FANBOY"

[oc255]

360 hips. With a HD-DVD fanny pack.

I don't think it even belongs on this list

[SpooForBrains]

I have a friend who still has his Saturn set up purely because of some of the games that have just never been equalled on other consoles. Radiant Silvergun and Street Fighter Zero 3 spring to mind.

Admittedly, if you used it to play Tomb Raider or some of the other, more "popular" games, the user experience was less than satisfactory, but in the 2D arena, the Saturn stood alone.

Oh, and Saturn Bomber Man is the best iteration of that series, IMHO.

Re:I don't think it even belongs on this list

[triffid_98]

I still have mine for the very same reason. Saturn may have crashed and burned outside of Japan, but for 2D gaming it's nearly on par with the Neo-Geo. Personally I'd say the Lynx doesn't deserve to be on this list either. Yes it failed, but when you release products and fail to you know, advertise them, that can happen. In their place I nominate the Sega CD (FMV games at their worst) and the Atari 5200 (for controllers that somehow managed to suck even more than the gold standard, the Intellivision).

I have a friend who still has his Saturn set up purely because of some of the games that have just never been equalled on other consoles. Radiant Silvergun and Street Fighter Zero 3 spring to mind.

Re:I don't think it even belongs on this list

[gfxguy]

You know, that may all be true, but the Saturn wasn't a 3D slouch, either.

These days I make fun of people buying the first to spend copious amounts of money on new consoles, but back then I wasn't married with kids, so $400 for the console, which inlcuded Virtua Fighter, was a no brainer.

I probably wasted that much in quarters in the arcade playing before it hit the console. And while it wasn't as pretty on the Saturn, it was very playable and VF Remix and VF2 were gorgeous! If Sega didn't give it up and start releasing VF games for other consoles, I'd never have sold the Saturn.

Now, 32X... THAT I can agree with.

As usual, for most of these consoles, it comes down to the games. Most game companies went where they thought the most money would be. For some it was simply a matter of crappy technology. My recollection was that the Saturn was hard to develop for at first, but Sega released some libraries that simplified the process - too little, too late. Once your console starts getting shunned, that's about the end of it.

Sega also stupidly rushed to get next generation consoles out before the competition. With how fast technology was developing and prices dropping, that was a fatal mistake... you'd figure you'd get the people that can't wait, but that's just not enough.

I guess it's easy to be an armchair CEO, especially when you have hindsight to look at.

Re:I don't think it even belongs on this list

[poot_rootbeer]

Personally I'd say the Lynx doesn't deserve to be on this list either. Yes it failed, but when you release products and fail to you know, advertise them, that can happen.

There was Lynx advertising! What, you don't remember it?

A prototypical Late '80s Cool Kid (you know, sunglasses, denim jacket, neon Ocean Pacific shorts etc.) gets a hall pass from his teacher and goes to the boy's room. Once there, he passes a link cable under the wall to the adjacent stall, and the boys play an exciting round of Epyx's California Games. The realism is so amazing that by the time they're done playing, they are literally soaked with ocean water!!!

It was a brilliant marketing campaign that combined all the things that kids love: school, teachers, toilets, and getting drenched with water near a school toilet! I can't imagine how Nintendo was able to steal away the portable market with such unknown game IP as "Super Mario" and "Tetris".

Pippin

[Kadin2048]

What about the Apple Pippin? Not only was it $600 and had practically no software, it was underpowered and tried to compete directly with the N64 and PSX, after they were both established in the market.

On the upside though, it had SCSI.

The Jaguar _was_ lame.

[Ayanami Rei]

The Jaguar was in the same position as the Sega Saturn. At the time, 3d acceleration hadn't yet made it into VLSI designs so they tried to just make a "really good" version of what the competetion was doing before. I'm not really sure why they thought coupling a 16-bit CPU to 1M+ of memory and 64-bit coprocessors was a good idea for an architecture that needs to be relevant in 5 years. It wasn't easy to program for, in any case, and that would be its' downfall. The release titles were HORRIBLE, and that doesn't encourage other companies to try to jump on the bandwagon and push the state of the art on that architecture.

The Saturn, at least, started with a decent CPU and tacked on some support chips from their arcade designs... and there were some nice arcarde ports on that system because of it. (What they should have done is just figured out a way to take "Model-1" or "Model-2" and put it into mass production).

Atari was too concerned with catching up with the Jonses and totally discounted the impact of the PSX.

Take the 32X and Saturn off

[vasqzr]

Replace them with:

Maganavox Odyssey^2

Horrible. Horrible. The controllers were hardwired to the console circuit board in the first model. The games all stunk and used the same generic character sprites. Almost all the games were written by one guy.

Atari 7800

Backwards compatible with the Atari 2600 but it came out around the same time as the NES which outclassed it.

Atari 5200

Horrible joysticks. This thing had potential but Atari didn't know what the hell was going on.

The Sega Saturn Appreciation Station

[Old School Saturn Fa]

The Sega Saturn does not belong on this list. The author, Mr. Scott Steinberg equates negative sales performance in select markets with poor hardware design and poor software. The Saturn was trounced in the US by the PSX as far as sales. If sales in the United States during this period is the determinant of "lameness" according to Mr. Steinberg then he must view Deer Hunter as the single "coolest" game ever made.

I still play Guardian Heroes and Radiant Silvergun. Those games were great. SFA2: Zero was probably the best 2D Street Fighter ever. Assault Suits Leynos 2 is absolutely the best 2D side scrolling mech game ever made by the hands of man.

From the article:

"Worse, the system promoted 2-D graphics when 3-D was the first PlayStation's biggest feature, leaving its days ironically numbered."

I think that , looking back, a well executed 1997 2D game can still be played without making your eyes hurt, unlike most 1997 3D offerings. Poorly played Mr. Steinberg, and poorly written. The top ten list has replaced worthwhile game journalism and this is what we get, sales figures described as measures of lameness.