top 10 worst selling consoles of all time

corcaigh07

i bumped into an interesting little article on www.gamepro.com featuring the 10 worst selling consoles of all time and its very predictable and disappointing that sega feature 4 times on this list. heres the 10:

10--Dreamcast(best machine here, no question)
9----Turbo Grafx-16
8----Saturn
7----Sega CD
6----3DO
5----Virtua Boy
4----CD-i
3----Atari Jaguar
2----32x(only 200,000 units ever sold!)
1----Apple Pippin(i never even heard of this before seeing this list, only 42,000 units ever sold, apple may just be shy of entering the gaming industry again!)

anyone here ever own a few of these? personally, i have a dreamcast,had a saturn and wouldnt mind a 32x!

Ruu_Old

I had a Sega CD and currently have a 32x.

Nerin

had a dreamcast when i was 16-17,bought it off a guy for 40 euro with 7 or 8 games.
gave it to my girlfriend at the time for her college house in limerick.

Kinetic^

Damn sega and their failures. Mega Driver & Master System rocked, wtf happened after that?

thelordofcheese

The 32X and Sega CD.

The saturn was a fine machine and the dreamcast was awesome.

corcaigh07

sega cd and 32x arrived to confuse the hell out of people and then saturn arrived weaker than the ps1 with a price tag of 400 irish pounds(maybe more, i might be wrong) and a negative customer attitude

the article makes an interesting point about the fact that sega of america developed the 32x without knowing the saturn was being developed in Japan. this was absolutely crazy. i remember reading letters coming in from sega fans on official megadrive/saturn magazine(to this day, the best official mag i ever read) saying how they were confused and didnt know whether to splash out on 32x straight away or hold off until Saturn. i bet many of these people did neither and rightly so.

L31mr0d

The Atari Jaguar OWNED... I loved that thing and still have it in the attic. Only problem with it was the awful battery life, I mean 6 AA batteries gave you about an hour of gameplay.

Also, i'm surprised the Amstrad GX4000 didn't make the list. Another console I owned that the rest of the world seemed to overlook.

BOHSBOHS

unfortunately that list is incorrect , i can think of at least 3 consoles that should be on there

amstrad gx4000 (15,000 sales)
commodore 64 gs (20,000 sales)
amiga cd32

corcaigh07

your right, i failed to mention that they only used what they considered to be consoles that had a chance ie advertising campagins etc. if you made a strict list, there would be things like the gp32x, gizmondo, N-gage etc. ill find the link for ye's

corcaigh07

heres ya go...
http://www.gamepro.com/gamepro/domestic/games/features/111822.shtml

BOHSBOHS

bit unfair on sega tho , including add-ons like the mega-cd and 32x ?
and leaving out consoles which would have eliminated any sega consoles from the top 10 ?
possible anti sega agenda from the original list compiler methinks!:)

monkeyfudge

BOHSBOHS wrote: »

commodore 64 gs (20,000 sales)
amiga cd32

These were the two that sprung to mind right away for me.

I did have a CD32 though.

jhegarty

Something a big dogey with that list, the deamcast sold over 10 million units...

corcaigh07

i dont have much problem with 32x or sega cd being on the list. they were ill-advised and rubbish and their failures undermined the saturn. the saturns failure then undermined the dreamcast. dreamcast was easily better than the ps2 back in the day and the saturn had its charms. plus both sold millions.

invincibleirish

Dreamcast was amazing, had one, loved it, miss it! (Soul Calibur 2 was the last time i got excited about a beat em up, and SA was amazing, and Shenmue? dont get me started on Shenmue!

jesus_thats_gre

Ruu wrote: »

I had a Sega CD and currently have a 32x.

Woop! Got me the 32x with Doom and Virtua Racer on launch!

RE*AC*TOR

I had a 3DO

:eek:

Rabies

Does anyone else think the Apple Pippin has a N64 look to it.
Or is it the other way around

Ginger

I had the old phillips CD-i

Oh well

Azza

I had the 3DO as well and I loved it. Liked it far more than I did the PSone.

S.I.R

man the dreamcast rocks , it was what the Wii is now but back then it had more and better games then the psone !!!!!!!!!!!


toyko extrame racer I & II but house of the dead was also a cult classic !!!

played the saturn before and its worse then WoW :mad:

armour87

Hopefully the Vii will merit a place on there

http://kotaku.com/373910/chinese-wii-rip+off-localized-for-japan

MooseJam

I had a dreamcast, amazing machine it's a shame it never took off it really deserved to

Stephen

L31mr0d wrote: »

The Atari Jaguar OWNED... I loved that thing and still have it in the attic. Only problem with it was the awful battery life, I mean 6 AA batteries gave you about an hour of gameplay.

I think that's the Atari Lynx you're talking about! The jaguar was a home console that looked like a toilet seat :pac:

mayordenis

yea the 3DO was cool, cool in its own non cool way.

L31mr0d

Stephen wrote: »

I think that's the Atari Lynx you're talking about! The jaguar was a home console that looked like a toilet seat :pac:

you are correct, damn atari and its feline naming system

the lynx was excellent though. I remember the only place I could get games for it was in the basement of the old Peats on parnell street. That was like the graveyard of forgotten consoles that never made it to the main shop floor.

ambro25

corcaigh07 wrote: »

i bumped into an interesting little article on www.gamepro.com featuring the 10 worst selling consoles of all time and its very predictable and disappointing that sega feature 4 times on this list. heres the 10:
<snip>
anyone here ever own a few of these? personally, i have a dreamcast,had a saturn and wouldnt mind a 32x!

10--Dreamcast(best machine here, no question)

Had one on release day, then sold it. Then bought and sold a few over the years since. Currently DC-less, the lenses are losing some of their rosiness every time I get hold of one, I'm afraid.

9----Turbo Grafx-16

Had the 'true' white JP one ("PC Engine", this "Turbo Grafx-16" moniker is for our US audience ) with the ultrarare "composite out" adapter, then sold it. Bought one 2 Xmas ago for my younger bro (he's the collector now ), have Bomberman, both R-Types, Galaga and a few more 'must haves' for it.

8----Saturn

Had a couple over the years. Never found it great, tbh.

6----3DO

Had a Panasonic FZ-1 (sliding tray) one. Save as its NFS version, again not great, tbh.

5----Virtua Boy

Had one (US version, not that it makes any difference). The criticisms are all true: sh*t to set up, sh*t to look into, sh*t to play, etc.

4----CD-i

Had the 220 version with MPEG cartridge in my office for quite a while. Never a playing thing, always a CD/VCD player, and ill-suited to the 'console' moniker. The portable ones were very tasty though (always wanted one, never could find it).

3----Atari Jaguar

Same as Saturn and 3DO - expect wrose. That controller really was the second worst gaming thing ever (the Supervision portable console was the worst gaming thing ever, no question.)

Of the above, the NEC was and remains the best (IMHO). And it was a runaway success in JP whilever it was being made and sold, so I don't know why it's in this 'top 10 worst-sellers'. Unless (and of coure this will be the case, I'd bet money on it) this top-10 just looks at "units sold"without comparing market conditions like-for-like (as in: early 90s for NEC's PCE, wherein selling 1m consoles worldwide was like Nintendo selling 90m NDS worldwide today).

Retr0gamer

I absolutely adore my saturn. TBH if you don't have a 4 in 1 adapter or have it chipped for those rare games you will never afford then it's a terrible console. The Eruopean and American releases had very few must haves. However if you can play the japanese releases it's really has a load of must have games, almost as much as the PS1.

BLITZ_Molloy

Whoever compiled this list didn't do their research too well. There are tons of poorer selling consoles out there. The Vectrex comes to mind. How about the Sega SG-1000 if you want to go picking on them in particular?

The 32X bit is complete nonsense. Sega of Japan were the ones who envisioned the system and they sent engineers over to the states to help design it.

On January 8, 1994, Hayao Nakayama, then CEO of Sega, ordered his company to make a 32-bit cartridge based console that would be in stores by Christmas 1994. This would at first be named "Project Jupiter", but after Sega found CD technology cheaper, they decided to modify it instead of dropping the cartridge project (that would be called "Project Saturn"). Hideki Sato and some other Sega of Japan engineers came over to collaborate about the project with Sega of America's Joe Miller. The first idea was a new Mega Drive/Genesis with more colors and a 32-bit processor. Miller thought that an add-on to the Mega Drive/Genesis would be a better idea, because he felt that gamers would not buy an improved version of the Mega Drive/Genesis. And so, this project was codenamed Project Mars, and Sega of America was going to shape the project.

The 32X was primarily envisioned as a system which would extend the life of the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and provide revenue while the installed userbase of the Sega Saturn slowly grew.

I'm quite surprised to hear the Sega CD sold 6 million units. That's a hell of alot more than I thought it had shifted.

BOHSBOHS

well i maintain that "ADD-ONS" like the mega cd and the 32x should not be included...as they are not standalone CONSOLES!!!

even if u want to include add ons ,
why did the dude only include SEGA add-ons ????
what aout things like the Nintendo 64 Disk drive
That only sold like 20,000

Ross_Mahon

How much was the PS2 when it first came out?

Ponster

I was sure that the Amiga CD32 would be up there but wiki mentions that it outsold the Sega Mega CD (but no proof linked).

corcaigh07

Ross_Mahon wrote: »

How much was the PS2 when it first came out?

it was like over 500 euro before you got anything decent(decent being Tekken Tag and a fireworks game!) how the dreamcast didnt get more customers with Jet Set Radio, Shenmue and Headhunter released over the same xmas period is beyond me.

this list probably isnt the best in hindsight but it got ye talking at least!

Retr0gamer

corcaigh07 wrote: »

it was like over 500 euro before you got anything decent(decent being Tekken Tag and a fireworks game!) how the dreamcast didnt get more customers with Jet Set Radio, Shenmue and Headhunter released over the same xmas period is beyond me.

this list probably isnt the best in hindsight but it got ye talking at least!

Yep in the first few months of the PS2's life the console was an utter disgrace. Just went to show how much of an idiot the general consumer can be. There wasn't one game worth playing on it for 9 whole months until GT3 (a prettier but worse version of GT2) DMC and GTA came out. The PS2 magazines were even running multi page articles on how to get the most out of your MGS2 demo. All the while the Dreamcast kept getting clasic game after classic game released on it.

CiDeRmAn

corcaigh07 wrote: »

10--Dreamcast(best machine here, no question)
9----Turbo Grafx-16
8----Saturn
7----Sega CD
6----3DO
5----Virtua Boy
4----CD-i
3----Atari Jaguar
2----32x(only 200,000 units ever sold!)
1----Apple Pippin(i never even heard of this before seeing this list, only 42,000 units ever sold, apple may just be shy of entering the gaming industry again!)

Well I have everything bar the CDi and Pippin, so no worries there.
I do find it hard to believe the DC is in there, and I would reckon the Nuon, Gizmondo and Tapwave deserve mention, as should the 64DD and that god awful Commodore 64 cartridge based console.

I reckon the 3DO sold well enough in many regions too, especially the US.
I love my 3DO, hmm... Need For Speed and Return Fire, you can keep your PSone versions, these are the best.

Ross_Mahon

corcaigh07 wrote: »

it was like over 500 euro before you got anything decent(decent being Tekken Tag and a fireworks game!) how the dreamcast didnt get more customers with Jet Set Radio, Shenmue and Headhunter released over the same xmas period is beyond me.

this list probably isnt the best in hindsight but it got ye talking at least!

I remember hearing on the radio about people queuing up early in the morning to buy it, and it was sold out really fast. Thats mad money for something that long ago...

jayteecork

I think it's a bit unfair, Retrogamer, to say there was nothing good on PS2 for 9 months.
9 months is absolutely nothing for a new console.
There's still not a genuine Ps3 "killer app" 18 months later,

and less than a year after the PS2 was first released had ICO, GTA III, Devil May Cry, FFX, Silent Hill 2, Burnout, Jak and Daxter.

corcaigh07

i dont think retrogamer was harsh, there was nothing of note at all released in those 9 months. how so many people chose ps2 over dreamcast when dreamcast were seemingly banging out the classics at will actually upsets me. at least ps3 seems that they have a few good games from launch on, nothing AAA but still good.

mawk

corcaigh07 wrote: »

your right, i failed to mention that they only used what they considered to be consoles that had a chance ie advertising campagins etc. if you made a strict list, there would be things like the gp32x, gizmondo, N-gage etc. ill find the link for ye's

Ngage sold like 3million units.
(and was the best phone i ever owned. i still go with the N-series out of loyalty)

ive always wanted a 32x, pretty much just to play sonic properly, im sure i could emulate it, but id rather buy it and play it for real. i mean, has anyone ever tried enjoying streets of rage on a pc? terrible

oh atari jaguar, you gave so much to boards..

corcaigh07

what do you mean by just to play sonic properly, the only sonic-related game on 32x is that knuckles spin-off(pretty expensive i see on ebay).

i want an n-gage too, the neatier QD version seems rare enough.

vivadeadponies

are you seriously telling me more than 200,000 cd-i machines were sold? it was like $1000? did it even come out outside america?

Ginger

vivadeadponies wrote: »

are you seriously telling me more than 200,000 cd-i machines were sold? it was like $1000? did it even come out outside america?

We had one.. remember seeing them in Easons in Limerick with a few titles..

jayteecork

Didn't the CD-i feature the worst Zelda and Mario titles ever made?

I think Nintendo had to sign some deal that allowed Philips to use the licenses.

ambro25

vivadeadponies wrote: »

are you seriously telling me more than 200,000 cd-i machines were sold? it was like $1000? did it even come out outside america?

It was actually European to begin with, but marketed heavier (and more successfully) in the US, as on the cusp of the global CD-ROM -based 'multimedia revolution' (which caught faster in the US).

Most of the CDi variants were actually designed as Midi units (= HiFi separates units), except the 450 (looking very much like a console, and a bit like the 3DO FZ-10) and the portable ones.

The problem with CDi gaming, is exactly that which plagued the early CD-ROM -based consoles (and add-ons) like the Megadrive CD unit: very slow loading times, 16 bit-level graphics (save as to the prerendered stuff streamed off the CD, which was not interactive or not really), sh*t gameplay.

But as combined CD and VCD players, they were fabulous bang-for-buck and competent units, looong before people could even imagine that a film could come on a disc instead of a VHS (few people knew that, quality-wise, VHS<VCD<LD)

S.I.R

bought another dreamcast last night for 40 quid... brings my total ive owned to 12.... and im going to buy more.... more fun then the ps3 or the xbox 360.

and unlike them systems none of mine ever broke or needed repair... seem to have BMW built quality ( from my exp. )

Retr0gamer

jayteecork wrote: »

Didn't the CD-i feature the worst Zelda and Mario titles ever made?

According to harcoregaming101 the first two zelda games aren't too bad despite the stick they get, in fact quite good other than the disgraceful FMV. The mario games sucked big time though.

corcaigh07

S.I.R wrote: »

bought another dreamcast last night for 40 quid... brings my total ive owned to 12.... and im going to buy more.... more fun then the ps3 or the xbox 360.

and unlike them systems none of mine ever broke or needed repair... seem to have BMW built quality ( from my exp. )

lucky you, i had have 3 break down so far and ive tried to fix each console. mind you, that seems bullet proof compared to 360. there will be no 360s on ebay in 2020!

CiDeRmAn

The first year or so on the PS2 were abysmal, very very poor on a much hyped console that used said hype to kill the fortunes of the Dreamcast, if it wasn't for backwards compatibility with the PS there would have been feck all worth playing on it at that time, I had and still have a launch Pal PS2 and love it, but am under no illusions about the muck initial game releases. Compare that to the Xbox and it's clear, that machine had the best launch line up of any console.

The VirtualBoy isn't bad, just the monochrome visuals throw some people off, I've got about 9 games for mine, and they're fun, certainly Wario, Galactic Pinball, Mario Tennis and Red Alarm are all great.

It's a pity retro collectors of the future won't have any hardware capable of playing Halo 3 or Gears of War because the machines will have gone the way of the Dodo, the more sophisticated the console the less likely it is to weather the rigors of time, ho hum....

vivadeadponies

Retr0gamer wrote: »

According to harcoregaming101 the first two zelda games aren't too bad despite the stick they get, in fact quite good other than the disgraceful FMV. The mario games sucked big time though.

are they just rereleases of the nes games?






anyone here ever see that gamespy "biggest videogaming mistakes" article?

vivadeadponies

any decent saturn/dreamcast emulators yet?

Retr0gamer

vivadeadponies wrote: »

any decent saturn/dreamcast emulators yet?

You can buy the consoles for 40 quid each and a load of games

Last time I checked Dreamcast emulation was practically perfect and that was a few years ago now.

The saturn is a notoriously difficult machine to emulate. There are working emulators out but there's some glitching in some games and you need a beast of a machine to run them

www.zophar.net will have a list of emulators and reviews on which are the best.