Professor Gull Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 No really I find this hideous. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacman000 Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 Yes, the V-Smile is hideous. Probably appeals to kids tho. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 Probably appeals to adults that think it appeal to kids* 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Darrin9999 Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 No really I find this hideous. My Kids loved the V-Smile! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digdugnate Posted November 12, 2017 Share Posted November 12, 2017 i get the concept they were going for, but i always though the N-Gage looked kind of unfortunate. (but maybe not 'ugly', per se) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RampantOctopus Posted November 13, 2017 Share Posted November 13, 2017 TG-16 sans back cover, terrible piece of design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 The 5200, coleco, intellivision. All oversized with phone controllers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 No really I find this hideous. Unless your 5 you should not look at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+frankodragon Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 If you go to a toy store, a lot of toys for younger children at least used to be very colourful - I haven't checked in the last few years if the trend has changed. Thus I fully understand why VTech chose to design a children's games console in that fashion, as it blends with the colours and shapes of toys children are used to and tend to like. I agree that if the Nintendo Wii had come looking like that, it had been laughable, as it was not strictly a children's console. Actually the V-Smile kind of reminds me of a Nintendo 64, but with far brighter colours and shapes so it isn't entirely unthinkable that big N would've aimed at the preschoolers with a friendly console looking like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 Two mentions of SuperGrafx recently. I can agree that it neither has quirky character (like e.g. the Casio PV-1000 or Viewmaster Interactive) or elegance like most of the classic systems. It looks like it tries to be serious business but something went wrong. To me that is what makes a system more ugly than another, one that fails to reach any kind of visual style. I'm not really sure what I think about a system like the FM Towns Marty. A little bland, no particular character but also rather sleek. The Marty 2 which is darker grey with a yellow button seems to have a bit more own persona than the first one. Also this PC in the FM Towns series could be worth a mention, if nothing else the CD-ROM orientation gives it a spectacular washing machine look, though part of me wants to chalk it down to quirky character. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbd30 Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 That FM Towns tower is a thing of beauty. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 (edited) Two mentions of SuperGrafx recently. I can agree that it neither has quirky character (like e.g. the Casio PV-1000 or Viewmaster Interactive) or elegance like most of the classic systems. It looks like it tries to be serious business but something went wrong. To me that is what makes a system more ugly than another, one that fails to reach any kind of visual style. I'm not really sure what I think about a system like the FM Towns Marty. A little bland, no particular character but also rather sleek. The Marty 2 which is darker grey with a yellow button seems to have a bit more own persona than the first one. Also this PC in the FM Towns series could be worth a mention, if nothing else the CD-ROM orientation gives it a spectacular washing machine look, though part of me wants to chalk it down to quirky character. Wow. I checked on Wikipedia, because I often heard of the FM Towns but never really cared, and wow, that console was a failure. They quote the figire of 45 000 units sold between 1993 and 1994. Even if we are extremely generous and triple that sale niumber for the 1994-1995 period, that's quite the failure to sell. Someone dethroned the Jaguar and GX4000 For ugly systems, I foudn that the onderswan, while maybe not ugly, looks VERY cheap : Those direction buttons looks taken from those bland and cheap "Brick games". Personnal taste, but I always found semi-transparent shells annoying. They are meant to add volume by adding more "content for the eyes" which is usually a way to hide a bland, featureless design. If your system doesn't look nice without a transparent shell, it's time to get back to the drawing board! And about design, I know that this "wavy/curvy" design was all rage in the 90's, but it still feels cheap to me. The Wonderswan looks like a PDA wannabe made on the cheap. The color vversion did added solid shell, but made the button transparent, which is NOT an improvement at all : You can also notice the select and start buttons indicated by those flat lines. It looks like it was copied from the Game Boy, that so 80's feature was on a console from 1999? Get your stuff right, designers! Edited November 17, 2017 by CatPix 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 The designer was the dude who made those very buttons going back to the Game & Watch and Gameboy too - Gunpei Yokoi, clearly he was out of ideas or looking to be cute about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 Wow. I checked on Wikipedia, because I often heard of the FM Towns (Marty) but never really cared, and wow, that console was a failure. They quote the figire of 45 000 units sold between 1993 and 1994. Even if we are extremely generous and triple that sale niumber for the 1994-1995 period, that's quite the failure to sell. Someone dethroned the Jaguar and GX4000 I suppose the fact that the Marty 2 despite a price drop cost 66,000 yen equal to 670 USD in 1994 has something to do with it. The Saturn released later that year was 45,000 yen and the PS1 cost 37,000 yen right at the end of the same year. It means that you almost could get two brand new consoles for the price of one that had been around for almost two years - or if the white Marty was released even earlier than what Wikipedia suggests as I found another source that speaks about 1991 rather than 1993. In any case, the Marty seems to rival the CD32 as which was the first 32-bit CD-ROM based games console, and whether a 68020 is more 32-bit than what a 80386 is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulBearer64 Posted November 19, 2017 Share Posted November 19, 2017 2600, gay pride edition. I Think the original Nintendo DS was really ugly. The revision looked so much better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Video Posted November 19, 2017 Share Posted November 19, 2017 Forgot about the wonderswan, its pretty ugly, and looks like a PDA wannabe. That bendy supervision is ugly too, with that flex neck thing and the screen side being bigger than the controller side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted November 19, 2017 Share Posted November 19, 2017 The Supervision isn't helped much by the putrid "calculator green" plastic. Heh, make me thing that the 3rd model, much rarer, managed to get the worst design : The first model was maybe the best, after all : A side note on technical side : lots of people that see that usually comment on how horrible that D-pad must be, but - They probably didn't used the second model D pad which is awful because you can press the 4 directions very easily - Almost no game on the Supervision require you to do diagonals, which make this "fake" D-pad acceptable. - And I love that twist of irony that Nintendo's latest console come with this D-pad : I Think the original Nintendo DS was really ugly. The revision looked so much better. That reminds me someone brought one with him, and it looked in excellent shape. I picked up up and I was "heh, is that a Chinese shell replacement, or original.?" It was original... tells you how the original DS feel, very flimsy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digdugnate Posted November 19, 2017 Share Posted November 19, 2017 im sure this has been beaten to death, but i always wondered why the US got the (in my opinion) ugly/blocky SNES with the purple slide buttons on top. Points for top loader, but the Super Famicom looked soooo much sexier. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulBlazer Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 im sure this has been beaten to death, but i always wondered why the US got the (in my opinion) ugly/blocky SNES with the purple slide buttons on top. Points for top loader, but the Super Famicom looked soooo much sexier. Simple reason for the design of the SNES....a lot of people set drinks on the top of the NES deck and spilled them and did damage to the system. So Nintendo of America purposely designed the system to be angled so you couldn't do that. I can't explain the purple buttons though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbb033 Posted November 24, 2017 Share Posted November 24, 2017 I also thought the odyssey was ugly, but the NES console I always thought was ugly. couldn't they have done something other than a box? i always loved the look of the NES so much more "fancy" and "modern" than previous consoles (part of the trojan horse to get stores to carry it post crash). looking at the famicom, it's much more standard and disappointing. The American SNES looks awful, though. Always hated that redesign compared to the sleek super famicom. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbb033 Posted November 24, 2017 Share Posted November 24, 2017 I Think the original Nintendo DS was really ugly. The revision looked so much better. I think the original, silver DS is probably the best looking handheld Nintendo ever designed. The later ones all look much flimsier and "kiddy" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted December 4, 2017 Share Posted December 4, 2017 I was talking about the various European licences cloesn if systems, and one nightmare came to haunt me : This is a Channel F clone.. and also the death of design. Ther eis simply no imagination put into that, or heart, or feelings. Il looks like ITT took the shell from a digital alarm clock and shoehorned a console in it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silverfleet Posted December 4, 2017 Share Posted December 4, 2017 I may be in the minority, but I love the ridiculousness of the SuperGrafx. That thing looked SERIOUS BUSINESS for the time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMenard Posted December 4, 2017 Share Posted December 4, 2017 i get the concept they were going for, but i always though the N-Gage looked kind of unfortunate. (but maybe not 'ugly', per se) Ah, the electronic taco :-) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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