What systems are dying the fastest?

[Trench]

I´m looking to step up my collecting in 07, my questions is... what systems are dying the fastest...

 

by that I mean - breaking down, getting harder to find working, etc.

 

I want to collect these first and baby them in my fortress of gaming.

 

 

Also, which have the smallest catalog of games? Where can I find a complete guide of their games?

 

I know Virtual Boy will probably top the list in this section, but what are the 5 or 10 systems with the fewest games?

[jesusc]

Original Xbox imo.

[else]

I would assume all non-cartridge based system would be at the top of the list, since they contain mechanical parts. Think PS1, Sega Saturn, etc. Of course where do you draw the line for what constitutes a "system"? The Jaguar CD is notorious for breaking, but it's technically an add-on -- not a system. Likewise with the Sega CD.

 

As for fewest games, well the Nuon sure has a small library. And don't forget the current but soon to be extinct (imho) Hyperscan -- it only has three games so far....

Edited January 11, 2007 by else

[Video]

I assume you mean, which of the oldest systems are duying the fastest.

 

All you really have to do is ask yourself "what are more complex" and "which have moving parts" (excluding power buttons)

 

The NES is a really unreliable system, simply due to the shoddy Zif design of it. The GameGear has a TON more parts than the GameBoy. Most 96+ systems have a disc drive of some kind (think all the dead PSX systems)

 

Then you got stuff like Atari, three chips in the thing, very simple, it'll last practically forever. Master System and SNES weren't all that much more (or maybe that's less) complex than the NES and Gennesis, but they seemed more reliable for their time.

 

I don't know of the reliability of Vectrix, Intellivision, and Coleco (I've had no problem with the first two, even though lots of people seem to, but I've never come across a working coleco)

 

Of course, your experiance will be different from everybody elses, at least slightly.

[Trench]

Also speaking of games, not just systems

[8th lutz]

I have to the nes, toaster version. I think the non cartidge systems are in the same position as the nes for dying. The good news for the nes is there are still places that fix that system. There is one in Milwaukee that does.

[Crimefighter]

There is a company making new NES clone systems, it was selling at the Midwest Gaming Classic.

[FastRobPlus]

In my personal collection, the unit's I have the hardest time of finding a fully working system in the wild are:

 

The Original Gameboy (screen, dpad)

Microvision (screen, carts)

Vectrex (sound, controller)

NEC Turbo Express (sound)

 

Hey - I'm noticing a trend...

[Tempest]

NEC Turbo Express (sound)

 

I have that exact same problem. The sound just quit working one day. I wonder if there is an easy fix for this?

 

Tempest

[spacecadet]

The Dreamcast has to be the most unreliable system ever made. I've gone through three of them, and I baby my stuff. I've read similar stories almost everywhere. It didn't sell particularly well to begin with (I think around 3.5 million in the US), a lot of people just threw theirs out (as always happens), a lot of people will keep theirs closeted up forever, and what's left of the rest are gonna rapidly dwindle as those who care replace dead systems. My bet is within 10 years, you're gonna see auctions trickle down to about 10-15 working systems going at any one time, all pretty expensive.

 

The Saturn and PS1 are *much* more reliable. So it's not just that it's an optical-based system.

[shadow460]

Hmm, seems I have more trouble with cart based systems, then. I've actually had more Atari games not boot than I have of all my disc systems put together. That's not to say my Atari is a piece of junk or anything--I bet I've got less of those carts that have failed than the average person does.

 

Game Gear: Mine has, very literally, been through a war. I've had it for ten years, and it was purchased at retail. I don't even know if it's the NTSC model or not since it was delivered onto a US Navy ship for sale from who knows where. If I had to guess, I'd say it's the Japanese version, actually (based on the box it came in). I bought it on that ship while we were in the Persian Gulf. It survived that, and I've had it since then. I've never used a Sega brand adaptor with it, and I jerry rigged it to charge its own batteries. Back then it had 850 mAh NiCd, today it has 2500 mAh NiMH (which I was told would fail, and they haven't yet).

The only problem I have ever had with it was recently when a fellow got buffing fluid under the screen. He was able to remove it, and I cleaned the screens out shortly thereafter.

 

So I'd strike Game Gear from the list. It's far more reliable than the Classic Game Boy or even the Color Game Boy.

 

Game Boy: We all know the screens die, line by line. Once again, I had some of these go, quite literally, through a war. I had minimal problems with the screens, but I've seen my share of them that were dead. The Color Game Boys' sound does go out after a while. The chintzy wiring Nintnedo placed in between the board and speaker does give way to a few years' use.

 

NES: Need I elaborate?

 

Saturn: Most people won't notice problems on this one. Even memory cart owners might miss 'em. However, once you get into multiple carts, like a NetLink alongside a Backup cart, you're going to see where Sega failed in the quality department. Even using official Sega brand carts won't save you--thing things just don't like to register. It's one thing when the Planet Web browser thinks your NetLink is a paper plate, it's far worse when you switch back to the Backup cart and a bad connection corrupts every save file you own.

The controller ports get loose too. I hate this, since the pads cut out during a particularly tense gaming situation.

 

Atari 5200: Switchbox and controllers--'nuff said there. In fact, I've read that 90% of all 5200 controllers have failed. Many have been rebuilt. I may have one of the last few original flex circuits that still works, although A.J. Franzman and I have both put a lot of work into keeping it going.

 

PlayStation 2: This isn't so much a failure, as it is the laser controls going out of alignment. Mine is getting noisy on CD-ROM games, but it works. I haven't booted a PS1 game up lately, but I did boot Arctic Thunder not too long ago and it ground the whole time it was loading.

 

As for games failing, I'd say 2600 first, followed by any disc based game. The reason I say 2600 first is the AMD ROM chips used (you know anything with AMD on it is junk anyway). Most of the dead ROM chips I see were made by whatever AMD was at the time. They've certainly got the correct logo on them. The second reason is Starpath. Those are low quality Type I tapes (read: the cheapest pieces of junk they could find). They are probably even more fragile than DVDs are.

 

Disc based games fail for obvious reasons: They get scratched beyond recognition, then resurfaced. The cycle repeats until there's nothing left to resurface. I'm even beginning to flex the discs myself to see if they've been resurfaced. A bendy disc doesn't have much life left in it. If it gets another deep scratch, it's going to game heaven and it won't come back.

Once again, the worst offender here would probably be the Saturn.

[christianscott27]

Colecovisions by far, although if you're here you can get help with them... after that I'd say its those PSone mini-playstations. NES are bad too but if you consider that you'll find like 10 NES for every one Colecovision the odds are much worse for the CV working. Then if you factor in the controller as working it gets even worse for Coleco, add to that the one of a kind power supply and you can see why a working Colecovision is a treasure.

[jaybird3rd]

I disagree that disk-based systems are more likely to fail. I've still got disks and drives that date back to the early 80s that still work today.

 

The two most failure-prone computers I've seen have probably been the Coleco Adam and the Commodore 64. The two Adam machines I had both developed tape drive problems, and one of them (apparently) had a bad power supply that I couldn't replace because it was inside the stupid printer. The C64 just seemed to suffer from shoddy construction; I've heard that 30% of the original production run of C64 systems were intentionally shipped defective because Tramiel wanted to get them out first and fix them later, so it doesn't surprise me that so many of mine have had problems.

 

Of the classic video game consoles ... Intellivision systems seem to be developing more problems these days than Atari 2600 consoles of about the same age.

[bust3dstr8]

Any of the NEC CD-ROM2 systems.

 

Turbo Duo

TurboGrafx CD-ROM2

 

PCE Duo

PCE Duo-R

PCE Duo-RX

PCE CD-ROM2

PCE Super CD-ROM2 (the rarest of the bunch, works with CoreGrafx)

[Atari-Jess]

The ps3

 

Well, maybe not right now, but in the future!

 

They're all early generation blu-ray players, they're all first generation cell processors, a lot of unproven technology. If the ps2 is any indication of sony quality then expect this one to be even worse!

 

The sheer heat of the system is also going to be difficult on the machine as the games this gen will try to push a lot of polygons to beat the 360 and compensate against the wii's control system.

 

The ps2 of course has the quantity to be widely available for at least a decade but depending on how the console goes this generation, the numbers may not be as gracious as the free reign the ps2 had.

 

As for older systems, definately the saturn and the dreamcast. the volumes just weren't there on consoles that are a lot of pieces. They both didn't have enough time to perfect their manufacturing process.

 

if I had to pick a cartridge console, I'd have said the "toaster" NES if there weren't a giant amount of systems and newly made clones that exist.

 

someone mentioned the portables, the Gameboy is definitely not gonna last with that screen. I've had a number of units that get a big mass of missing scanlines that just ruin gameplay.

[+remowilliams]

The ps3

 

Well, maybe not right now, but in the future!

 

The sheer heat of the system is also going to be difficult on the machine as the games this gen will try to push a lot of polygons to beat the 360 and compensate against the wii's control system.

You might actually want to check a PS3 out before drawing conclusions.

 

The PS3 cooling system seems to be extremely efficient, being both quiet and throwing lots of waste heat out the side and not letting it stay in the case. A disc left in the Wii on standby gets waaayyy hotter than a PS3 going full bore for hours.

 

Anyhow... its a safe bet to say that systems in the post cartridge era are going to go bad a lot faster than their older counterparts.

[Student Driver]

As for fewest games, well the Nuon sure has a small library. And don't forget the current but soon to be extinct (imho) Hyperscan -- it only has three games so far....

 

To this list I'd add:

 

RDI Halcyon (also one of the less-reliable systems because of mechanical problems), which has 2 games.

Any of the Jakks GameKey systems-- depending on model type, they have 0 to 2 or 3 releases apiece.

Pokemon Mini, has perhaps a dozen releases worldwide.

That trivia-game-playing DVD player someone mentioned in Modern Gaming a week or two ago-- perhaps half a dozen titles.

Entex AdventureVision-- 4 titles?

View-Master Interactivevision-- 6 or so titles.

 

Not sure how many releases the Pippin saw-- I imagine it's relatively small.

Edited January 12, 2007 by Student Driver

[keilbaca]

Don't forget the APF M-1000, a dozen or so total.

[Atariman]

One system that I've noticed that comes up dead more often than not has been the Virtual Boy - I own three of these and only one works properly. The other two sort of work, but have issues with one of the screens. (one either flickers or doesn't work at all resulting in only seeing through one eye)

[spacecadet]

I disagree that disk-based systems are more likely to fail. I've still got disks and drives that date back to the early 80s that still work today.

 

So do I, but at only about a 50% success rate. That's not very good. Even my own Apple II disks that I created myself are about half corrupt, and one of my Apple drives is basically dead - it won't read anything.

 

It's a simple engineering fact that more moving parts equals more potential failure points.

 

I do think that pretty much all modern systems are gonna be dead pretty quickly because of that. The Xbox will be the first to go after the Dreamcast, because of the hard drive - and it used the old-style drives with metal bearings, probably the only console system ever to use a drive like that. The 360 and PS3 use fluid-bearing drives, which should be more reliable long-term. I've seen the inside of a PS3 also and it's got a pretty impressive cooling system - I think PS3's are built to last pretty well.

 

Solid state stuff can basically work until the passage of time turns it to dust. You can use it 24 hours a day and it makes no difference. Disk-based stuff, though, is subject to wear and tear. The more you use it, the quicker it's going to wear out. But it will wear out, someday, long before it crumbles back to the earth.

[shadow460]

Just one question...what is it about the Dreamcast that makes it fail? I've owned two of them and had only one problem (that was with a known buggy game anyway).

[ewing92]

what about the sega cd model 1`s? I heard that the disk drive is prone to breaking down, although the one that I have doesn't work due to ac/dc mix up. they go for alot on ebay right now and i could just imagine what it will be like in 10 years from now. and btw this is my first post with my PSP.

[Video]

NEC Turbo Express (sound)

 

I have that exact same problem. The sound just quit working one day. I wonder if there is an easy fix for this?

 

Tempest

 

Perhaps it's the same problem as the well known problem of the GameGear. They put in a shoddy audio jack, and as a result, it dies for no reason. Luckily, (at least for the GG) an easy fix. Don't know aobut the Express though, it's probably an easy fix too..

 

 

One system that I've noticed that comes up dead more often than not has been the Virtual Boy - I own three of these and only one works properly. The other two sort of work, but have issues with one of the screens. (one either flickers or doesn't work at all resulting in only seeing through one eye)

 

I would have to absolutely agree with this. I forgot all about the VB, but they seem to be even more fragile than the PS2 systems out there (at least the PS2 requires being breathed on to break)

 

Anyhow, out of my collection of games, I have 4 GameGears, all non working (only one works, but no sound, though as I said earlier, an easy fix) My first Gaemboy that was badly abused from day one in 89, missing half the scanlines on the screen, though I might can fix that by cleaning it. 3 VB's, various problems on 2, but one (the one I bought new) works perfectly. About 20 Toasters, all the same problem, worn out Zif connector. 2 colecovisions, both dead (though one will come on for randome ammounts of time) 5 PSX's (2 are PSOne's) All but the newest PSOne is dead.

 

And that's about it. Everything else I own works fine.

[Bill Brasky]

What worries me most is not that some of these systems fail. That's not unusual for a computer 25 years old to require some maintenence. It's that so many of these problems are easily fixed but you know most people are just tossing them in the trash if they develop any problem and they're irreplacable. They aren't ever going to make more Vectrexes, INTV or CV's.

[shadow460]

Yup. I dunno how many different things I've fixed that had simple stuff wrong with them.

Well, take one of my Color Game Boys. I was working on it, and I dropped the motherboard. Somehow that damaged one of the two power fuses and it refused to work. It was so simple to fix that it's unbelieveable.