Top Five WORST Consoles in Video Game History

[coyo5050]

Here is my top 100 hated consoles!

 

 

 

#2 Sega Dreamcast.....there is a limited amount of games for the console, and when I was buying the Sony Playstation, all my friends had the dreamcast. They played one game...Soul Calibur? What is that fighting system thingy doing...? I want to play A-Train!

 

 

 

I loved my Dreamcast Some of the most original games ever and the graphics still look decent and surprise my friends when I show them now. Many games look as good as current games on the Wii...so...

 

I would put the Wii on the list for the highest amount of crap games ever produced and a current system with last gen graphics. Shovelware extreme. Obviously Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank on the zillions of consoles they have sold tho. Guess that has to make it "successful".

 

Opinions are subjective

Edited June 22, 2010 by coyo5050

[coyo5050]

Obviously, the 5200 doesn't belong on this list. Yes, all things considered, the controller sucks, but I wouldn't characterize it as "weak". I've never found a broken one. It's unreliable and has extremely poor ergonomics, but the CV and INTV controllers are just as bad, if not worse.

 

"Technologically superior Colecovision"--

 

The RCA Studio II, Channel F, Bally Astrocade, APF, or at least a half a dozen other consoles should be considered for this list before the 5200.

 

Interesting how the "top lists" are typically for systems post 2600 video game crash. Emerson Arcadiaand RCA Studio II while historically interesting were awful sellers and the games were bad too. To be fair the Channel F set many new standards -> cartridges, and is very historically significant in the infancy of video games systems. Might be unfair to consider old systems like that bad since companies were still trying to figure things out.

[kool kitty89]

Here is my top 100 hated consoles!

 

#100-#5 Microsoft Xbox 360...any version of the system they can pump out goes on this list...(seriously, 360 degrees is a circle. If there were enough people liking the 360, you would probably see a bunch of guys standing in a circle....doing what?)

"Mom...Dad...thank you for buying me a doorstop last christmas, for my birthday can you buy me another?"

#4 RCA Studio 2....sure it's got some cartridges, but are the games really playable?

Do you mean strictly in terms of the reliability issues?

I would agree from the standpoint that it really bit MS in the ass with that (it hurt sales for sure though it continues to sell in spite of that stigma, but it cost MS a ton in terms of repairs/replacement under warranty on a console they were already selling at a loss).

Of course, hated and worst are different things, just like favorite vs best vs greatest.

 

#3 Panasonic 3Do...do you really have any games that are 2 players and when you do have your friend over, do you really want them plugging their controller into your? I mean when they make their guy jump, they jump with the controller yanking yours from your sweaty hands? Annoying....

I don't see anything wrong with daisy chaining... It's different, but eliminates the cost of added ports on the console or the need for multitaps (the PCE/TG-16's single port with necessary multitap was a real issue though).

If you're sittign far away enough that you have the gontroller taught, your friend would be yanking the console around rather than your controller... and I'd rather not have an expensive peice of hardware yanked around...

The controller probably should have had more than 3 face buttons, but I suppose they wanted to look distinct from the SNES (though it made them look a bit like some 3rd party Genesis pads with added triggers), apparently the controllers also tended to have functionality issues. (some say loosening screws helps)

 

The main problem with the 3DO was market model, plain and simple. Trip Hawkins had a dream of such a semi-open licensed architecture multimedia player and games machine, I believe, but it fell flat in a market that wasn't friendly to such, especially with VCDs not catching on. Mainly just the market model though making it far too expensive on top of fairly costly hardware for 1993. (if they'd teamed up solely with Panasonic and went for a straight razor and blade model -or even past that as Sony did- with a slashed price a couple hundred dollars cheaper and saturated the market with ads it would have been a different story)

 

#2 Sega Dreamcast.....there is a limited amount of games for the console, and when I was buying the Sony Playstation, all my friends had the dreamcast. They played one game...Soul Calibur? What is that fighting system thingy doing...? I want to play A-Train!

OK that one really makes no sense to me... It had a lot of great titles (at least before cancellation and many being ported) and was a very good value for the time, very clean and efficient hardware, etc. Sega was in a bad position though with their troubled past and Sony breathing down their necks with the PSX in full force and the PS2 hyped to all hell just around the corner. (that and a few problems like the perceived piracy threat)

 

#1 Nintendo Wii...Seriously I hate the hype behind the Nintendo Wii...Give me my 1 game and my Joyboard....I can Play Mogul Maniac all day long....forget Wii sports

I agree that the control gimmicks are overused a bit like the DS, though some work well others are detrimental IMO and even the cases where it works well it would be really nice to at least have the option to use a gamepad (especially since the GC pad works rather well). Another frustrating thing is that games now which do have gamepad support are leaning to the Classic Controller only and leaving out the GC controller. (which is superior IMO and with the wavebird is truly wireless unlike the dongled classic controller)

 

That said the Wii has a lot of non-gimmicky titles (more than first party) that tend to get obscured by shovelware, and you can hardly fault Nintendo for doing something that obviously makes (or rather prints) money.

 

Neo Geo AES is amazing..you have to experience it and not just hte fighting games....

Yes and arcade board shoehorned into a home console case, a nice machine but never part of the mainstream compstition. (most successful as a rental and niche luxury item)

The Neo CD addressed much of that but came far too late. There may have been other options for a more competitive conversion to the home market for the Neo Geo (or some contemporary arcade boards for that matter), but that's another topic.

 

Atari 2600....never get old..theres more games for this system than you can collect in a life time...

True, but it's a matter of taste: I know several people who are into retro games but not from that era: maybe finding it fun every now and then but not for more than a few minutes.

I personally find many VCS games pretty addictive or quite fun with multiplayer.

 

JVC X-eye....not bad if you are a sega fan...you can play sega genesis and sega cd games...if you have the master system converter you can play maseter system games....

Actually it was spawned from the wondermega which was not a simple duo console like the counterparts for the PCE/TG-16 (turbo duo), but a high-end machine with added features and custom chips (namely audio oriented) as well as a slightly faster CD drive and standard AV+S-video jacks as well as full karaoke support.

So not so useful in the western markets, even in a cut-down form factor, but especially in the context of the CD-X/Multimega came out first and at a lower price in the west, was much smaller, and could be used as a portable CD player.

However, I think a cut-down, bare bones MD+CD unit would have been most useful; something significantly cheaper and more convenient than the 2 consoles cost when bought separately. (consolidated enough to reduce cost, but not so compact that it started adding to cost again or adding other features as the Wondermega/X'Eye and CD-X did)

 

Playstation 3..if and only if its a backwards compatible system. Ps1 and Ps2 has enough games to support the compatibility....what maybe 3000 games made between the two consoles..?

Yeah, it would be nice, but it was costly to include hardware support and even then a bit problematic. (I have no idea why they dropped software patches/emulation for PS2 on the PS3 though)

 

Neither the PS2 nor PS3 were designed particularly efficiently for backwards compatibility from what I understand, but PS3 moreso (the R3000+RAM embedded in the PS2 was more practical than sticking the emotion engine in the PS3 -plus gettign that to work in conjunction with software emulation of PS1 components). I think the PS2 may have had the GPU designed to support PSX modes, but I'm not sure that they didn't just take up a chunk of the die with the PSX GPU logic. (that's what Sega did for SMS compatibility and stuck a Z80 on the board -and it did force compromises due to the space occupied on the VDP, possibly contributing to the color/palette limitations)

 

Backwards compatibility has rarely been a crucial issue anyway, more so on computer platforms, but that's a separate issue. Few, if any consoles were made or broken by lack of compatibility (even the 5200 had far greater problems than lack of compatibility in terms of hardware, but mostly management/marketing by Atari/Warner in general). I'd say compatibility was probably most important for the Game Boy line and 7800: both for the wide variety of still popular older titles and in the latter case general limitations of its own library. (2600 library supplemented it a LOT, plus the VCS was still getting new games -maybe even more than the 7800 as odd as that seems)

 

 

 

 

Obviously, the 5200 doesn't belong on this list. Yes, all things considered, the controller sucks, but I wouldn't characterize it as "weak". I've never found a broken one. It's unreliable and has extremely poor ergonomics, but the CV and INTV controllers are just as bad, if not worse.

I think the CV controllers are better in some circumstances and more reliable at least, but the 5200 definitely has advantages. (if the CV had outboard buttons and a stubby stalk like the 5200/Gemini/SG-1000 instead of the knob it would have been a lot better though)

The analog stick is not ideal in some cases and the lack of self centering is only advantageous in a handful of cases, but the only real issue is with dirty posts as it ages. (and that wouldn't have been a problem back when it was new)

 

The RCA Studio II, Channel F, Bally Astrocade, APF, or at least a half a dozen other consoles should be considered for this list before the 5200.

I think the Astrocade was quite good for the the time, and the others may not have been huge but there's other factors tied to the 5200.

The 5200 isn't bad because of the game library or hardware so much as how it related to Atari in general and that's mostly tied to the management problems/conflicts that dragged down the entire company.

It was expensive, it was being treated as a high-end console rather than the replacement for the VCS, with the VCS still getting the brunt of the support for software and marketing, etc. The lack of compatibility was mostly a problem in the context of the young market and the fact that the competitors had clones/adapters (especially coleco). Software/hardware issues were more tied into the management issues. (though replacing Super Break Out with Pac Man certainly was a good move)

 

It's a complex issue and a separate topic, but depending how you defined bad/worst/harmful it could qualify. (hell you could argue the Jaguar was more successful in some key aspect -not sales obviously, but again, a separate issue)

 

 

 

I confess I know nothing of 4 of the 5 consoles the op listed. That said, based on his review of the 5200, the thread should be titled "the 5 worst consoles I've never actually played". It's like he went with information he read off the web, and/or speculation, with some outright bs sprinkled in.

"Bigger than the xbox"? Um...yeah, people in 1982 were thinking to themselves "OMG...this thing is larger than a console that won't be on the market for another fifteen years!"

"the technologically superior Colecovsion" HUH? Um...in what way? Graphics? No...Sound? No...scrolling? No...But it was a smaller console. Maybe that's what he meant?

"he joystick did not automatically center itself and was so weak it often broke after only a short time" Ok, I'll give you that, if you are not very good at playing games the self centering issue was a problem. Breaking after a short time? Um....no.

 

I agree that the OP's reasoning is flawed, but I certainly think you could make a good argument for the 5200 being probmlematic, harmful, or a mistake.

Havign good games or being fun to play doesn't necessarily have anything to do with making a console bad or harmful to the company/market. (the 32x has quite a few fun games in spite of its short time on the market, but I'd certaily say it was bad and harmful to Sega due to the context it was intruduced -with so many platforms supported, one add-on already on the MD/Genesis, and the Saturn being released concurrently in Japan)

Actually, with both the 5200 and 32x, I think the problems are more sympomatic of the bigger management issues with Atari Inc and Sega than actually contributing to the problems. (not that they didn't make things worse in the way things worse though, but the reason they were problematic was pre-existing problems in a situation fueling itself)

 

As for the controllers, it seems like the fire buttons were the main issues with wearing out, and the rubber boot, but that wasn't integral to operation. (that doesn't change the fact that most games would have been equal or preferable with an 8-way digital joystick standard -and analog controller would have made a good accessory, for the VCS too for that matter)

Edited June 22, 2010 by kool kitty89

[Zap!]

Are the 32-X and N-Gage even universally considered consoles? Both are open to debate. I personally say one is an add-on, while the other is a hand-held, but that's just me.

[godslabrat]

Are the 32-X and N-Gage even universally considered consoles? Both are open to debate. I personally say one is an add-on, while the other is a hand-held, but that's just me.

 

I would say the 32X qualifies as a console in the context that its software is distinctive from that of the base unit and is unusable without the add-on. And yes, it is an add-on, but the Genesis+32X is a different beast than the Genesis alone. Unlike, for example, the PBC, which is not significantly different than having a SMS. As for the N-Gage... I've never seen the logic in discussing "consoles" and "portables" separately, so I have no problem including it. As far as I can tell, that distinction only becomes important when dealing with how the system was marketed.

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

NES IS FOR DOUCHEBAGS!

[Cebus Capucinis]

NES IS FOR DOUCHEBAGS!

 

+1

 

[The_Laird]

NES IS FOR DOUCHEBAGS!

 

+1

 

 

Agreed

[Underball]

your inclusion of the Atari Jaguar is almost certainly going to lure some of the neanderthals out of the Jag forum and in here to start a fight.

Hilarious. Everytime I go over there it feels like a cross between bad video games and 4chan.

[Chickybaby]

... And every time I read posts like the below it reminds me of why moderators dread some things and know unless one of them says something it creates a larger amt of trouble.

To be fair, There are "trolls" in every forum and everyone is entitled to their opinions whether the majority agrees or not. The key is to be respectful, not lump everyone together with insults, and many appreciate if there is a disagreement to use actual facts instead of name calling which is against forum policy.

You will find some very talented programmers as well as a lot of good info in the Jaguar section. If anyone has issues with non-mod members, there's a lovely "ignore" feature as well as a "report" option for posts.

 

I would appreciate not badmouthing anyone for liking a particular system in subsequent posts or those individuals may find at the very least their post disappears.

"Top" lists can be quite interesting with different perspectives. Thanks.

 

your inclusion of the Atari Jaguar is almost certainly going to lure some of the neanderthals out of the Jag forum and in here to start a fight.

Hilarious. Everytime I go over there it feels like a cross between bad video games and 4chan.

 

And no I don't appreciate being called a douchebag because my daughter and I enjoy playing the NES in jest or not. That just adds to a problem - don't like it fine but it goes against forum guidelines to Troll or Insult.

[Chris Leach]

Here is my top 100 hated consoles!

 

#100-#5 Microsoft Xbox 360...any version of the system they can pump out goes on this list...(seriously, 360 degrees is a circle. If there were enough people liking the 360, you would probably see a bunch of guys standing in a circle....doing what?)

"Mom...Dad...thank you for buying me a doorstop last christmas, for my birthday can you buy me another?"

#4 RCA Studio 2....sure it's got some cartridges, but are the games really playable?

Do you mean strictly in terms of the reliability issues?

I would agree from the standpoint that it really bit MS in the ass with that (it hurt sales for sure though it continues to sell in spite of that stigma, but it cost MS a ton in terms of repairs/replacement under warranty on a console they were already selling at a loss).

Of course, hated and worst are different things, just like favorite vs best vs greatest.

 

#3 Panasonic 3Do...do you really have any games that are 2 players and when you do have your friend over, do you really want them plugging their controller into your? I mean when they make their guy jump, they jump with the controller yanking yours from your sweaty hands? Annoying....

I don't see anything wrong with daisy chaining... It's different, but eliminates the cost of added ports on the console or the need for multitaps (the PCE/TG-16's single port with necessary multitap was a real issue though).

If you're sittign far away enough that you have the gontroller taught, your friend would be yanking the console around rather than your controller... and I'd rather not have an expensive peice of hardware yanked around...

The controller probably should have had more than 3 face buttons, but I suppose they wanted to look distinct from the SNES (though it made them look a bit like some 3rd party Genesis pads with added triggers), apparently the controllers also tended to have functionality issues. (some say loosening screws helps)

 

The main problem with the 3DO was market model, plain and simple. Trip Hawkins had a dream of such a semi-open licensed architecture multimedia player and games machine, I believe, but it fell flat in a market that wasn't friendly to such, especially with VCDs not catching on. Mainly just the market model though making it far too expensive on top of fairly costly hardware for 1993. (if they'd teamed up solely with Panasonic and went for a straight razor and blade model -or even past that as Sony did- with a slashed price a couple hundred dollars cheaper and saturated the market with ads it would have been a different story)

 

#2 Sega Dreamcast.....there is a limited amount of games for the console, and when I was buying the Sony Playstation, all my friends had the dreamcast. They played one game...Soul Calibur? What is that fighting system thingy doing...? I want to play A-Train!

OK that one really makes no sense to me... It had a lot of great titles (at least before cancellation and many being ported) and was a very good value for the time, very clean and efficient hardware, etc. Sega was in a bad position though with their troubled past and Sony breathing down their necks with the PSX in full force and the PS2 hyped to all hell just around the corner. (that and a few problems like the perceived piracy threat)

 

#1 Nintendo Wii...Seriously I hate the hype behind the Nintendo Wii...Give me my 1 game and my Joyboard....I can Play Mogul Maniac all day long....forget Wii sports

I agree that the control gimmicks are overused a bit like the DS, though some work well others are detrimental IMO and even the cases where it works well it would be really nice to at least have the option to use a gamepad (especially since the GC pad works rather well). Another frustrating thing is that games now which do have gamepad support are leaning to the Classic Controller only and leaving out the GC controller. (which is superior IMO and with the wavebird is truly wireless unlike the dongled classic controller)

 

That said the Wii has a lot of non-gimmicky titles (more than first party) that tend to get obscured by shovelware, and you can hardly fault Nintendo for doing something that obviously makes (or rather prints) money.

 

Neo Geo AES is amazing..you have to experience it and not just hte fighting games....

Yes and arcade board shoehorned into a home console case, a nice machine but never part of the mainstream compstition. (most successful as a rental and niche luxury item)

The Neo CD addressed much of that but came far too late. There may have been other options for a more competitive conversion to the home market for the Neo Geo (or some contemporary arcade boards for that matter), but that's another topic.

 

Atari 2600....never get old..theres more games for this system than you can collect in a life time...

True, but it's a matter of taste: I know several people who are into retro games but not from that era: maybe finding it fun every now and then but not for more than a few minutes.

I personally find many VCS games pretty addictive or quite fun with multiplayer.

 

JVC X-eye....not bad if you are a sega fan...you can play sega genesis and sega cd games...if you have the master system converter you can play maseter system games....

Actually it was spawned from the wondermega which was not a simple duo console like the counterparts for the PCE/TG-16 (turbo duo), but a high-end machine with added features and custom chips (namely audio oriented) as well as a slightly faster CD drive and standard AV+S-video jacks as well as full karaoke support.

So not so useful in the western markets, even in a cut-down form factor, but especially in the context of the CD-X/Multimega came out first and at a lower price in the west, was much smaller, and could be used as a portable CD player.

However, I think a cut-down, bare bones MD+CD unit would have been most useful; something significantly cheaper and more convenient than the 2 consoles cost when bought separately. (consolidated enough to reduce cost, but not so compact that it started adding to cost again or adding other features as the Wondermega/X'Eye and CD-X did)

 

Playstation 3..if and only if its a backwards compatible system. Ps1 and Ps2 has enough games to support the compatibility....what maybe 3000 games made between the two consoles..?

Yeah, it would be nice, but it was costly to include hardware support and even then a bit problematic. (I have no idea why they dropped software patches/emulation for PS2 on the PS3 though)

 

Neither the PS2 nor PS3 were designed particularly efficiently for backwards compatibility from what I understand, but PS3 moreso (the R3000+RAM embedded in the PS2 was more practical than sticking the emotion engine in the PS3 -plus gettign that to work in conjunction with software emulation of PS1 components). I think the PS2 may have had the GPU designed to support PSX modes, but I'm not sure that they didn't just take up a chunk of the die with the PSX GPU logic. (that's what Sega did for SMS compatibility and stuck a Z80 on the board -and it did force compromises due to the space occupied on the VDP, possibly contributing to the color/palette limitations)

 

Backwards compatibility has rarely been a crucial issue anyway, more so on computer platforms, but that's a separate issue. Few, if any consoles were made or broken by lack of compatibility (even the 5200 had far greater problems than lack of compatibility in terms of hardware, but mostly management/marketing by Atari/Warner in general). I'd say compatibility was probably most important for the Game Boy line and 7800: both for the wide variety of still popular older titles and in the latter case general limitations of its own library. (2600 library supplemented it a LOT, plus the VCS was still getting new games -maybe even more than the 7800 as odd as that seems)

 

 

 

 

Obviously, the 5200 doesn't belong on this list. Yes, all things considered, the controller sucks, but I wouldn't characterize it as "weak". I've never found a broken one. It's unreliable and has extremely poor ergonomics, but the CV and INTV controllers are just as bad, if not worse.

I think the CV controllers are better in some circumstances and more reliable at least, but the 5200 definitely has advantages. (if the CV had outboard buttons and a stubby stalk like the 5200/Gemini/SG-1000 instead of the knob it would have been a lot better though)

The analog stick is not ideal in some cases and the lack of self centering is only advantageous in a handful of cases, but the only real issue is with dirty posts as it ages. (and that wouldn't have been a problem back when it was new)

 

The RCA Studio II, Channel F, Bally Astrocade, APF, or at least a half a dozen other consoles should be considered for this list before the 5200.

I think the Astrocade was quite good for the the time, and the others may not have been huge but there's other factors tied to the 5200.

The 5200 isn't bad because of the game library or hardware so much as how it related to Atari in general and that's mostly tied to the management problems/conflicts that dragged down the entire company.

It was expensive, it was being treated as a high-end console rather than the replacement for the VCS, with the VCS still getting the brunt of the support for software and marketing, etc. The lack of compatibility was mostly a problem in the context of the young market and the fact that the competitors had clones/adapters (especially coleco). Software/hardware issues were more tied into the management issues. (though replacing Super Break Out with Pac Man certainly was a good move)

 

It's a complex issue and a separate topic, but depending how you defined bad/worst/harmful it could qualify. (hell you could argue the Jaguar was more successful in some key aspect -not sales obviously, but again, a separate issue)

 

 

 

I confess I know nothing of 4 of the 5 consoles the op listed. That said, based on his review of the 5200, the thread should be titled "the 5 worst consoles I've never actually played". It's like he went with information he read off the web, and/or speculation, with some outright bs sprinkled in.

"Bigger than the xbox"? Um...yeah, people in 1982 were thinking to themselves "OMG...this thing is larger than a console that won't be on the market for another fifteen years!"

"the technologically superior Colecovsion" HUH? Um...in what way? Graphics? No...Sound? No...scrolling? No...But it was a smaller console. Maybe that's what he meant?

"he joystick did not automatically center itself and was so weak it often broke after only a short time" Ok, I'll give you that, if you are not very good at playing games the self centering issue was a problem. Breaking after a short time? Um....no.

 

I agree that the OP's reasoning is flawed, but I certainly think you could make a good argument for the 5200 being probmlematic, harmful, or a mistake.

Havign good games or being fun to play doesn't necessarily have anything to do with making a console bad or harmful to the company/market. (the 32x has quite a few fun games in spite of its short time on the market, but I'd certaily say it was bad and harmful to Sega due to the context it was intruduced -with so many platforms supported, one add-on already on the MD/Genesis, and the Saturn being released concurrently in Japan)

Actually, with both the 5200 and 32x, I think the problems are more sympomatic of the bigger management issues with Atari Inc and Sega than actually contributing to the problems. (not that they didn't make things worse in the way things worse though, but the reason they were problematic was pre-existing problems in a situation fueling itself)

 

As for the controllers, it seems like the fire buttons were the main issues with wearing out, and the rubber boot, but that wasn't integral to operation. (that doesn't change the fact that most games would have been equal or preferable with an 8-way digital joystick standard -and analog controller would have made a good accessory, for the VCS too for that matter)

 

 

Seriously?

The thread was to post yours..not post something about everyone else's, mainly mine!

 

If you have something negative towards me say it using the pm function .....

[Chickybaby]

Yes if any members have issues with each other please take it to PM and not post further in this thread about that either. TY.

[Chris Leach]

Playstation 3..if and only if its a backwards compatible system.

 

Backwards compatibility has rarely been a crucial issue anyway, more so on computer platforms, but that's a separate issue.

 

Backwards compatibility is the sole reason to purchase a Ps3. you say

rarely been a crucial issue anyway, more so on computer platforms

 

The Ps3 is supposed to be backwards compatible!

You don't make a car and put seatbelts in, just to start production of the same car a couple months later saying

Seatbelts have rarley been a crucial issue anyway

 

It just doesn't happen.

 

Lets make ice cream and call it super vanilla. Take out the super and you just got vanilla...

 

If the playstation 3 were to have kept the compatibility, it would still be selling at a higher price, but you would be getting the Official Ps3...

 

It's like giving the Japanese the ps3 with the compatibilty and not giving the Americans the same thing.

[4Ks]

Playstation 3..if and only if its a backwards compatible system.

 

Backwards compatibility has rarely been a crucial issue anyway, more so on computer platforms, but that's a separate issue.

 

Backwards compatibility is the sole reason to purchase a Ps3. you say

rarely been a crucial issue anyway, more so on computer platforms

 

The Ps3 is supposed to be backwards compatible!

You don't make a car and put seatbelts in, just to start production of the same car a couple months later saying

Seatbelts have rarley been a crucial issue anyway

 

It just doesn't happen.

 

Lets make ice cream and call it super vanilla. Take out the super and you just got vanilla...

 

If the playstation 3 were to have kept the compatibility, it would still be selling at a higher price, but you would be getting the Official Ps3...

 

It's like giving the Japanese the ps3 with the compatibilty and not giving the Americans the same thing.

 

 

I do believe the 60G PS3 is backwards compatible with both previous systems.

[Chris Leach]

Playstation 3..if and only if its a backwards compatible system.

 

Backwards compatibility has rarely been a crucial issue anyway, more so on computer platforms, but that's a separate issue.

 

Backwards compatibility is the sole reason to purchase a Ps3. you say

rarely been a crucial issue anyway, more so on computer platforms

 

The Ps3 is supposed to be backwards compatible!

You don't make a car and put seatbelts in, just to start production of the same car a couple months later saying

Seatbelts have rarley been a crucial issue anyway

 

It just doesn't happen.

 

Lets make ice cream and call it super vanilla. Take out the super and you just got vanilla...

 

If the playstation 3 were to have kept the compatibility, it would still be selling at a higher price, but you would be getting the Official Ps3...

 

It's like giving the Japanese the ps3 with the compatibilty and not giving the Americans the same thing.

 

 

I do believe the 60G PS3 is backwards compatible with both previous systems.

 

 

The original 20GB and 60GB were compatible! And then came the 80GB with motorstorm and metal gear that play older genertions as well..

 

 

Great system, but not my fav 5!

[Vic George 2K3]

"NES is for douchebags" shows real maturity (sarcasm included).

[Cebus Capucinis]

"NES is for douchebags" shows real maturity (sarcasm included).

 

It's an inside joke.

[Chris Leach]

I thought we said no more name calling...

[kool kitty89]

Seriously?

The thread was to post yours..not post something about everyone else's, mainly mine!

 

If you have something negative towards me say it using the pm function .....

 

Umm, I was simply responding to the discussion with some respectful opinions and arguments of my own (as well as a few factual details). It wasn't meant as anything personal whatsoever and I'm sorry if it seemed such.

[Rev. Rob]

 

I think the Astrocade was quite good for the the time, and the others may not have been huge but there's other factors tied to the 5200.

 

Astrocade is quite simply an amazing console. Anyone who thinks otherwise has either never played it or is jealous because they can't win one on eBay.

[Underball]

... And every time I read posts like the below it reminds me of why moderators dread some things and know unless one of them says something it creates a larger amt of trouble.

To be fair, There are "trolls" in every forum and everyone is entitled to their opinions whether the majority agrees or not. The key is to be respectful, not lump everyone together with insults, and many appreciate if there is a disagreement to use actual facts instead of name calling which is against forum policy.

You will find some very talented programmers as well as a lot of good info in the Jaguar section. If anyone has issues with non-mod members, there's a lovely "ignore" feature as well as a "report" option for posts.

 

I would appreciate not badmouthing anyone for liking a particular system in subsequent posts or those individuals may find at the very least their post disappears.

"Top" lists can be quite interesting with different perspectives. Thanks.

 

your inclusion of the Atari Jaguar is almost certainly going to lure some of the neanderthals out of the Jag forum and in here to start a fight.

Hilarious. Everytime I go over there it feels like a cross between bad video games and 4chan.

 

And no I don't appreciate being called a douchebag because my daughter and I enjoy playing the NES in jest or not. That just adds to a problem - don't like it fine but it goes against forum guidelines to Troll or Insult.

 

I realize you're trying to get your message across to a number of people here but let me clarify a bit:

 

1. I didn't call anyone a douchebag.

 

2. My only point was that the Jag forum has more of a "wild, wild, west" feel to it, where lots more infighting, slagfests, and random attacks see to break out vs. most of the other forums here at atariage. It just seems to be a more sensitive area of the board.

[Christophero Sly]

Obviously, the 5200 doesn't belong on this list. Yes, all things considered, the controller sucks, but I wouldn't characterize it as "weak". I've never found a broken one. It's unreliable and has extremely poor ergonomics, but the CV and INTV controllers are just as bad, if not worse.

 

"Technologically superior Colecovision"--

 

The RCA Studio II, Channel F, Bally Astrocade, APF, or at least a half a dozen other consoles should be considered for this list before the 5200.

Interesting how the "top lists" are typically for systems post 2600 video game crash. Emerson Arcadiaand RCA Studio II while historically interesting were awful sellers and the games were bad too. To be fair the Channel F set many new standards -> cartridges, and is very historically significant in the infancy of video games systems. Might be unfair to consider old systems like that bad since companies were still trying to figure things out.

To be clear, I'm not necessarily suggesting that any of the consoles I listed are "bad". I'm only saying that I would place those consoles on a "worst ever" list before I considered the 5200 for a spot.

 

Obviously, the 5200 doesn't belong on this list. Yes, all things considered, the controller sucks, but I wouldn't characterize it as "weak". I've never found a broken one. It's unreliable and has extremely poor ergonomics, but the CV and INTV controllers are just as bad, if not worse.

I think the CV controllers are better in some circumstances and more reliable at least, but the 5200 definitely has advantages. (if the CV had outboard buttons and a stubby stalk like the 5200/Gemini/SG-1000 instead of the knob it would have been a lot better though)

The analog stick is not ideal in some cases and the lack of self centering is only advantageous in a handful of cases, but the only real issue is with dirty posts as it ages. (and that wouldn't have been a problem back when it was new)

Personally, I've refurbished as many CV controllers as 5200 controllers, but I'll concede that, all-in-all, the CV controllers are probably marginally more reliable. Ergonomically, I think they are quite a bit worse though.

 

The RCA Studio II, Channel F, Bally Astrocade, APF, or at least a half a dozen other consoles should be considered for this list before the 5200.

I think the Astrocade was quite good for the the time, and the others may not have been huge but there's other factors tied to the 5200.

The 5200 isn't bad because of the game library or hardware so much as how it related to Atari in general and that's mostly tied to the management problems/conflicts that dragged down the entire company.

It was expensive, it was being treated as a high-end console rather than the replacement for the VCS, with the VCS still getting the brunt of the support for software and marketing, etc. The lack of compatibility was mostly a problem in the context of the young market and the fact that the competitors had clones/adapters (especially coleco). Software/hardware issues were more tied into the management issues. (though replacing Super Break Out with Pac Man certainly was a good move)

 

It's a complex issue and a separate topic, but depending how you defined bad/worst/harmful it could qualify. (hell you could argue the Jaguar was more successful in some key aspect -not sales obviously, but again, a separate issue)

Again, I'm not necessarily knocking any of the consoles I listed. I wouldn't put the Channel F or Astrocade on a top-5 worst list either. I'm just saying that they would make my list before the 5200 would. The Jaguar, however...

[kool kitty89]

2. My only point was that the Jag forum has more of a "wild, wild, west" feel to it, where lots more infighting, slagfests, and random attacks see to break out vs. most of the other forums here at atariage. It just seems to be a more sensitive area of the board.

Hmm, the only thing really harsh there is when piracy comes up in discussion...

Otherwise you've got to remember the ST/Amiga/A8/C64 arguments. (even A8 or 7800 vs 5200 to some extent)

 

 

 

 

I think the Astrocade was quite good for the the time, and the others may not have been huge but there's other factors tied to the 5200.

 

Astrocade is quite simply an amazing console. Anyone who thinks otherwise has either never played it or is jealous because they can't win one on eBay.

Chock it all up to marketing then? (or lack of a sponsor big enough to provide funding to facilitate such marketing)

The rather simple bitmap display system probably would have facilitated backwards compatibility well had there been a successor. (it also facilitated upgrade to a computer -perhaps it could have made a good home computer had it been adapted as such early enough) The history of that console is a bit muddled in general with things going back and forth at Bally, but nevertheless, th emain reason seems to be simply that Bally didn't put the kind of weight behind it that Warner, Mattel, or Coloeco did. (or Magnavox for that matter)

Of the early consoles, it definitely would have been the most applicable for conversion into a home computer. (and it did support that to some degree, but it doesn't seem like that aspect was pushed so much and there was no standalone computer version released either CV was a bit later, but probably could have made a decent transition to a computer too, they hardly managed that with the Adam though)

 

 

 

To be clear, I'm not necessarily suggesting that any of the consoles I listed are "bad". I'm only saying that I would place those consoles on a "worst ever" list before I considered the 5200 for a spot.

 

Again, I'm not necessarily knocking any of the consoles I listed. I wouldn't put the Channel F or Astrocade on a top-5 worst list either. I'm just saying that they would make my list before the 5200 would. The Jaguar, however...

Yes, but as I already explained in the post you just quoted, the 5200 could fit better into the bad/worst category int he sense that it was both a symptom of the problems Atari Inc was experiencing and detrimental to the company. (in the way that it was marketed/managed in general and the form the hardware took to some extent -given the alternate options of adapting that same chipset)

 

Also, as I said already, one could argue the Jaguar belongs there less than the 5200, in the sense that it was successful in one critical area and had a net positive impact on Atari Corp. (it provided a source of revenue when the company was floundering and in debt, stabilized it enough to facilitate winning several quite profitable lawsuits, and put the Tramiels in the position to liquidate the company on such favorable terms as they did with JTS -they wouldn't have managed that if they tried to get out back in 1993)

Edited June 26, 2010 by kool kitty89

[Ze_ro]

It always amazes me when people make these "worst of" lists, and they list a bunch of consoles like Jaguar and 32X. If you do a little research, you'll find a whole bunch of systems that were FAR bigger failures. Hell, at least the Virtual Boy made it to market... some consoles didn't even that far! For example:

• Active Enterprises Action GameMaster - This was going to be a handheld system, and the plan was for add-ons to allow it to play NES, Genesis and SNES games (as well as others that did stuff like play CD's). Anyone with half a brain could look at this and know right away that this was never going to work. First of all, the design is a damn nightmare... it's difficult to tell the scale, but either this "handheld" is incredibly huge, or has a screen the size of a postage stamp. Also, the logistics of being able to play games for three completely different systems is just unworkable for a handheld. Remember the LaserActive? It was a Laserdisc player that you could buy expansions for that played Genesis and TG-16 games... except the expansions cost $600 each. Not to mention that powering all this hardware would be a nightmare, since it relied on 1993 technology (The Nomad had 2 extra years of tech at it's disposal and still barely manages to run on batteries). Since the only product this company had released before this was an unlicensed game (Action 52, which is another huge red flag), you can only assume that they planned to do all this without any help from Nintendo or Sega. Good luck there guys! Whoever ran this company was completely delusional if they thought any of this had any chance of working.
  
• Infinium Labs Phantom - The whole idea here was this was going to be based on PC hardware, and all the games would be delivered via digital distribution, so no discs. The upside of course is that you'd have a library of hundreds of games that could be made available at launch, which is nice and all... but what about new games? At no point do I ever recall any claims of games being made specifically for the Phantom, so you would have had to rely on PC games that Infinium managed to get running on the Phantom. Anyone who does any PC gaming knows how fast the industry moves, so how long do you think the Phantom would have remained viable before new PC games would have no chance of running on it? Maybe 6 months? And then what? Buy a new Phantom? This was obviously the main reason the Phantom never happened... Infinium took too long with it, and by the time they got near a finished product, it was already too far behind the curve and they had to redesign. It was an interesting concept, but with major flaws that a small, unknown company like Infinium really had no means of fixing. Also, lets take a look at the digital distribution thing. This thing was announced in 2002. Lets say we're really patient and don't mind waiting while our console downloads gigabytes worth of data for a game, judging from this info, I really doubt you'd see this machine with any more than a 40GB hard drive (sure, bigger ones were available, and since it was the heart of this whole idea, maybe they'd use a bigger one, but it gets a bit pricey, especially for a machine that absolutely had to have the most powerful hardware you could afford). By the end of that 6 month window of relevance, you'd be constantly deleting and re-downloading games.
  
• Indrema L600 - This was another PC-based machine, except it ran Linux. So you don't get any of the benefits of using established hardware, since it didn't use Windows, but you do get a machine that users can program themselves. I love the idea of an open-source system that anyone can write software for... but there was no real chance that any major companies were going to write software for it (even if only for fear of piracy from a community that expects most of their software to be free). Trying to sell the system on fan-made games alone would have been a pretty rough ride... their only real chance would have been to appeal to hobbyists, sort of like the XGameStation (I'd have included that one too, but the designers are well aware of it's niche market, and embraced the whole idea, so in that respect I suppose it has "succeeded").
  
• GamePark XGP - This gets a little confusing, so bear with me: GamePark is a Korean company that released a handheld called the GP32 back in late 2001. The machine was completely open source, and the main draw for fans of the system were emulators that were ported to it. GamePark released a few commercial games, but they managed to scrape by largely on the profit from sales of the system itself. Schisms within the company led to the creation of a different company called "GamePark Holdings" (again, bear with me). GPH went on to release the GP2X, which was even more successful than the GP32. GamePark themselves were planning on releasing a similar system called the "XGP", which was going to be slightly more powerful than the GP2X. Delays continued, and eventually they announced they were going to release not one, but THREE separate machines: The XGP, XGP Mini, and XGP Kids. The XGP and XGP Mini were mostly the same except for the screen (480x272 Widescreen on the XGP, 320x240 4:3 on the Mini). The XGP Kids was far less powerful (being based largely on the GP32 rather than the current design), though cheaper, and aimed at a younger audience who might not care about whiz-bang graphics. Eventually, the company stopped releasing information, time went on, and it was clear that the company had quietly gone out of business. There's no real smoking gun here as to why they failed (probably just not enough capital), but splintering their market and dividing with three different machines with different specifications would have pretty much doomed them, especially when GPH pretty much had the market cornered by that point.

So there are four machines that failed for very different reasons. You may think it's cheating to choose machines that never made it to market, but the fact is that if you're going to talk about game systems that failed, can you really say that N-Gage failed worse than any of these machines? At least the N-Gage made it to market, had 3rd party support, lots of hardware sold, and plenty of people knew about it.

 

--Zero

[Reaperman]

while I see the point in choosing systems that never made it to market, I can't say I agree with it.

 

those systems were indeed failures but they never 'damaged' the human race, how could they have? They never wasted my money, or wasted time while I played their rotten games. I'm also of the opinion that none of the oddball, non-mainstream systems belong on a list of the worst, simply because they didn't get into enough hands to ruin them.

 

'To be the worst,' there is an automatic requirement to 'be.'

Edited June 28, 2010 by Reaperman