What was the worst system ever made?

[zzip]

51 minutes ago, CatPix said:

I mean, is really this worse than the Atari version on every level? 

I'd say it's better-  at least it looks like Pac-man

[roots.genoa]

3 hours ago, famicommander said:

ZX Spectrum all day every day. I know it's technically a computer but that thing is a war crime against the eyes and the ears. Makes the most primitive, flicker-heavy 2600 games seem like beautiful Neo Geo sprite work.

I have no nostalgia for the ZX Spectrum since I never got one as a kid (and still don't own one) but I love its (minimalist) graphics and sound. I can't explain why though, I just do. ?

[GameGirl420]

Imo worst console is the Super Console X Pro lol..Interesting but poorly designed cheap Chinese plasticky  thing. 

[CatPix]

3 hours ago, famicommander said:

That looks like a power point presentation with a soundtrack played through a digital watch. ZX Spectrum games in motion look horrible. I feel like I'm having a stroke just watching it. And let's not forget the Spectrum came out in 1982 versus 1977 for the 2600. While Europe was just getting the Spectrum the US was getting the Coleco Vision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex and Japan was just a year away from the Famicom.

And let's not forget the ZX Spectrum was sold for cheaper than any of those systems in Europe as well. You had what you paid for. And well I guess it's personnal but I prefer a choppy but clean deisign that the flickering mess with equally ear grating noise hellfest that were most Atari 2600 games.

And yesI love the 2600, I have the Encore cart and I will fire the 2600 every now and then.

But I guess this come come to a preference in what is more pleasing to the eye.

[+Stephen]

5 minutes ago, CatPix said:

ear grating noise hellfest

That's the best description of everything I have heard from the Spectrum.  Is there anything on the system (even a demo, not a game) that doesn't sound like a 1-bit buzzer / clicker?  Most farts are more musical.

[+Charlie Cat]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

I have no nostalgia for the ZX Spectrum since I never got one as a kid (and still don't own one) but I love its (minimalist) graphics and sound. I can't explain why though, I just do. ?

Same here roots. I never had a ZX Spectrum as a kid. But I did purchase one as I became older to add to the collection.  

 

One day I was at a gaming convention and was passing along a booth with a gamer playing Chase H.Q. The port he was playing on I never seen before. When I was talking to him after he finished playing, he said it was for the ZX Spectrum. I personally never heard it before at that time. After visiting YouTube to see some of the games that were available for the unit, it convinced me to buy one off Ebay.

 

Chase H.Q. was the first game I purchased since it was the title that captured my attention on the Speccy that day at the convention. 

 

 

 

Anthony...

 

[Trebor]

Milton Bradley's Microvision.  Although I have fond memories of it, the very small unreliable LCD screen, other hardware issues, and only about a dozen titles, make it a strong contender for worst system ever made.

[+jgkspsx]

10 hours ago, Trebor said:

Milton Bradley's Microvision.  Although I have fond memories of it, the very small unreliable LCD screen, other hardware issues, and only about a dozen titles, make it a strong contender for worst system ever made.

I mean, many of the screens lasted for forty years. That’s twice as long as the capacitors in most Game Gears. The screen is twice the size of the Game Boy Micro’s, and a lot of people love that.

 

Plus it has a unique feature in a handheld: a paddle. About half the library is excellent - Block Buster, Pinball (with the right settings), Sea Duel, Alien Raiders, Cosmic Hunter, and Super Blockbuster - and are not playable any other way, since the simulator/emulator sucks. The other half ranges from very good to decent, though Vegas Slots is only fun in the two player mode. Bowling is boring to me, but many other people seem to like it.

 

The Vectrex had a similarly small library and I think it would rank highly in many people’s lists of their favorite consoles.

[youxia]

16 hours ago, famicommander said:

ZX Spectrum all day every day. I know it's technically a computer but that thing is a war crime against the eyes and the ears. Makes the most primitive, flicker-heavy 2600 games seem like beautiful Neo Geo sprite work.

Haha, I knew there will be at least one anti-ZX edgelord take in this thread, it was a given.

 

Please let me know when Atari 2600 (great machine, btw) gets some games looking like Renegade, Knight Lore, R-Type, Dan Dare or Bomb Jack. That's not even mentioning modern productions, which often pull some impossible technical stunts, and a truckload of groundbreaking, complex games such as Skool Daze, Lords Of Midnight and Laser Squad (which I'll take any day over the handful of decent arcade games on 5200 or Coleco. Hell, I'd pass even on NES for these). 

 

Spectrum had the weakest hardware of its contemporaries but that has stimulated the devs to push the boundaries, think out of the box, and come out with some incredible stuff. Also, the games might often lack sound or don't look look like much, but are much more playable and fun than on the stronger platforms.

 

Which is probably why the thing sold +5 mil units, kickstarted the UK's industry, launched innumerable careers (ask Rare and CD Projekt people, for example) and is revered throughout the Europe. Atari 5200, on the other hand? ?

[roots.genoa]

Anyway, based on the commercial success alone (which may not feel relevant to most of us but is at least an objective criteria), the Aquarius might indeed be one of the worst systems since it only lasted a few months. That may even be a record, I don't know.

[GameGirl420]

I'm not kidding about Super Console X being sucky btw...I have a friend who,after 3 months of owning the console,the thing broke on her. After just connecting a USB keyboard,it malfunctioned,and now it's stuck on a black screen. That doesn't equate to a great gaming experience!! I mean cool concept,but what a janky piece of crap that console is. Plus it emulates Atari 800 rather poorly,and many missing games. 

 

I didn't like CDi also when I tried it,it's like the console your parents designed for you because they hate games. I might try it again because I like trying out bad consoles,it's funny.

[Steven Pendleton]

7 minutes ago, lushgirl_80 said:

I didn't like CDi also when I tried it,it's like the console your parents designed for you because they hate games.

 

[+jgkspsx]

The Virtual Boy only lasted five months in Japan. Less than a year in the US.

 

The Casio PV-1000 and PV-2000 (which had controller compatibility but not game compatibility) each lasted less than a year and had fewer than 10 releases. Casio also released two MSX computers the same year. They are strong contenders for worst systems but at least the PV-1000’s thirteen games and the PV-2000’s ten games are almost all good or great, with a few fun-looking exclusives.

[Cebus Capucinis]

I feel like some criteria would need to be defined before making a solid answer. Are we counting knockoffs and bootlegs? Only major manufacturers? Do computers count, or is just consoles the name of the game?

 

If it includes everything, I'd say the bootleg stuff Stuart Ashens reviews comes close to an easy win for worst.

 

If it's just major manufacturers, and excluding computers, I think the RCA Studio 2 takes the cake.

 

If it includes computers, I'd say some of the more obscure ones in this thread would win.

[+pboland]

My vote for worst system is: XaviXPort:

 

 

I remember this was pushed hard for about one year as a competitor to the Wii. I'm actually surprised no one has mentioned it yet.

[Austin]

20 minutes ago, pboland said:

My vote for worst system is: XaviXPort:

 

 

I remember this was pushed hard for about one year as a competitor to the Wii. I'm actually surprised no one has mentioned it yet.

That was the one that basically only used motion controls, right? Primarily for sports games? I remember that being around when it was new. Never heard anyone talk about it. It seems like it was pretty limited in scope.

[Reaperman]

My vote for worst is the Visteon GBA--while it was my 'holy grail' of collecting, it really is a useless and terrible system.

When they looked for a game system to put in a car, why did they choose GBA?--which was already way more portable, everybody had at least two at the time, and didn't have to deal with IR remote controllers. (not to mention DS had been out for a year and a half) It's neat to own such a thing, but wow, does it ever not need to exist. As useless as the 'Car Marty' was, this manages to some how top it. At least the games were good...

 

 

51 minutes ago, pboland said:

My vote for worst system is: XaviXPort:

XaviXport was at least a really neat idea, though. The game carts contained the systems running them--in theory like an arcade JAMMA board, but in practice more like a trash plug-and-play famiclone. The part that's cool is that it could have been a system that, would probably always be a generation behind, but wouldn't need to ever go more obsolete than that thanks to carts maybe running whatever the budget cell android/phone SOC of the day is. think it was let down by those motion controls and sports theme--not to mention its analog video jacks were rapidly going out of style. Even if it never went full modern, I do wish it would have partnered with the tv-game-makers of the day for carts with real games on them.

 

It hurts that such a neat system makes a list like this, but it truly did earn it.

 

  

On 5/1/2022 at 2:14 PM, atari2600land said:

You people are forgetting one thing:
ActionMax.

That's another great option for worst. I had an idea once, that action max could, in theory, become the earliest full-hd game console (or even 4k/8k/12k, etc), since it had a sensor stuck to the screen it compared to, HD latency shouldn't be an issue. (even did a video on how to do it, and my hello world demo) --I eventually wanted to use dvd/blu-ray menu features to give it choose-your-own-adventure branching paths, or "port" Virtua Cop to it.

 

The reason I didn't, and lost all motivation is...It's just Action Max--so it's really not worth the time, is it?  

 

 

Edited May 7, 2022 by Reaperman

[famicommander]

7 hours ago, youxia said:

Haha, I knew there will be at least one anti-ZX edgelord take in this thread, it was a given.

 

Please let me know when Atari 2600 (great machine, btw) gets some games looking like Renegade, Knight Lore, R-Type, Dan Dare or Bomb Jack. That's not even mentioning modern productions, which often pull some impossible technical stunts, and a truckload of groundbreaking, complex games such as Skool Daze, Lords Of Midnight and Laser Squad (which I'll take any day over the handful of decent arcade games on 5200 or Coleco. Hell, I'd pass even on NES for these). 

 

Spectrum had the weakest hardware of its contemporaries but that has stimulated the devs to push the boundaries, think out of the box, and come out with some incredible stuff. Also, the games might often lack sound or don't look look like much, but are much more playable and fun than on the stronger platforms.

 

Which is probably why the thing sold +5 mil units, kickstarted the UK's industry, launched innumerable careers (ask Rare and CD Projekt people, for example) and is revered throughout the Europe. Atari 5200, on the other hand? ?

There's always a Spectrum fan that can't handle people telling the truth about the system, so desperate to justify their love for something terrible that they lash out at anyone who sees it for what it is. I'm sorry for the trauma the Spectrum inflicted upon you; it's okay, it can't hurt you anymore. All you can do now is try to live.

[Austin]

10 minutes ago, Reaperman said:

As useless as the 'Car Marty' was, this manages to some how top it. At least the games were good...

To be fair to the Car Marty, its primary use was to provide map systems and link with GPS, not play games. That later part was just a side benefit, considering it was just a Marty in a smaller form factor.

[Cobra Kai]

All I can add is the worst stuff I've ever personally played are the Game.Com and N-Gage. Game.com was pure eye torture

 

[Reaperman]

It's got a yin yang instead of a d-pad!  Meaning even my Game Wizard collection kicks this thing flat.

 

I present the Ex-Game:

[+jgkspsx]

17 minutes ago, Reaperman said:

It's got a yin yang instead of a d-pad!  Meaning even my Game Wizard collection kicks this thing flat.

 

I present the Ex-Game:

That looks very ex. I take it every game is the same? At least the dodge games work well on segmented LCD.

[Keatah]

A hot'n'heavy, underpowered, 90's beigebox PC, running Emulator X version 0.01 to play that obscure bootleg game!

 

Thankfully two'na'haff decades later we've got sophisticated & powerful single-chip STB PCs running emulators an 80's kid would die for.

 

[Koopa64]

19 hours ago, youxia said:

Haha, I knew there will be at least one anti-ZX edgelord take in this thread, it was a given.

 

Please let me know when Atari 2600 (great machine, btw) gets some games looking like Renegade, Knight Lore, R-Type, Dan Dare or Bomb Jack. That's not even mentioning modern productions, which often pull some impossible technical stunts, and a truckload of groundbreaking, complex games such as Skool Daze, Lords Of Midnight and Laser Squad (which I'll take any day over the handful of decent arcade games on 5200 or Coleco. Hell, I'd pass even on NES for these). 

 

Spectrum had the weakest hardware of its contemporaries but that has stimulated the devs to push the boundaries, think out of the box, and come out with some incredible stuff. Also, the games might often lack sound or don't look look like much, but are much more playable and fun than on the stronger platforms.

 

Which is probably why the thing sold +5 mil units, kickstarted the UK's industry, launched innumerable careers (ask Rare and CD Projekt people, for example) and is revered throughout the Europe. Atari 5200, on the other hand? ?

 

I've never played a ZX Spectrum, but I've seen tons of videos of its BASIC and many games. However, I have played a ton of Atari 2600. Just going by games and specifications, I can confidently say the ZX Spectrum looks better overall. I mean, is it really even a fair comparison when most ZX Spectrums had 48K RAM and the Atari 2600 had 128 bytes of RAM and at most a 4K ROM cartridge, without bank switching? A more even comparison would be the ZX81 with 1K RAM and monochrome graphics.

 

I've come to realize that, I think the ZX80 / 81 / Spectrum could definitely be thought of as the British Atari 2600. How? Well, the Sinclair ZX systems were super cost competitive (like the 2600 in its later years) and had massive sales so everyone had one. Like the 2600, the Sinclairs are very limited compared to other competing systems. However, the Sinclairs were better because they had a keyboard, had BASIC, could be programmed in machine language and ultimately were a coding teaching tool as much as a games console. In the UK, bedroom coding was huge. The 2600 was only a game console, you couldn't really learn to code on it.

 

(yes I know there was the Basic Programming cartridge but that was too limited to be useful, same for the CompuMate keyboard add-on)

[Cebus Capucinis]

7 hours ago, Reaperman said:

It's got a yin yang instead of a d-pad!  Meaning even my Game Wizard collection kicks this thing flat.

 

I present the Ex-Game:

Yeah but it has Sliding Boat, easily the killer app that sold the system. What a game!