Biggest failure of a console

[Astrocade]

The Konix Multisystem was such a failure that it didn't even come out.

The Pippin was a rare failure for Apple.

The 32X did little but piss off the populace.

The 5200 was Atari's first real misstep.

The Jaguar CD killed not only itself, but the Jaguar too.

The Phillips CDI was a massive failure for everyone involved.

With Nintendo it's a tie between the Famicom Disc Drive, the Virtual Boy, and the N64 CD add-on.

[todesengel]

With Nintendo it's a tie between the Famicom Disc Drive, the Virtual Boy, and the N64 CD add-on.

The FDS wasn't a failure, it sold quite well even though piracy became a problem with it. Also the N64 never had a CD add-on, your thinking of the 64DD which was a disk drive add-on like the FDS but used basically Zip disk's for software.

As for biggest failure of a console I'd say the Jaguar even though I do like the system. I think it was just too little too late for Atari at that point to make a comeback.

[Gavica]

easy, The Phantom

[tom]

a powercut

But seriously, compared to sales in Asia and USA, the NES was a huge failure in Europe, with only 1.5 mill units sold here by 1992 (source: Game Over)

[GarrettCRW]

With Nintendo it's a tie between the Famicom Disc Drive, the Virtual Boy, and the N64 CD add-on.

The Famicom Disk System was a modest financial success for Nintendo before piracy and things like battery-backed saves and 128K (and greater) games came out for the NES and Famicom. Also, a great deal of the more popular games started life on the FDS. Both NES Zeldas, Metroid, Castlevanias 1 and 2, SMB2j, Doki Doki Panic, the Lolo series, and Zanac all started out on the FDS.

[Arkhan]

I am going to have to go with the Jaguar and it's meager library, stupid controller, crapshit CD attachment, and cheesy marketing.

not to mention its pretend powerful hardware.

[buzz_n64]

70s
Fairchild F

80s
Microvision
Entrex Adventurevision

00's
Nokia N-Gage
Nuon

90s
Apple Pippin
Philips CD-i

[Bunnibear]

Did the Halcyon ever see widespread release? If I'm not mistaken there were only 2 games made for it I think that qualifies as a failure

[DOAsaturn]

Did the Halcyon ever see widespread release? If I'm not mistaken there were only 2 games made for it I think that qualifies as a failure

It also cost something like $3,000. Apparently it had voice recognition, but beyond "Yes" and "No", I'm not sure. Two games, yes, and one of them was NFL licensed. "Chargers vs. Raiders". Someone has it on ebay now for $500 I believe. It can be watched on a LD player, but you need the halcyon to "play" it. I wish someone had some video of it, I"m curious.

[Rob2600]

Nuon.

[DOAsaturn]

I figured there would be a lot of Jaguar responses. I wouldn't completely disagree, but for some reason I've grown to like the system and it's one of the retro consoles I enjoy the most these days. Something quirky about it, I guess. And Jaguar collectors have that Atari brand name working in their favor, it's likely fueled their desire for more games via indie development not to mention unfinished protos that have garnered indie releases as well. You don't really see that with something comparable like the 3DO.

Speaking of the 3DO, I would vote for either that or the CD-i. Because the CD-i wasn't trying to be just a game console (it wanted to spread the love of bad FMV to all forms of video entertainment), I'll go with 3DO. At least the Jaguar catalog isn't wrought with FMV all over the place. The 3DO was trying to be huge, the marketing campaign was much larger than the Jag's. The M2 was going to take 3DO to bigger heights. None of that happened and all of a sudden the 3DO was nowhere to be found. All old consoles have their followers as well, but I'd also argue the 3DO probably has the least collector support of the mainstream console releases in the last 25 years.