Biggest failure of a console

[tom]

No foreign console fared well in Japan, not even the Xbox.

[dgdgagdae]

Not only did the 2800 (which was nothing more than a rebranded 2600) do poorly, but it got fucking crushed by the Famicom due to the fact that Atari released the 2800 in the fall of 1983 instead of 1978 or 1981.

There are two great write ups on the utter disaster that was Atari's belated attempt to corner the Japanese home console market.

One is from US gamer:
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/why-did-atari-fail-in-japan

The other is from a slightly more Japanese perspective :
http://www.wired.com/2010/04/akihabara-2/

Thanks for that, bookmarked both to read later.

I was excited when I saw this thread. Wow, is DP bringing in traffic again? 5 pages to this thread since June, that's unusual! Oh. June of 2010. Never mind.

[SparTonberry]

No foreign console fared well in Japan, not even the Xbox.

And somehow the 360 did even WORSE despite trying to cater to them with JRPGs and danmaku shooters.
(I know for the former, Microsoft bought timed exclusivity from devs, which had the unintended effect of giving devs more time to work on rival, usually PS3, versions.)

[ColecoFan1981]

Atari's biggest failure of the 1980s, besides the E.T. cartridge for the 2600, was perhaps their 1200XL computer.

~Ben

[tom]

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was a million-seller, not really a failure. Not bad for video game written in a short time. But, it was a difficult game.

And now, due to the documentary Atari Game Over, E.T. is the most famous video game in history and in museums all over the world. Not bad really.

[Niku-Sama]

has any one mentioned the tiger game.com yet?

just sayin

[tom]

True, but it's nice to have the complete collection

http://www.videogamecollectors.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=453870&g2_serialNumber=2

[AdamAnt316]

Atari's biggest failure of the 1980s, besides the E.T. cartridge for the 2600, was perhaps their 1200XL computer.

~Ben

This thread is about consoles, but you're probably right. Atari intended the 1200XL as a follow-up to the popular but expensive-to-build 400 and 800 computers. They cheapened the design, and limited its expandability. Potential customers were unimpressed, particularly since computers like the Commodore 64 could be purchased for a fair bit less by the time it was released. After a few months, Atari decided to cut their losses and focus on machines like the 600XL and 800XL which had similar specs but a lower price, and more ports for expansion purposes. I have a 1200XL which is still in its original box; whoever originally bought it apparently paid $199 for it, less than a quarter of the original retail price of $899.
-Adam

[SparTonberry]

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was a million-seller, not really a failure. Not bad for video game written in a short time. But, it was a difficult game.

And now, due to the documentary Atari Game Over, E.T. is the most famous video game in history and in museums all over the world. Not bad really.

Only really a failure if it didn't meet Atari's, perhaps unrealistically, high sales expectations. (I've heard the figure of millions of copies of E.T. and Pac-Man thrown in the dump may have been exaggeration. But if they did expect Pac-Man to sell to 120% of console owners, that would have been just insane.

And yet after dumping E.T.s in 1983... apparently they still made more after that. As I've seen on another forum, a guy collecting E.T.s for whatever reason, and he has some copies dated 1986.)

[tom]

Well, yes, you're right, there were never millions of ET carts dumped, it was just a part of Atari stock, incl. hardware and software. Apparently, it's common practise for companies to 'just bury things'.
But, of course, this was nice folklore.

As for ETs stock under Tramiel, he was just selling off old Atari Inc. software (and hardware) at the cheapest price. It was just new labeling.

http://www.atarimania.com/2600/boxes/hi_res/et_silver_1986_cart.jpg

[Niku-Sama]

yea I never understood that, well the whole thing really.
folk lore? there were eye witness accounts as well as news and newspaper runs of the story so they knew it was in there.

as for dumping it vs relabeling I figure if you sold it, even if it was pennies on the dollar it would have been less of a loss than just literally dumping it

[tom]

Folklore was the millions of ET carts, maybe a few thousand, but never millions.

[tom]

Back to failures, this one:

http://www.videogamecollectors.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=201182&g2_serialNumber=3

[SparTonberry]

Definitely Nintendo's worst selling product that can be classified as a console.
Probably because it was way overpriced for what it was. If I recall, prices weren't that far off from the GBA (which was out at the same time), and yet the games were like TI calculator quality.

[BlastProcessing402]

Lost potential is a worse failure than something like the Virtual Boy that was DOA, IMO.

So I'd say the Dreamcast. Good system, good launch, terrible far too premature end due to terrible company management. It could have, SHOULD HAVE, been so much more.