10 Unreleased Video Game Consoles (PCMag)

[RCM]

I haven't skimmed this yet, but imagine fellow DPers will get a kick out of it.

"It's been almost four decades now since the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, made waves in electronic entertainment. With such a long and varied history of video game systems behind us, it should be no surprise that more than a few consoles were planned but never made it to market.

With history as our guide, let's dig through the annals of long lost hardware to find 10 such gaming machines that never graced store shelves anywhere. Their stories serve as powerful cautionary tales that, if heeded, should serve to prevent the same mistakes from being made in the future. And they're loads of fun to gawk at too."

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/264435/10-unreleased-video-game-consoles

[Steve W]

So many memories of waiting for consoles that never arrived. Sigh.

No matter what anyone thinks about the Atari Jaguar, you have to admit that the Jaguar Duo was a sweet console design.

The Konix Multi-System was a pretty promising chunk of technology. They were really thinking outside the proverbial box when they worked on that. Good hardware, and good early developers. But the owner of Konix wanted to keep it British, he didn't want the Americans to finance him (LucasArts was thinking about buying it). Japan is known for making weird games, but Britain made weird and more importantly fun games (just read any Retro Gamer magazine for proof). I can imagine it would have a fantastic library if it had come out and been a hit.

I can't imagine the Atari Cosmos ever being a big seller. All the games were built into the unit, you just switched out the holographic background. A small grid of red LEDs just doesn't give you much to work with for game design. This one would have flopped I think.



Which consoles do you think should have been added to this list? The Indrema is one that I don't think too many people noticed or cared about when it faded away. It was a Linux based machine, open source if I remember correctly. The problem was they attempted to get funding and release during the dot.com bust and the launches of the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube. They never stood a chance.

[Oldskool]

Nice list. The ones that I would have liked to see the most was the Neptune and the M2.

I have actually seen this at last years CGE2010. It was not a working prototype though, more of a clay model of sorts. Looked pretty real though.
http://common1.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/25/0,1425,i=258420&sz=1,00.jpg

[Tupin]

The M2, Konix, and the Wow-Wow are the ones I wish were released. I've read about the Konix and thought it was weird that the main controllers were racing style. How strong was the thing, exactly?

Infinium Labs sure did know how to waste money. So did Indrema. And Gizmondo, but that's another story.

"Finish the product before you talk about it."- The CEO of Indrema, adding that he would have needed $10 million to release the L600.

[PapaStu]

Nice list. The ones that I would have liked to see the most was the Neptune and the M2.

I have actually seen this at last years CGE2010. It was not a working prototype though, more of a clay model of sorts. Looked pretty real though.
http://common1.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/25/0,1425,i=258420&sz=1,00.jpg

Incorrect. There is no clay involved. It is a shell that has a huge lack of functioning guts inside (I believe there is wood inside)

[Baloo]

Interesting article! I had no idea about the Atari Jaguar Duo. Most of those consoles looked like horrifically bad ideas though, especially the Konix. The WoWoW by Taito looked like an interesting console idea though.

[swlovinist]

Sweet article, thanks for sharing.

[Steve W]

Retro Gamer Magazine, back in the days where they had cover discs, had a bunch of archived videos of the assorted graphics demos they were creating for it, along with the full games. It was a pretty strong machine. And the steering wheel/flight yoke/handlebars weren't the only form of control for the games, they had a joystick port (since the company's main gig was making video game and computer controllers). Think about how popular racing games became on the Playstation once the game consoles became capable of reproducing it accurately. The Konix was pretty powerful, it wasn't able to throw around texture maps or anything but it could do racing games justice I'd wager. Given the chance, it would have popularized the racing sim genre years earlier.

[QuickSciFi]

Incorrect. There is no clay involved. It is a shell that has a huge lack of functioning guts inside (I believe there is wood inside)

No wood. Just a plastic shell.

[Edmond Dantes]

I would probably have bought a Neptune or a Jaguar Duo, the former depending on whether or not you could hook a Sega CD up to it. That successor to the 3DO sounds kinda interesting too.

The rest, however, sound like truckloads of fail.

[Belmont008]

I wonder how the neptune would have attached to the sega cd, would have had to in order to play sega 32x/cd games.