Worst selling consoles ever

[tom]

pre-NES:

Spectravideo Compumate turns VCS into a fully fledged computer. add-on or system?

Supercharger, add-on or system?


Adam turns the Colecovision into a fully fledged computer, add-on or system?

[General Catastrophe]

Since it has not been mentioned yet, the Memorex/Tandy VIS is certainly a contender for the list, to say the least.

Regarding above posts, there should be a distinction made between raw sales numbers and the cost of those sales. For example, the Neo Geo AES did not sell in large numbers, but it was never unprofitable for the company making it, as most units made DID sell. This is contrast to systems like the VIS, which barely sold more than a small percentage of the units produced and ended up costing its makers millions upon millions.

[sloan]

This thread and its add-on debate has gotten silly. Add-ons are not systems.

[retroman]

what about the good ol N-GAGE..

[A.C. Sativa]

Since it has not been mentioned yet, the Memorex/Tandy VIS is certainly a contender for the list, to say the least.

Regarding above posts, there should be a distinction made between raw sales numbers and the cost of those sales. For example, the Neo Geo AES did not sell in large numbers, but it was never unprofitable for the company making it, as most units made DID sell. This is contrast to systems like the VIS, which barely sold more than a small percentage of the units produced and ended up costing its makers millions upon millions.

I don't know how I forgot about this one, it's gotta be up (down?) there. I've seen in person a 3DO, CD-32, CD-I, Jag CD, TG-CD, Neo-Geo CD (I have one, no, it's not for sale, at least not right now), and pretty much every other post-1990 system besides the Pippin and A'Can, I've never seen a VIS, and never even heard of it until about 6 months ago. Also, and I should have said this to begin with, but I'm not including hand-held systems.

As for the add-on debate, do Kinect/PS move games require the add-on to play them, or can they still be played with a 360/PS3 controller? Either way, I don't consider them separate systems. The Sega/TurboGrafix/Jag CD, 32X, and the Famicom/N64DD are all separate pieces of hardware that require physically different software to make them run. As far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong here), Kinect/Move games will still load up rather or not you have the Kinect/Move. To me, that makes them peripherals, not add-ons or separate systems. That would be like saying the NES Zapper is a separate system because you need it to play Duck Hunt.

[tom]

Weird logic of yours, as I mentioned before, than the Atari 800 is three different systems depending of their storage device: cassette, floppy disk or cartridge.

Just because the storage medium is different for said system, that doesn't make it a second system.

I got a PC with a floppy disk add-on, a CD add-on, a tape drive add-on, a USB add-on, a Zip drive add-on, a SD add-on, a DVD add-on.........all different types of media for one SYSTEM

[A.C. Sativa]

Weird logic of yours, as I mentioned before, than the Atari 800 are three different systems depending of their storage device: cassette, floppy disk or cartridge.
Same with Famicom, you can load games from cart, disk or tape.
Just because the storage medium is different for said system, that doesn't make it a second system.

Have to take your word for it on the 800, that's a bit before my time. As for the Famicom, I was under the impression that the regular Famicom and the Famicom DD had separate games, or at least did before the Famicom DD got scrapped and those games got ported to the regular Famicom. Not sure, I'm not Japanese. Either way, this is all irrelevant with respect to the other systems I mentioned.

Also, the Famicom could play games on tape too? Never heard that. Did it work like the Starpath Supercharger?

[tom]

No excuse. J S Bach was a bit before my time, but I know and love all about his music.

[tom]

one console (incl CPU, OS etc...one add-on (storage media), nothing more

[tom]

Here you have 1 system turning into a second system:
ColecoVision and Expansion modules #1 (turns Coleco into Atari VCS):


Laseractive and add-on modules (turns Laseractive into Genesis or TurboGrafx):


3DO Blaster add-on turns a PC into a 3DO:


Best of all:
2 systems from start (can be booted independently one or the other):
Sega TeraDrive, an IBM computer and MegaDrive console, both CPUs included):



Laseractive and TeraDrive are also worst sellers

[SparTonberry]

Have to take your word for it on the 800, that's a bit before my time. As for the Famicom, I was under the impression that the regular Famicom and the Famicom DD had separate games, or at least did before the Famicom DD got scrapped and those games got ported to the regular Famicom. Not sure, I'm not Japanese. Either way, this is all irrelevant with respect to the other systems I mentioned.

Also, the Famicom could play games on tape too?

The tape unit was only used as a save storage device. It was intended to be used only to store user-made games made with Family BASIC, but the "Programmable Series" games also supported it for storing save data before battery backup became commonplace (Excitebike, Mach Rider and Wrecking Crew).

[Zap!]

The RDI Halcyon takes the cake. I believe sales are in the double digits.

[goatdan]

I swear we had this same conversation on these boards like two months ago. There was a debate over released and test marketed and stuff like that.

I personally believe that the Super A'Can is the winner if you are looking for systems that were actually released and marketed. It's tough though - the distinction between what was actually released and what wasn't can put some games where there was extremely low sales into question too.

As for this whole strange Jaguar CD system versus add on question, there are a couple ways to look at it. Without diving too deep into it, I'll just say that I think it's totally fair to count it as a separate system as the games were marketed as Jaguar CD games, not Jaguar games to play on the CD add-on (same with TGCD and Sega CD games), but I tend to think of the actual system as an add-on.

For instance, you could say you have a complete Genesis collection and I wouldn't assume you had all the CD or 32X titles, but at the same time I don't think you'd have a complete 32X collection and not have a Genesis.

Maybe that just muddied the issue more, but yeah - to me, you can count them as both and they are fair game for this argument completely. But, as someone else said, you'd have to combine Sega CD 1, 2 and CDX sales together to get the true number of Sega CDs sold.

[A.C. Sativa]

The RDI Halcyon takes the cake. I believe sales are in the double digits.

I've heard conflicting reports as to whether the Halcyon was ever released to the public. I know they made a handful to show to the company's investors. Supposedly they had a few on sale in L.A. or San Francisco or something, but I've never been able to confirm this. Even calling the 2 discs that were available for it "video games" might be a stretch, they're more going through the menu on a DVD. Choose option 1 or 2, watch some video, choose option 1 or 2, watch some more video, repeat... Not really interactive.

Either way, it's gotta be the hardest complete system to find nowadays, I think there's only 2 or 3 out there.

[tom]

Worst sellers:

Memorex VIS
Mattel HyperScan

[goatdan]

I've heard conflicting reports as to whether the Halcyon was ever released to the public. I know they made a handful to show to the company's investors. Supposedly they had a few on sale in L.A. or San Francisco or something, but I've never been able to confirm this.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that is what was decided about that system. There is no proof it was ever released, and at best the thought is that it may have been test marketed at one or two single locations, in extremely small numbers, for an extremely short time. I'd argue that a system that only makes it to test market isn't really released, and I think that an argument could be made that this wasn't even truly a test marketing campaign, but more of a single store test.

I doubt we'll ever know that story one way or the other though, but I'm inclined to say it the ones that are out there are really prototype hardware.

[Jorpho]

Let's not forget the Nuon! That counts, right?

[A Black Falcon]

Let's not forget the Nuon! That counts, right?

I bet a fair number of the DVD players sold, though. It's the games, controllers, etc. that didn't at all. Most people with Nuons probably didn't even know they had one.

[Haoie]

A few more obscure ones...

Gamate
Super A'Can
Romtec Colorvision
Entex Adventure Vision

Wow, I had a Gamate!

I think it was only released in Taiwan?

[tom]

And UK