Video game systems that were DOOMED from the start?

[Steve W]

You also have to take into account that SNK was spiraling down the financial drain during the NGPC's run. They went bankrupt fairly soon after putting it out. Then everything got pulled off the shelves and sent back to the manufacturer, no clearance prices at the stores that carried it (at least at the Fry's Electronics where I bought mine). It was great that a couple years later you could pick up multipacks of games as the purchaser of SNK wanted to cheaply clear out its backstock. I regret that I didn't pick up enough titles for it at the time.

[celerystalker]

Funny story from that time-
A local store owner who's since closed up shop got a tip from a distributor about SNKUSA having leftover stock as they were getting ready to close up. He called their office to talk about purchasing what he could. He talked to the guy for awhile and arranged a nice purchase of a bunch of NGPC carts and a few AES carts, and toward the end as he's arranging contact info, he finds out that he was talking to the president of SNKUSA. He was just about the last employee there as they were shutting down apparently, and was answering the phones himself.

Just thought it was interesting, and I remember having a good laugh at the time when he told me about it. I also got a bunch of great-priced brand new NGPC and AES games from him once they came in. Just a funny snapshot of SNK's last days.

[Tanooki]

That's so sad but also cool he could buddy up with the head of that dying company and work a deal too. I regret not buying those blister packs of the games about 10 years back or even 5 years back when they were stupid cheap on ebay as no one wanted the junk. When it comes to handheld games with reusable boxes (like Genesis did from Sega) I tend to be a box snob and want it complete so I blew the stuff off because the boxed games weren't much more worth than the bundles given the games I'd want and would end up stuck with getting a package deal. Sucks eh? :P When I did have it, I never had Ogre Battle as it wasn't in english, but I did have Biomotor Unitron and it was amazing, couldn't put that game down at all and now the scalper nuts have got that one jacked up for some time now which is sad. I just remember Faselei and Last Blade were cheap in Japanese and expensive enough as a full CIB US game for those UK carts just loose so I ignored the first and got a Japanese LB cart instead. It was more or less all in kata/hiragana so I could muddle through it with my Japanese enough back then to read it or get the intent so I did not care.

I won't buy it, but I'm quite tempted to fire up ebay and see what this stuff rolls for nowadays.

I remember owning Samurai Shodown, Neo Turf Masters, SNK vs Capcom, Magical Drop, Puzzle Link, both Metal Slugs, Biomotor Unitron, Sonic, Pac-Man, and a few others. I tried to keep variety so it wasn't just a pile of fighting games.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

I agree with the Game.com. This thing was a Game Boy competitor, but had terrible quality games and graphics.

[SparTonberry]

The advertising didn't help. "It plays more games than you MORONS have brain cells!"

[Gamevet]

You also have to take into account that SNK was spiraling down the financial drain during the NGPC's run. They went bankrupt fairly soon after putting it out. Then everything got pulled off the shelves and sent back to the manufacturer, no clearance prices at the stores that carried it (at least at the Fry's Electronics where I bought mine). It was great that a couple years later you could pick up multipacks of games as the purchaser of SNK wanted to cheaply clear out its backstock. I regret that I didn't pick up enough titles for it at the time.

I seem to recall it being fairly inexpensive at Fry's. I thought it was kind of odd seeing a game system with a plastic bubble wrapped around it.

[tom]

NES (in Europe), 2. 5 million sold by mid 90s (source Game Over), big fail.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

I must reiterate Memorex VIS. This thing tried to compete with the CD-i. Look at this promotional video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cayU_2iM07c. When even the promotional video makes the system look like a pile of shit, the thing's going to crash and burn. The CD-i was a roaring success compared to this. The CD-I!

The Atari Jaguar. Over 200 bucks for a new system, from a company that's been out of the video game console market for a few years, with few games at the outset. Cybermorph and Trevor McFur were the launch titles in November 1993. Tempest 2000 came in April 1994. That was it for the first 8 months of the system's life. 3 games. That's not what sunk it.

The final nail in the coffin was that the system was no more capable than the SNES. Seriously, 64 bits my ass. Where'd the other 48 bits go? 90% of the games looked no better than SNES. Atari Karts looked no better than Super Mario Kart. Zool 2 looked no better than Super Mario World. Tempest 2000 could have easily been done on SNES. And these were some of the better looking games. Launch Atari 2600 games, Snake on old Nokia phones, TV snow, Shehu Shagari's left big toenail, and getting hit in the face by an airbag all looked better than Club Drive. The best games on the Jag - for instance, Doom and Alien vs. Predator - could have been recreated on the SNES. There is a such thing as Super FX chips, after all.

The Jaguar CD was doomed. By September 1995, Atari was sinking like the Titanic. You had a system that about 100,000 people owned (which would have been considered a commercial failure for a second-tier third party game on Genesis on SNES) and they launch a CD add-on with very few games and a lifespan of about 19 days before it breaks down.

[AdamAnt316]

My favorite example of a console that was doomed from the start is the Bentley Compu-Vision. A cheap Pong clone based on the GI AY-3-8500 chip? Great idea in 1976. Except that Bentley (whoever they were) chose to release it..........in 1983!!!!! Not only was it several years out-of-date, it was released just in time for the video game crash!

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

I'm sure they caught a few sales from people thinking it was the luxury car company. Seriously, not only was it a PONG machine in 1983, there were PONG games for the Atari 2600 (which everyone and their mother had by then) and it was in black and white. Any PONG console would have had difficulty selling after 1979, let alone in black and white and with only 4 modes.

This was like one of the basic PONG machines from 1975-1976, not even one of the more advanced (i.e. color, 10+ game modes) ones from 1977-1978. So it was ~7 years out of date.

[gbpxl]

The N-Gage. A vertical screen was a bad idea, a taco-shaped phone was a bad idea, a keypad for the buttons was a bad idea. and not having any "killer app" or system mascot didn't help either.

[AdamAnt316]

I'm sure they caught a few sales from people thinking it was the luxury car company. Seriously, not only was it a PONG machine in 1983, there were PONG games for the Atari 2600 (which everyone and their mother had by then) and it was in black and white. Any PONG console would have had difficulty selling after 1979, let alone in black and white and with only 4 modes.

This was like one of the basic PONG machines from 1975-1976, not even one of the more advanced (i.e. color, 10+ game modes) ones from 1977-1978. So it was ~7 years out of date.

I have no idea what Bentley was thinking, or who they actually were (I don't think they were trying to pass themselves off as being related to the car company, but who knows). Around the same time they were offering the Compu-Vision, they also sold a black & white portable TV (not a bad idea at the time), Super8mm movie cameras and, in the same sort of case as their portable TV, a Super8mm film viewer. I once owned an example of the latter. Not only did it not work well, it actually stripped some of the sprocket holes on the films I tried to run through it! My one copy of Jar-Jar In Space may never be the same..........
-Adam

[Natty Bumppo]

Mentioned earlier, the laseractive was an interesting concept - just way too pricey than if you had just bought a straight ld player and the corresponding consoles. You would have missed the ld based games - no biggie since there were so few - the only two I have any interest in were the J.B. Harold games (Blue Chicago Blues and Manhattan Requiem) - but other people might have liked some of the few other games.

If it had been released later it likely would have been possible to drive down the cost - but at the time I suspect it was just beyond the technological capability to produce them at a reasonable cost.
,
I have one with the four basic pacs - but I picked them up used at a fraction of the cost . Neat toys but that is about it. (I did spare the world a lot of pain and suffering though - I have not picked up a karaoke pac.