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The 90s was a time when consoles and video games were all the rage. The gaming industry was growing at a rapid pace, and every company wanted to have a piece of the pie, but it was easier said than done. There was fierce competition, and only a few companies like Sony and Nintendo were successful.
The Sony PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS sold over 150 million units each. However, other game consoles did terribly and failed to sell even one million units. Some failed due to strange choices made by their companies, while others failed due to how awful they were.
In this article, we will look at the five worst game consoles, what became of them, and what led to their downfall.
Note: This list is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinions. The entries are arranged in no particular order.
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1) Virtual Boy
Most people associate Nintendo consoles with Switch, DS, or even Wii, but there are many others, of which not all were successful commercially. In fact, some were terrible, and Nintendo Virtual Boy was one of them. It was designed to be a portable virtual reality (VR) console, but the technology needed for that didn't exist in 1995.
Nintendo had to reduce the colors of the graphics to shades of black and red to minimize the load on the system, but people were just not impressed. Don't get us wrong, the graphics in the '90s were a mess of low polygons, but even they had more colors than the Virtual Boy.
The lack of colors caused eye strain, which led to a poor user experience. On top of that, the Nintendo Virtual Boy only received 22 games in total, so players were limited in how much they could get out of the game console. It launched for $180, which was sort of expensive for a portable game device back then. The Virtual Boy was out for barely a year before it was canned and only sold 770,000 units.
2) Sega 32X
Sega consoles were a big hit in the market and even rivaled the likes of Nintendo at one point, but they don't exist anymore. The company simply left the game console market after one too many commercial failures, and the Sega 32X was one of them.
The Sega 32X was less of a standalone gaming device and more like an add-on to the Sega Genesis that existed already. However, it was no ordinary add-on. The 32X was designed to improve the graphical performance of the Genesis and allow 32-bit games to be developed and played on this console.
Even though the concept makes sense, it was a failure. Sega failed to attract many gamers since the actual graphical improvements were marginal and the cost was higher. The company only sold around 800,000 units, which is a bit too low. Only 42 games were released in its two-year lifespan.
3) Atari Jaguar
Atari failed multiple times in attracting gamers to its consoles. The company tried with the Atari 7800 but failed, and then they tried again with Lync, but it didn't help much either. They still decided to give the game console market one more try with the Atari Jaguar.
The Jaguar was released in 1993 and was a disaster. The blame goes to the company and for good reasons. Atari decided to market it as a 64-bit console, but that was false advertising, considering it had just two 32-bit processors inside. The bizarre decision to call it 64-bit capable resulted in a lot of backlash.
On top of that, it was reported that programming games for the Jaguar was quite problematic, and the Atari I/O Forum is still filled with complaints related to game development. The Stari Jaguar sold less than 150,000 units worldwide and had only 50 licensed games in its lifetime. Atari went out of the game console business after its failure.
4) Nokia N-GAGE
The N-GAGE was Nokia's attempt at making a hybrid device that could not only play games but also have some basic phone functionalities. After all, Nokia was a phone company, so that was expected. However, a game console must have an easy ability to change game cards, which it didn't.
To swap the game cards, you had to slide the back cover and remove the battery. Imagine the frustration you could get from this. Besides that, the control buttons were too difficult to get used to. It was neither appropriate for a phone nor a game console.
Additionally, the device was designed for landscape usage, but the display was vertical, which was another critical design flaw. Nokia ultimately discontinued it three years later.
5) Philips CD-I
The Philips CD-I was originally announced in 1986 but didn't launch until four years later, in 1990, which may have played a role in its downfall. Due to its delayed launch, the hype was down. On top of that, the game console launched at a whopping $800.
The higher price tag was due to the built-in CD player, but such pricing kept it out of range of many gamers' hands. Phillips was focused on creating the best media player, and the gaming part wasn't the main priority, which was visible. The device was significantly underpowered comparatively and had some terrible games.
The Philips CD-I only sold 400,000 in the US, its home market, and even less globally. The entire division was sold off later after its critical failure.
