What game system's lack of sucess shocked you?

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scotland
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Re: What game system's lack of sucess shocked you?

Postby scotland » November 28th, 2015, 12:57 pm

Maks wrote: To throw another hat in the ring, I would add the Intellivision. It's the first system I had as a kid, when my parents brought it home I didn't understand what it was. Yeah, the controllers were garbage, but I later realized many of the games were better than what my friends were playing on their 2600s. Though I guess I'm not really "shocked" it didn't catch on.


Good addition. Mattel already had a solid name both for toys and for electronic toys. They advertised, including the George Plimpton ads which really were effective. The graphics were clearly better. The focus on sports was prescient, including licenses from the NFL, NSL, PGA and the coveted ABPA license, which might be unique in video game history. The games library has many arcade titles, plus games like the AD&D games, Utopia and Microsurgeon. Maybe its the the learning curve on many of the games and the controllers.

Shapur
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Re: What game system's lack of sucess shocked you?

Postby Shapur » November 28th, 2015, 2:31 pm

Rev wrote:The one thing I have to wonder about the DC is if Sega even had the funds to put a DVD player into the DC. After all the failures in a row (SCD, 32x, Saturn), Sega had lost a lot of money. The DC hadn't sold poorly for 2 years but it wasn't enough to keep them afloat.


The thing to remember is the DC launched Nov 98 in Japan. If they kept that launch date even flush with funds they couldn't do it. The Panasonic A-310 DVD player came out in June 98 for 699 dollars. It probably wouldn't have added quite that much to the cost of the Dreamcast but it would have been a lot.

mbd36
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Re: What game system's lack of sucess shocked you?

Postby mbd36 » November 29th, 2015, 11:39 am

I think what killed the Dreamcast is that it lacked the hugely popular franchises that Sony and Nintendo offered. You couldn't play Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo, Zelda, Mario, Pokemon etc. on a Dreamcast. Sega lacked the blockbuster titles to be able to compete so it was more of a niche system. There was a lot of software piracy going on as well.

Tron
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Re: What game system's lack of sucess shocked you?

Postby Tron » November 29th, 2015, 2:20 pm

I agree with Intellevision. I always thiugt it was better than Atari. I thought that back then & still do.

ThePixelatedGenocide
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Re: What game system's lack of sucess shocked you?

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » November 30th, 2015, 1:33 pm

The only one that physically hurt, was the Neo Geo Pocket. It blew away the Gameboy Color in technical specs, and had a great library in no time flat, without the mountain of shovelware. Many titles combined the best of short term gratification and hidden depths...

The controller was one of the best I've ever held in my hand.

And it crashed and burned, and nobody even noticed.

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scotland
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Re: What game system's lack of sucess shocked you?

Postby scotland » November 30th, 2015, 6:14 pm

Shapur wrote: Videogame history is littered with consoles that looked great on paper.


The success of a console is usually tied into its library. There are other factors, like price, controllers, expectations or marketing, but a console that looks good on paper is still dependent on having great games, while avoiding having lots of poor quality games. At the beginning of a console's life, its probably more important to have lots of games than worry about quality.

The Atari 5200 is a system that should have had a fantastic library early on, but fizzled. How can the successor to the 2600 have so few games, especially being on the Atari 8 bit line? Others include the Colecovision and the Sega Master System. These two systems each had good brand news, either in consumer electronics or in the arcades, and both used the widely used Z80. This could have made porting games from all the computers, consoles, and arcade machines that used the Z80 to theirs simpler.

Of course, even a decent library may not be enough. In the US, the TG-16 failed to gain much traction. Given that many games continued to be made in Japan for it, all it took was translation to bring them over.

None of these are shocking. Usually we can at least point to something to blame. I think we can for the Wii U now too.

python16
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In contrast, what video game systems failure shocked you?

Postby python16 » December 1st, 2015, 2:07 pm

I really liked the Sega Dreamcast and Turbografx. From what I understand the Turbo did much better in Japan than it did in the U.S. so calling it a failure may not be accurate. However I felt the Turbo offered a wealth of great games that could not be found on the Snes or Genesis. As for the Dreamcast this was another great system that deserved to do much better than it did. In my opinion I would say the main reason for this was Sega tarnishing their own reputation with the Sega CD, 32X, and to a certain extent the Saturn. But that is just my opinion. How about you guys?

Wallyworld
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Re: In contrast, what video game systems failure shocked you?

Postby Wallyworld » December 1st, 2015, 3:38 pm

There was identical topic to this already posted in Classic Game section with the last post being just 2 days ago. This topic should be deleted or merged with this one.

viewtopic.php?f=134793&t=13952

jon
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Re: What game system's lack of sucess shocked you?

Postby jon » December 1st, 2015, 3:40 pm

I was a little shocked that the Jaguar and 3do failed, although the 3do was too expensive. With the Jaguar though, even with the terrible problems with its architecture and everything, I still liked the graphics for both 2d and 3d and thought it was a versatile system. The few 2nd generation games it got looked promising. If the main problem with the system was that it couldn't handle huge 3d environments so what. I feel like there's been a dearth of simpler 3d games. The Jag could have been a console with a lot of good 3d games that weren't overly complex.

mbd36
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Re: What game system's lack of sucess shocked you?

Postby mbd36 » December 3rd, 2015, 10:11 pm

jon wrote:I was a little shocked that the Jaguar and 3do failed, although the 3do was too expensive. With the Jaguar though, even with the terrible problems with its architecture and everything, I still liked the graphics for both 2d and 3d and thought it was a versatile system. The few 2nd generation games it got looked promising. If the main problem with the system was that it couldn't handle huge 3d environments so what. I feel like there's been a dearth of simpler 3d games. The Jag could have been a console with a lot of good 3d games that weren't overly complex.


Look at the alleged 3D in games like "Club Drive", "Checkered Flag" and "The Highlander". It's lack of success wasn't too shocking. There's no way that the system could have competed against the Saturn and Playstation. Even the 3DO was much more impressive.


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