It’s much harder to enter the hardware market today than before. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, it felt like everyone was trying their hand at making a games machine. Some were successful for the era, like the Commodore 64 and Amiga. Others were the Philips CD-I and Amstrad GX4000.
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The flops tend to be more notorious, as people like to watch a train wreck. Yet the world is a vast place. What one country may recall as a total embarrassment, another may remember fondly. Whether they were cult hits or blockbusters, these are some “failed” consoles that actually succeeded outside North America.
8Timex Sinclair 2068
One thing some American gamers wonder about is what would their gaming landscape be like if theNEShadn’t arrived to lift the nation out of thebig Game Crash of 1983. The simplest answer is that they’d probably be like Europe and play games on Commodore computers until the 1990s made consoles and PCs more viable. They definitely would be Commodore machines too, as the company was much more ruthless on its home turf than in Europe.
Timex’s collaboration with the UK’s Sinclair Research had no hope in the States. However, its original European basis, the ZX Spectrum, is as iconic to Brits as the NES is to Americans. It’s hard to imagine nowadays given its tech looks more primitive. But the likes ofJetpac,Jet Set Willy, andSchool Dazedid provide unique gaming experiences. Plus, they cost £7-10 at most, free on magazines at best. The NES’ £50 cartridges look less appealing next to that.
7Sega Master System
It feels mean to say the Master System failed as it had some hidden gems likeWonder Boy III: The Dragons Trap, but both the Japanese and American console markets were basically owned byNintendoin the 1980s. Even if it had good marketing it wasn’t going to unseat the NES. In Europe, it was a different story as its games were often cheaper than the NES, marketed better, and in a vacuum looked better than the gray toaster’s output.
However, this was largely due to Virgin Media thanSega. After the latter botched its continental Christmas launch (stock didn’t reach stores until December 26th!), Virgin took over marketing and gave the machine a reliable, local face to work with. But if there’s one place that loves the Master System, it’s Brazil. While it’s not beating the new machines, companies there have continued to support the device with new ports and releases to this very day.
6TurboGrafx-16
It was because of NEC’s success with their PC Engine console that they even dared to enter the US market. The Famicom had ruled the 1980s Japanese game market, but the PC Engine made its games look ancient. It had 16-bit graphics and an eclectic library of cult classic games. If any company had a chance of eclipsing the Big N in Japan at the time, it was NEC. Unfortunately, the US release coincided with a downturn in NEC’s profits elsewhere.
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Stinkers likeKeith Courage in Alpha Zoneswere shipped with the newly christened TurboGrafx-16, whileclassics likeSnatcherandCastlevania: Rondo of Bloodeither had to be ported elsewhere or stay in Japan. A planned European release dwindled into a few PC Engine export sales, and NEC gradually faded out of the video game industry.
5Atari ST
When Commodore founder Jack Tramiel left his company to runAtari Corporation, he thought for sure he had the next big thing in computing. His new take on Atari had an interest in Hi-Toro’s Amiga computer project and even paid them a loan for its development. But ultimately, the company and its computer became part of Commodore. But part of the legal wrangling meant Atari Corp could make their own, similar computer, which became the Atari ST.
For its first year or so, it was ahead of the Amiga in all territories. But once Commodore produced the Amiga 500, it began gaining momentum. Eventually, the Amiga’s better scrolling, sound, and graphical capabilities won out over the Atari ST. But European gamers still remember it fondly as a solid machine witha good library of games, unlike its successor the Atari Jaguar.
4Neo Geo AES And MVS
SNK’s Neo Geo tech was amazing. While other arcade games had to be squeezed and squashed into an SNES or Genesis cartridge, the Neo Geo AES was literally just the arcade MVS tech in a console box. Players could even save their AES data to a memory card, then plug it into an MVS arcade machine to pick up where they left off. So, why is the AES so niche? Because those arcade-perfect carts came at a cost.
They’d often be as expensive as an SNES console alone, let alone with an AES on top. But that didn’t stop the Neo Geo from being popular from Mexico to Chile. While the AES wasn’t any cheaper, the MVS was more cost-effective because arcade owners could just buy (or, admittedly, pirate) new MVS cartridges than order whole new machines. SNK retains a strong Hispanic fanbase to this day because of the Neo Geo’s legacy.
33DO
The nicest thing to say about the 1990s console flops is that they did predict the future. ThePS3andXbox 360were as much multimedia devices as they were consoles: playing movies, music, TV shows, offering internet access, etc., on top of playing games. They just had better libraries, on top of every technological advance since 1990. That said, while the Atari Jaguar and Philips CD-I did just as badly in Japan, they found something appealing about the 3DO.
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Like Virgin Media with the Master System, the involvement of Asian tech businesses like Panasonic and Sanyo made it more recognizable to Japanese audiences. It had good ports ofSuper Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Samurai Shodown 2, and Hideo Kojima’sPolicenauts, alongside many underground hits that gave indie darlings likethe late Kenji Enotheir first foot in the door. Fans of avant-garde itch.io games would be at home with the 3DO’s Japanese output.
2Sega Saturn
TheSaturnwas doomed before it was even released. Sega burnt their Western audience out on lackluster add-ons like the 32X. The first E3 is still remembered for the moment Sony killed the Saturn’s $399 snap US launch with one word: “$299”. Yet just as Sega was dying in the West, they began to rise in their native Japan. The Saturn would never overtake thePlayStation, but it would just about manage to outsell theNintendo 64there.
Some of its 3D classics got more appreciation, likePanzer Dragoon SagaandShining Force III. Then its 2D efforts didn’t get the leper’s treatment Western press gave them. They were often better than their PS1 equivalents, withX-Men Vs Street Fighteractually retaining the tag gameplay (albeit by requiring a RAM pack). Its super-liminal “Segata Sanshiro” advertising campaign would also become legendary, and live on past the console’s prime.
1Neo Geo Pocket Color
Not that Nintendo was too fussed. It was around that time when they got to embarrass two companies with one hardware release. Bandai’s Wonderswan and SNK’s Neo Geo Pocket were released in all their monochrome glory right as Nintendo brought out theGame Boy Color. The Wonderswan would’ve stung, as it was designed by the then-recently deceasedGame Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi. The NGP was fair game though as SNK really couldn’t afford a flop so fast at the time.
It took SNK six months to replace it with the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which had similar if not better graphics and equally long battery life as the GBC. Fighting game fans finally had decent handheld games likeSNK Vs Capcom: The Match of the Millennium,Sonicfans had Dimps’Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure, and the really quirky sawWariowarecombined with Tamagotchi inGanbare Neo Poke-Kun. While the device didn’t do so hot in America, it earned respectable enough sales in Japan and Europe to become a cult classic device.
