Play Value - Failed Consoles - Part Two

Play Value Episode “Failed consoles part 2” Dan: Now you may think that video games are all about technology. The guy with the biggest most powerful hardware is going to win. That is not always the case. In fact it is very rarely the case, in pretty much every generation of video game consoles. The console with the most powerful video game hardware has not been the winner. TJ: Turbo Grafix 16 comes out in 1989. It is the first 16 bit console system to hit the market. Jeff: The Turbo Grafix 16 stands out because it was one of the first failed consoles that actually had some great classic games on it. The Castlevania that came out for Turbo Grafix 16 is among the best Castlevania's, which makes it among the best games. The problem is that all of these titles require the CD add on which was very difficult to find in America. TJ: And even if you could find the adapter. It was $400. So they are asking you to buy A $400 adapter to play there killer applications. You know that is kind of, that is asking a little too much you know. Ultimately it ends up just failing. Libi: Since 1992 Sega comes out with this brilliant idea. Hey lets come out with the CD-rom add-on for the Sega genesis. Now the problem with that was it was just basically a CD player. Jeff: The Sega CD doesn’t make the Sega genesis any more powerful. It jut gives it more storage. And the genesis itself wasn’t really ready to take advantage of that storage in any meaningful way. So they are like alright what are we going to do with this. Libi: Well they decided that they were going to create games with lots of video in them. You know a kind of game that consists of a bunch of video and audio clips and you press the different buttons to play the different parts. And games are by definition interactive. And video is by definition not, so the games are more chose your own adventure than games. Where you are just picking one path and just watching what happens. It spawned some of the worst games of all time, including Night trap, sewer shark, and the make my video series; starring such fine artist as Marky Mark, and C&C music factory. So with such fantastic games as these, the Sega CD did not go anywhere. Dan: Back in 1993 we had one of the most famous video game console flame outs of all time. This was going to be the next big thing. It was called the 3DO. Josh: To be fair though the 3DO was a pretty powerful piece of machinery. It rivaled the Playstation 1 before that was even out. A guy named Trip Hawkins, he developed this new video game technology, but he licensed it to other guy to actually make the hardware. He said you guys make the hardware, and I am going to make the games, and he said you sell the hardware and make whatever money you can off that. And I am just going to make money on the games. The problem is the razor and blade model. You are not supposed to sell the razor for a lot of money, you sell the blades and that’s what you make your money off of. So the guys who made the console, they couldn’t make any money, so they had to charge $700 for these things, literally $700. In 1993 that is a lot of scratch. Jeff: When I was a kid I never understood. It cost like 5 times as much as the other systems, but it is really not that much better than super Nintendo. It certainly doesn’t look 5 times better than super Nintendo. Josh: If you don’t have hardware that people can afford, they are not going to buy it. If people don’t buy it people aren’t going to make games for it. So you’re basically screwed anyway. Dan: So you basically got hundreds of plastic that is completely useless, my $700 door stop. TJ: In 1993 Atari released the Jaguar. You know some of the pitfalls of the Jaguar? Is that ridiculous 12 button grid like controller. Jeff: Even the worst controller the buttons go where your fingers go. But this is really just something unnatural. It is really incredible that it exist at all. TJ: If you want to look at some of the titles of Jaguar games. Just do a search online for worst games ever. And you will see basically a list of all of these games. Jeff: At least we know today what the Jaguar controller looks like. Nobody left living knows what a 3DO controller looks like. Libi: 2 years after the Sega CD tanked, they came out with another brilliant add on to the Sega genesis system, the 32x. Jeff: There is not really an example in the history of games, of a add on to a system being successful. Like games coming out that require just this whole new component to your system, working. Libi: So in another brilliant business move. A couple of months after the 32x hits the market, Sega announces that the Saturn is coming out. And it’s like ten times more powerful than this machine. Why the heck am I going to go buy a 32x? Jeff: Yea, you can’t put something out and then say this is it for now but pretty soon there is going to be something better. When you put something out that has got to be your product for the next few years. Libi: So when the Saturn launched it didn’t really do as well as Sega hoped at first. So Sega jumped the gun again and immediately started talking about the Sega Dreamcast. And it totally pissed off designers because they were like hey, if you are not going to support the Saturn, we are not going to do it either. So the stopped making games for it. Jeff: Consoles have to be made to last. It is not just a one time launch and then you are done with it like a movie. There are a lot of things that go into it and it has to stay afloat for five or six years. When you buy a console you want to just buy one, and then worry about buying the games for it. Not just buying new consoles. Dan: You may say to yourself what is the biggest bonehead move in the history of the video game console? Well you wouldn’t have to think too long because it is nearly unanimous. It is Nintendo’s Virtual Boy. Jeff: Realistically Nintendo was questioning if it even was going to launch the Virtual Boy or not. But when the N64 got delayed for the ump teenth time, they just had to put some thing on the market. And there went the virtual boy. Dan: Now this console was supposed to be a 3d experience just like you see in movies about the future where you have flying cars and picture phones and virtual world that you can walk around in. You had this whole big stand that you had to put it on. And stick your head inside it, like you were in traction in the hospital with a big neck brace on. Don’t turn your head; you were in a car crash. Jeff: It was like 4 boom boxes except mounted on your face, and then of course plying it for too long hurts your eyes, which is always good. Dan: And of course the biggest problem, they couldn’t get it to run any real games, so they just decided to make them red. That is the only color in the games, red and black. You get your games any color you want, just as long as it’s red. Jeff: There were only fourteen games made for the Virtual Boy, one less than the Jaguar CD, setting an all time record for the least successful console of all time. I did like the controller though; it had a nice comfortable controller actually. Libi: So throughout all of video game history the one thing worth noting is that basically the top console was never the most powerful. Dan: Take a look at all the different generations of video game consoles. The original Atari 2600 was not as good as the Intellivision. And the Coleco Vision outsold it by about a zillion units. The Sega Master System well that was better that the original NES, but it didn’t sell nearly as well, Atari’s Jaguar and 3DO, well they kicked the super Nintendo’s ass again. All complete failures. The original Playstation not really as good as the N64, the Playstation 2 not really as good as the Xbox, still the number one console of that generation. Why is that, because it is all about the games not the hardware. Josh: Companies do not learn. Look at the Playstation 3 for example. This is a case where they are selling an extremely powerful bit of hardware, but right now there really aren’t games to justify this purchase. TJ: These companies come out with a new console and still think they are gong to change the industry, change the way people purchase. No, consumers want have fun, they don’t care about the hardware. Libi: It is always software over hardware. Jeff: It has always been about the games. Josh: It is funny that right now anyway, the Wii being one of the best selling systems happens to be the one with the least horsepower. That is something we have seen historically and I just don’t know what it is about these video game executives that doesn’t get just that.

Play Value | September 28, 2007

Tags:. .meaningful. .put. .nes. .generation. .useless