Top 10 biggest failures in console sales

History is full of winners and losers. Today we remember those consoles that are on the list of biggest losers in history. Selling millions of units is what a manufacturer expects from its console to encourage developers to make games on it and collect royalties. If you have many consoles for sale, congratulations, you are a success...

But here we are going to talk about the consoles that were NOT a success. Those that had ridiculous sales on their own or that despite the expectation they generated thanks to the pedigree of what preceded them, obtained ridiculous sales. Because the history of video games is extensive, there are many, but we are going to stay with the well-known failures. There are many consoles that ate the nose in sales, but if they had no promotion or serious expectations placed on it, or objectively sold few units but by then the consoles were not selling much, they do not enter this list.

10 – Wii U, more failure than just not being able to keep up with the Wii

Nintendo fans will look at the numbers and say, "But if the Wii U has sold almost 14 million!«Indeed, but even though it sold many more than the consoles included here, it is still a low sales figure in the social context in which it was launched. The successor to the almighty Nintendo Wii did not please the vast majority of gamers. The Nintendo Wii demonstrated the huge market that existed, with almost 100 million units already sold, and it had made many people want to play video games, even if it was just Wii Sports.

Of course, expecting the Wii U to have the same amount of sales as the original Wii was impossible. If that reaches thirty million to be considered a success... But it did not even reach half. So low were his sales that As soon as the Nintendo Switch came out, they forgot that Wii U existed and they started porting their games to 3DS and Switch. Today, only a handful of games that already have better equivalents on Nintendo Switch remain to be ported. Then, there are others that would be complicated because they were designed to use two screens, or that nobody wants. I mean… Would anyone really want Sing Party, Star Fox Zero, Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival or Devil's Third? Several years have passed since its end, and there are only interesting games that can be ported without problems on the second screen: The Legend of Zelda in HD, and Xenoblade Chronicles X.

9 – Sega CD and 32X, some accessories that were sold as consoles

The Sega CD sold its generous two million and the 32X was close to a million. In theory, they were ideas to extend the life of the MegaDrive until the Sega Saturn came out. But these additions did nothing to extend the life of the Mega Drive.

In addition, they generated a lot of distrust for the Sega Saturn. There was not much confidence in these accessories, except with the SegaCD because FMV games were in fashion. They've had their games like Popful Mail or Night Trap, but it's hard to find titles that justify buying a console add-on that don't have their biggest selling point other than selling you cinematics like Dragon's Lair. There are Knuckles Chaotix or Sonic CD, but they are not considered the best 2D Sonic games.

8 – Pokémon Mini, although I did not have high sales expectations

Another of those small consoles that had very few sales, seeing that it took two years for it to disappear from the shelves, it barely received any games. A low-priced mini-console dedicated to Pokemon fans with all-Pokemon games? It could work seeing as Pokémon had a lot of fans who didn't play the games and liked it because of the anime or the card game and the price wasn't high.

It was very low risk and reasonable expectations. But it seems that not everything they expected succeeded. For the price they were asking, people could save more and get a Game Boy Advance with more and deeper games. Only four Pokémon Mini games came out for the American version, five in the European one. Of course, the ten that were created came out in Japan. It's had something of a revival in the modder community with homebrew games due to how interesting its limitations are, and was resurrected in a breath in pokemon channel.

7 – Apple Bandai Pippin, Because you knew that Apple and Bandai made their console

Really, the only reason this console is remembered is because it was made by Apple in collaboration with Bandai. We already knew Apple in 1996 for its professional-quality desktop computers widely used in offices for their versatility and focus on office automation and image and sound editing.

Now ... how does that translate to videogames? Apple I already had some experience with video games before focusing on office computers and decided to collaborate with Bandai to create the Apple Bandai Pippin. He only had 23 games and the most affected were the Europeans: only 2 games came to Europe. They confirmed that only 42.000 units were sold, and they expected so much from it that they created more accessories than consoles had been sold. Surely the Apple Bandai Pippin is not something that Apple will want to show off a lot in its keynotes. But it seems that they have redeemed themselves with the Apple Arcade for iPhone and iPad, which has a competent price and a good number of games, which attract Hironobu Sakaguchi, one of the minds behind Final Fantasy

6 - Atari Jaguar

Atari has had many, many failures throughout history. Yeah, with the 2600 they pretty much created the US video game market. But they abused their monopoly so much that they were an important part of the crash of 83 in the United States. Then, they released more consoles to try to come back that by the time they released the Atari Jaguar its name was practically on the ground. Since then, they have been the red lantern, but this is their most notorious case.

They didn't sell even half a million units and many games that once sold for Jaguar ended up on other platforms where they achieved notable success. I mean… Would we really have had the Rabbids today if Rayman had always been a Jaguar exclusive?

5 - PlayStation Classic

Despite being a gadget with which to play emulated classic games, It is still a console to use because you buy it to play games. Now it's time to put ourselves in the situation: Year 2018, Nintendo had been successful with the NES Mini and the SNES Mini, which with their reduced appearance allowed them to play classic and well-emulated games. they were the ideal gift.

Sony did not want to feel displaced and therefore ordered the PlayStation Classic. But it seems they didn't understand that in addition to being dwarf-looking and hackable to be sold as an emulation machine, they didn't tell the producers that it should have a good amount of memorable games and good emulation. If we had classics like Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy VII, Rayman, Tekken and Abe's Odyssee, they gave us games that virtually no one asked for like Battle Arena Toshinden (good 3D, but playable bad with desire), Intelligent Qube, Cool Boarders 2, Revelations: Persona or Twisted Metal. Then, in the field of emulation, let's just say that it had its good bugs and few display options.

It sold so badly that it is possible to find it in stores for less than thirty euros. Its original price was one hundred euros, so they also did not understand that Nintendo consoles had a very attractive price and were ideal as gifts. Although the idea was good, it would have been solved with a much more extensive catalog. But it is possible that this is because those who own the rights to many of its classic games have either ceased to exist, are in legal limbo, or prefer to remaster them on PC and consoles.

4 - Sega Saturn

A book could be written about the Sega Saturn and the episode devoted to showing the disastrous launch would be a big one. The United States was expecting the Sega Saturn after its arrival in Japan and its launch was announced as "Today» by SEGA in the E3. The stores they were not prepared to prepare the warehouses or shelves, nor ask for stock for a console and games that had not generated expectations in the absence of advertising.

In an age of livestreams, this surprise launch with a “come on tomorrow” announcement might have worked. But it was a complete shot in the foot by Sega and undermined trust with retailers, rather than users. The Sega Saturn lBequeathed to sell more than nine million units, a not inconsiderable amount, and it is the best-selling Sega console in Japan, with 5,6 million units sold. But sales outside of Japan could have been much better if Sega had thought longer about making that rushed release with only six games. The console needed a few more months to macerate well. It wouldn't have saved Sega but it could have brought better sales.

3 - Gizmondo

The size of the failure of the Gizmondo is such that when the console is mentioned as one of the consoles that failed the most, console background is mentioned. Relationships with crime by managers according to some reports, huge launch parties, and lots of spending that left millions in debt. All for what? For 25 units sold in the most optimistic calculations.

Zero expectation but with one of the lowest sales figures. And we are not talking about when the consoles were thankful for reaching those figures, because we are talking about 2005. A year in which even when the PSP sold well, it was said that it was almost a failure. It only had 14 games released on the market, and about 40 canceled because it only lasted a year on the market. And we did not forget that a 250-euro model was sold to us with advertisements, and if we wanted to suffer them, there was the 450-euro model. Even if it's because of the story behind it, it deserves this bronze position.

2 - Virtual Boy

It is inevitable that Nintendo, having been in the console market for so long, has one that has been a sales failure. The Wii U, despite being a flop, had about ten million sales and plenty of decent games that would have been salvaged. But the Virtual Boy did not reach 800.000 copies sold and had hardly any games to highlight except for its collector factor.

Little catalog that is counted in little more than a dozen in the United States. But a few more in Japan. To that was added the difficulty of selling that Virtual Reality that in reality was not. Today it is the object of collectors and a joke among the most die-hard Nintendo fans. And even the biggest defenders of Nintendo will say that playing the console is almost literally a headache. An idea too advanced for its time, but not because it is "revolutionary and difficult to explain«, rather «it gave many problems and the technology was not designed for the use they wanted to give it«Today we have its successor with Nintendo Labo and the Nintendo Switch, which at least doesn't shoot cathode rays directly into your eyes; although the idea has been quickly abandoned.

1 - Ouya

Perhaps it is because it is a very recent case, but It's hard to imagine a greater fall from grace that the Ouya Mainly because of what came before it hit the market and what happened when it came out. To this day it remains one of the largest Kickstarter projects with 63.416 backers paying $8.596.474 to bring the Ouya into existence. $135 on average per patron.

What did Ouya do with that money? Make a mini-console that in the best of cases was a plate worthy of a tablet of what was then a high-end in 2012, tucked into a casing that was controlled with a console controller. Even Ouya's own management said that the console was nothing special.

Now, what about the games? Almost all of them were low-quality mobile games, and at most Towerfall stood out as the only exclusive and ended up being ported to consoles where it would get sales. It is not hard to imagine that their failure is mainly due to the fact that they did not offer anything to consumers, apart from promises to try to revolutionize the market with a console full of indie games and in which no big developer wanted to invest. Those promises could not be fulfilled or did not convince the rest of the consumers.

You couldn't trust a market of mobile developers who were quickly embracing flooding the Play Store with shovelware, or games with microtransactions like casinos.