{"id":118975,"date":"2017-07-10T17:45:39","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T15:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=118975"},"modified":"2017-07-10T17:46:09","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T15:46:09","slug":"video-game-tech-that-failed-terribly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/gadgets\/118975-video-game-tech-that-failed-terribly","title":{"rendered":"Video game tech that failed terribly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Throughout gaming, there have been some amazing innovations which we all embraced. Sony’s PSP was a game-changer in the handheld industry, and the recent success of VR has been very different from the past attempts that led to failure.<\/p>\n

Things have not always been like this, and there have been terrible attempts at creating new tech that just failed terribly, be it due to the public not embracing it or the simple fact that it was just made without any real research as to why people would want it in the first place.<\/p>\n

Take a look at some video game technology that went down faster than you can say “Nintendo Power Glove”.<\/p>\n

\n

Nintendo Power Glove<\/h3>\n

What better way to start this list than with a piece of tech that was meant to be the game-changer of the day. Keep in mind that back when the Power Glove was released, gaming was at an all-time high.<\/p>\n

It was 1989 and the industry had just come out of the historical video game crash a few years later, so what did Nintendo have to lose after they basically had the market for themselves?<\/p>\n

The Nintendo Power Glove was released as an accessory to the NES that packed the traditional NES controller buttons. The glove was meant to be the Wii Motion Controller of the 80s, where players would be able to move their hands to perform various actions in the game.<\/p>\n

User could also map the controller to NES buttons, but there was much more going on behind the scenes on the device that made use of sensors and microprocessors to convert the movement signal of your fingers into detectable inputs.<\/p>\n

While the device had all these features, it was the lack of games that let many users down.<\/p>\n

There were only two games released for the glove that made use of the hardware, Super Glove Ball and Bad Street Brawler. Sure, these two games were also playable with the standard NES controller, but the glove would make it even better, or so they hoped.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the glove did not sell well, and an estimate 100,000 units of the device were sold in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Two more games were announced for it but they never saw a release.<\/p>\n

\"Nintendo<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Nintendo Virtual Boy<\/h3>\n

Now it might look like I am throwing Nintendo under the bus here, but that is not the case. The company has been around for such a long time that it just has more experience with failed hardware than others.<\/p>\n

The Nintendo Virtual Boy was another disaster which we love to talk about.<\/p>\n

The company’s entry into the VR world was much earlier than HTC and Sony. In 1995 the company released a 32-bit table-top video game console that was marketed as the first ever console capable of displaying stereoscopic 3D graphics.<\/p>\n

The headset was bulky and used a red monochrome display to create a parallax effect to create the illusion of depth. You would then use the controller to move around in these games.<\/p>\n

A total of 22 titles were released for the system within its 18-month life cycle. There would have been more if it was not for the horrendous sales of the device.<\/p>\n

Just over a year after release, Nintendo ceased distribution of the device as well as the development of all games.<\/p>\n

The failure of the device was mainly due to the downscaled technology in it, thanks to the high costs and health concerns which forced Nintendo to go down a cheaper road when building it.<\/p>\n

All this meant the device packed unimpressive 3D, lack of true portability due to it being a mounted display, health concerns, and a monochrome display at an extremely high price of $179.<\/p>\n

\"Nintendo<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

3Do<\/h3>\n

EA co-founder Trip Hawkins worked on a console with Panasonic back in 1993 that was meant to be the company’s entry into the video game industry.<\/p>\n

The system was the first to make use of CDs fo content, alongside the original PlayStation. This tech would help increase the data storage which allowed developers to dive into 3D gaming development.<\/p>\n

While many of you probably have never heard of this device before, there were some notable games on the platform such as Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Crash N Burn, Jurassic Park and more.<\/p>\n

All these were obviously also on the PS1, but it gave gamers a choice when buying a console.<\/p>\n

The choice that these gamers made, however, was the obvious one and they went with Sony’s powerhouse PlayStation that released just a few months later. The hype behind the PS1 and its power overshadowed this device.<\/p>\n

It was also an issue that the 3Do retailed for $399, which was $100 more than the PlayStation.<\/p>\n

In the end, it was the lack of the strong lineup and price that led to the device’s failure and ultimately ruined Panasonic’s chance to ever run in the console race. The console was discontinued just three years after release.<\/p>\n

\"Panasonic<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Apple’s Pippin<\/h3>\n

Before Apple become the biggest tech giant in the world, they were actually quite an experimental bunch of guys. Enter the Pippin, Apple’s ill-fated entry into gaming.<\/p>\n

Back in 1996 Apple thought they would enter the market with a gaming console that would hopefully beat the PlayStation. It was a $600 mistake that the gaming industry will never forget.<\/p>\n

The Pippin was a slow, underwhelming device that had 18 games released in its 12 months on the market.<\/p>\n

Now 18 games is quite a lot, but given that they were crappy titles like Marathon, Marathon 2, and wait for it, Super Marathon, there was little to choose from.<\/p>\n

Apple tried very hard to push the device, but two years later they ceased production of it and pretended that it never existed in the first place.<\/p>\n

\"Apple<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Dreamcast<\/h3>\n

Oh SEGA. There is a reason why you don’t make gaming hardware anymore, and that is a good thing. The Dreamcast was a console released back in 1998 that was supposed “ahead of its time”.<\/p>\n

It was the first console you could plug into the internet thanks to its built-in modem and play online. It also took CDs which meant yay for 3D games!<\/p>\n

The Dreamcast had some of the most iconic games ever released on the platform, of which many of them have been re-released again today on modern consoles like Crazy Taxi, and Sonic Adventures.<\/p>\n

In the end, SEGA saw what route the gaming industry was going in and decided to pull out of the console race and focus on software.<\/p>\n

The Dreamcast was released in 1999 and was discontinued just 2 years later. Those two years were the best years for SEGA as some of the most amazing gaming experiences took place on that device.<\/p>\n

If you ask me they should have kept at it as things would be very different today if they did.<\/p>\n

\"Dreamcast\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Now read:\u00a0Behind the scenes of Bravado Gaming<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These gaming devices crashed harder than the video game crisis of ’83.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":119005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8585],"tags":[24755,24757,73,24753,24751],"class_list":["post-118975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets","tag-3do","tag-hardware-fails","tag-nintendo","tag-nintendo-power-glove","tag-sega-dreamcast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119003,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118975\/revisions\/119003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}