Worst Console Launch? (Curse Of The 3RD Console???)

Someone needshealing :(

Surely its the saturn ?

€600,- for “teh cell” still cracks me up.

I think it's the "new" 3ds and not the 3ds. It's very confusing for a lot of people. It reminds me a lot of the Wii U.

N64 had a slow launch as well.

Wasn't the PS3 launch utterly insane? 600 bucks? lol. That's gotta take the crown of shittery.

3DS launch was terrible as well.

Xbox One? I dunno. Did they force people who wanted the console to buy their kinect stuff? Then yeah, that's pretty terrible as well.

Why is it confusing? It's not like phones, where they call them "ZX Pro" or something. Since this one is actually called "new", dumb people should also be able to know that it's the new and improved model.

Cant seem to vote but anyhow I choose others. Sega did fuked themselves so hard they are in deep reds near the end of their console business.

Anything Nintendo, at least the last 2 gens. I just forget I have a Nintendo console around.

I was just going to suggest that one. I unfondly remember queuing from some stupid hour in the morning in the UK as the shop in question was due to receive around 15 or so N64's, however when the doors eventually opened it turned out they had 2. My Turok dreams were shattered.

For the same reason people confused the Wii and the Wii U. It's an entirely new console, people know its new and improved. They just don't know how.

Probably the Sega Saturn. Back when E3 competitors shared a room, Sony announced directly after them the Playstation would be cheaper, effectively destroying their souls.

From there things only got worse.

Ah, so they should've explained the differences better? Yeah, I can probably agree to that. I thought it was easy to understand with New 3DS, but Wii U marketing was just crap. Many thought it was an accessory to Wii, and I don't blame them.

You still need healing!

The OP brings up the price of the X1 as a culprit of not being number One, but forgets to mention the competition had fewer features and not a camera peripheral.

The ps3 launched at a ridiculously high price which turned off buyers for years after launch. The reason? A bluray player. Gee, you add features, you charge more. This is not rocket science.

@Litchie: pretty much. Nintendo just needs to learn how dumb consumers are some times.

It's almost like people on here aren't old enough to remember the Sega Saturn launch:

In March 1995, Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske announced that the Saturn would be released in the U.S. on "Saturnday" (Saturday) September 2, 1995.^[47][48] However, Sega of Japan mandated an early launch to give the Saturn an advantage over the PlayStation.^[49] At the first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles on May 11, 1995, Kalinske gave a keynote presentation in which he revealed the release price of US$399 (including a copy of Virtua Fighter^[50]), and described the features of the console. Kalinske also revealed that, due to "high consumer demand",^[51] Sega had already shipped 30,000 Saturns to Toys "R" Us, Babbage's, Electronics Boutique, and Software Etc. for immediate release.^[47] The announcement upset retailers who were not informed of the surprise release, including Best Buy and Walmart;^[24][52][53]KB Toys responded by dropping Sega from its lineup.^[47] Sony subsequently unveiled the retail price for the PlayStation: Sony Computer Entertainment America president Steve Race took the stage, said "$299", and then walked away to applause.^[24][54][55] The Saturn's release in Europe also came before the previously announced North American date, on July 8, 1995, at a price of ₤399.99.^[14] European retailers and press did not have time to promote the system or its games, harming sales.^[56] After the PlayStation's European launch on September 29, it had already outsold the Saturn by a factor of three in the United Kingdom by early November 1995, where it was reported that Sony allocated ₤20 million to market the system during the holiday season compared to Sega's ₤4 million.^[57][58]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn

@michaelmikado: ‘It's almost like people on here aren't old enough to remember the Sega Saturn launch‘

Huh? The OP didn’t give us the option. I remember the Saturn, I picked it over the playstation as it had better racing games which I mainly enjoyed back then.

PS3

Say wut?

The One bundled with Kinect, weaker and priced $100.00 higher than the competition.

I swear this guy was working undercover for, Phony, the whole time. lol :P

For context:

U.S. Inflation Rate, $399 in 1995 to 2019

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, prices in 2019 are 65.38% higher than prices in 1995. The dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 2.12% per year during this period.

In other words, $399 in 1995 is equivalent in purchasing power to $659.86 in 2019, a difference of $260.86 over 24 years.

From the OP:

"is there any other honorable mentions?

is this about it?

is the 3rd console curse true?"

It was weird to throw the 3DS into the mix against home consoles so the only commonality between these were that they were relatively recent consoles. The OP asked about others so it seems, may not have been familiar with the launches of older consoles.

@SecretPolice said:

The One bundled with Kinect, weaker and priced $100.00 higher than the competition.

I swear this guy was working undercover for, Phony, the whole time. lol :P

He closed down Ensemble and gutted Rare, among many other first and second party...

I still hate his guts.

@R4gn4r0k said:

@SecretPolice said:

The One bundled with Kinect, weaker and priced $100.00 higher than the competition.

I swear this guy was working undercover for, Phony, the whole time. lol :P

He closed down Ensemble and gutted Rare, among many other first and second party...

I still hate his guts.

Yup, he couldn't have thrown a bigger monkey wrench into the works if he tried, fouling up all the great strides and momentum MS made with the 360.

Like I said, he must have been a double agent secretly working for, Sony. lol :P

PS3 and Xbox One were all kinds of bad.

PS3 was awesome on launch, just expensive. It got worse as Sony removed features.

XOne had a horrendous lauch. They should have stuck with their original vision instead of pulling a 180. It's only in the last year or 2 that the console has finally gained some ground with Game Pass and Play Anywhere. I'd like to see way more of this from all console manufacturers in the future.

Never owned a 3DS.

I think he is working for the mobile gaming industry now. I hope he ruins that industry good xD

It has to be the Saturn

GBA wasn't just in "iteration" of the Game Boy. It was a successor.

I chose "other" since there have been so many console launches that were infinitely worse than the xbox one. Probably the worst one is Commodore CDTV. Consumers didn't even know what the acronym meant, the console was ridicously expensive, and perhaps most embarrassingly, the console was based on very old Amiga technology.

The 64-bit Atari Jaguar and the way it was marketed was also a scandal. That piece of shit couldn't even compete with Sega's and Nintendo's older and cheaper consoles.

That being said, the xbox one reveal was also pretty embarrassing. How a company as professional as Microsoft could mess it up so badly is beyond me.

Atari Jaguar i remember walking into electronics boutique back In the 90's and nearly getting one for my birthday. Lucky escape an understatement.

Is got to be a close one between PS3 and XB1

Sega Saturn for sure. PS3 was pretty rough, as well.

I guess I'll be the one to say it since no one else has yet, but the Saturn wasn't SEGA's third console, but their fourth, and that's only if you're ignoring add-ons and revisions. The SG-1000 was SEGA's first console, not the Mark III a.k.a Master System, but it didn't receive a release outside of Japan and minor markets, so it's often overlooked.

As for my pick, I'd like to go with the Atari 5200, but it isn't a clean cut deciphering Atari successors, so I guess I'll choose the Xbox One since it was a fumble from the X360.

Its gotta be the ps3 even though it came back. Kutaragi's madness stories are legendary to the industry. Probably more so then Don Matrix. I mean that shit was actually brewing from Ps2. There are developers who grew to hate him. We don't need gpu to or shit few month to launch we gonna need a gpu lol.

You guys can't forget the 3DO system that launched in 93 for a whopping $700! I got one a year after it released for $200 from a coworker that had one but needed to sell ASAP for some quick cash. $700 for a console back then....sheesh!!! For most it was out of grasp due to the price tag that helped it fail. There were some cool games but most were trash. It just fizzled out and disappeared.

The n-gage also deserves honorable mention as does the Nomad.

PS3 had a rough first year with the high asking price and so few games to warrant the purchase.

That said, X1 had a worse first year due to the E3 reveal.

@robert_sparkes: Had you bought a Jaguar you would have been marked for life. Lucky you indeed.

And we haven't even mentioned the Atari Jaguar CD yet. Eeeeeewwwwww.

@SecretPolice said:

@R4gn4r0k said:

@SecretPolice said:

The One bundled with Kinect, weaker and priced $100.00 higher than the competition.

I swear this guy was working undercover for, Phony, the whole time. lol :P

He closed down Ensemble and gutted Rare, among many other first and second party...

I still hate his guts.

Yup, he couldn't have thrown a bigger monkey wrench into the works if he tried, fouling up all the great strides and momentum MS made with the 360.

Like I said, he must have been a double agent secretly working for, Sony. lol :P

Maybe you guys are on to something....

@navyguy21:

Lolol Nice find!!! :D

Sega Saturn by a long shot.

When you do a surprise Sega Saturn console launch....

PS3 easily had the rougher launch. 599 US dollars, "Ridge Raceeer" and "Giant Enemy Crabs" were echoed online for years after. Those were dark times to be a Sony fan. Not to mention the insane architecture. X1s reveal didn't even affect its launch as they reversed all its policies and they took kinect out a few months later. PS3s issues plagued it for much longer which makes its comeback all the more amazing.

Saturn

I know you can't take me off your mind, but that's not me. I'm just inspiring a new generation to create polls.

I'm surprised, but happy that mum actually paid that much for the Saturn. I wouldn't have liked to have missed out on the system.

PS3 was almost insulting (lies about the tech and capabilities, CGI trailers said to be gameplay, a ridiculous price, lack of good games at launch, etc. Luckly for Sony, their community was so blinded by PS2 success that they would eat anything.

You could say the Xbox 360 was the worst. Took a bit for issues to come out but the rrod issue was a massive blunder for Microsoft. I know it went through a couple of launch consoles myself