the biggest console flop

[bacteria]

Amstrad GX4000 was a flop, after a short while they were given away as crap prizes by magazines. Amstrad had the Midas Touch, then the GX4000 - only 42 titles, most of those were shite, many were exactly the same in cart form at £25 each as the CPC cassettes at £4 each - hence failure. Did have literally just a handful of great titles (Pang, Navy Seals, not many others), that was it.

[pepharytheworm]

Amstrad GX4000 was a flop, after a short while they were given away as crap prizes by magazines. Amstrad had the Midas Touch, then the GX4000 - only 42 titles, most of those were shite, many were exactly the same in cart form at £25 each as the CPC cassettes at £4 each - hence failure. Did have literally just a handful of great titles (Pang, Navy Seals, not many others), that was it.

I have been looking to get a Amstrad GX4000. How much do they usually sell for now? You going to make a Handheld version?

[lisalover1]

Gizmondo. You get to talk about the mafia then.

Seconded, and it'd be more entertaining for whoever reads it than the others would be.

I agree. There's so much to write about with the Gizmondo. Whenever I tell people the story, they crack up.

[bacteria]

I have been looking to get a Amstrad GX4000. How much do they usually sell for now? You going to make a Handheld version?

Sure, did, then it fried, video chip shorted. Will make another one, yes.

You can get them on ebay for around the £20-£30 mark including postage. They can do RGB or composite, if you don't mind opening them up and connecting wires.

[skyknight]

I don't entirely disagree with you here, but WonderSwan wasn't exactly a resounding success either. Not entirely his fault, as the Gameboy he created became too much of a behemoth even with its successors for the WonderSwan to compete. It's a shame he didn't live to see it, nonetheless.

That is true, but consider that Bandai isn't a big company like Nintendo, that they were able to obtain the rights for several Nintendo games like FF 1, 2 & 4, SaGa series, and Front Mission, that was quite a feat, especially when compared to the Neo Geo Pocket (which did have some Sega games).

Back to the original poster of this thread, are you going to present your paper to members here?

[elvis]

My two suggestions have been mentioned already. It would definitely be interesting to look at things from a marketing perspective on both of them:

* Virtual Boy - Nintendo's "can do no wrong" Gunpei Yokoi goes from Gameboy (best selling handheld ever) and Metroid (massively groundbreaking title with a female protagonist) to the biggest flop in Nintendo history, which sees him quit in disgrace.

* Sega Dreamcast - Sega go from the massive success of the Megadrive/Genesis to add-on hell in the SegaCD/32X era, followed by the Saturn which tears a huge rift between Sega Japan and Sega USA's marketing teams, and then the Dreamcast which was the most advanced console of it's era (massively powerful, backing from Microsoft with WindowsCE, 480p native, online gaming native, unique save system that doubled as a minigame handheld), yet it flopped like a comatose whale due to so many reasons ("first out" in the generation, high prices, bad marketing, inability to hold onto key third party developers). Had the Dreamcast worked well, we may not have seen the XBox at all, but rather a different Sega/Microsoft hybrid. Interesting "what if?" games there...

Another focus you could take from a marketing perspective is consoles that work in one region, but not another.

* Why did the MSX take off in Holland and Japan, but bomb everywhere else? That's a particularly interesting history, as such a small country in Europe took the unit in with open arms, but the rest of Europe rejected it.

* Why did the Sega Master System outsell Nintendo's NES in Europe, parts of Asia and Brazil, but saw the reverse trend in the US? And why was a toy car manufacturer (Tonka) given the sole responsibility of marketing the SMS, despite having zero history with a video game console?

When you're done writing the article, are you able to share it with us?

[skyknight]

* Virtual Boy - Nintendo's "can do no wrong" Gunpei Yokoi goes from Gameboy (best selling handheld ever) and Metroid (massively groundbreaking title with a female protagonist) to the biggest flop in Nintendo history, which sees him quit in disgrace.

* Sega Dreamcast - ... yet it flopped like a comatose whale due to so many reasons ("first out" in the generation, high prices, bad marketing, inability to hold onto key third party developers). Had the Dreamcast worked well, we may not have seen the XBox at all, but rather a different Sega/Microsoft hybrid. Interesting "what if?" games there...

Will have to challenge you on both of these -
Virtual Boy - I do hear conflicting stories on whether it was Gunpei's intention to release it or not. I read from gaming magazines and other websites that Nintendo needed a "buffer" product to fill in the delaying development of the Ultra 64 (later N64), while keeping the SNES in stores; it was at that time Gunpei was developing a different gaming "concept" that Nintendo thought it could sell. Well, we know what happened, and Nintendo needed the "fall guy," and the high-ups did think Gunpei was out of tricks and make him take the blame, since he was the one that develop it. Your statement seems that Gunpei wanted the VB to be released (I maybe mistaken).

Dreamcast - depending where you lived, in the US, the launching price was a very reasonable USD $199.99 in 1999; which isn't too high and quite competitive - several of my high school classmates were able to buy a DC and a couple of games with about a month's paycheck from their part-timers. Marketing was NOT bad, I can tell you firsthand, the American department of DC did their a really good job in putting together a viral-ad (It's thinking...), which did spread around in my high school; and the line-up games for the system launch in US - no other consoles can match that! And, yes, for a while there was massive demand for DC, and I did see empty shelves for DC. But the news of PS2 did change the mood, and further lacking of 3rd party games (in the long run) did shake the confidence for many potential buyers - including yours truly.

[elvis]

Virtual Boy - I do hear conflicting stories on whether it was Gunpei's intention to release it or not. I read from gaming magazines and other websites that Nintendo needed a "buffer" product to fill in the delaying development of the Ultra 64 (later N64), while keeping the SNES in stores; it was at that time Gunpei was developing a different gaming "concept" that Nintendo thought it could sell. Well, we know what happened, and Nintendo needed the "fall guy," and the high-ups did think Gunpei was out of tricks and make him take the blame, since he was the one that develop it. Your statement seems that Gunpei wanted the VB to be released (I maybe mistaken).

Interesting. That paints Nintendo's board as very cut-throat, if they're willing to mark one of their top project managers as a fall guy. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest however, given their past as well as the stereotypical Japanese executive.

But given Gunpei's previously polished releases, it certainly doesn't make sense why the Virtual Boy was released in such a rush. I would have definitely expect something with more thought behind it being released to market.

Dreamcast - depending where you lived, in the US, the launching price was a very reasonable USD $199.99 in 1999; which isn't too high and quite competitive

Here in Australia release price was nearly AU$600. Even with the Aussie dollar buying US$0.80, that puts the price at around US$480.

Australia has typically been screwed by console pricing since the dawn of time. Today we still pay 1.5-2X what folks in the US do. The Dreamcast was definitely one of the worst for price differences back in the day.

[bacteria]

I thought the UK got screwed on prices of things compared to other countries; looks like Australia gets really ripped off though!

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Virtual Boy - I do hear conflicting stories on whether it was Gunpei's intention to release it or not. I read from gaming magazines and other websites that Nintendo needed a "buffer" product to fill in the delaying development of the Ultra 64 (later N64), while keeping the SNES in stores; it was at that time Gunpei was developing a different gaming "concept" that Nintendo thought it could sell. Well, we know what happened, and Nintendo needed the "fall guy," and the high-ups did think Gunpei was out of tricks and make him take the blame, since he was the one that develop it. Your statement seems that Gunpei wanted the VB to be released (I maybe mistaken).

Interesting. That paints Nintendo's board as very cut-throat, if they're willing to mark one of their top project managers as a fall guy. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest however, given their past as well as the stereotypical Japanese executive.

But given Gunpei's previously polished releases, it certainly doesn't make sense why the Virtual Boy was released in such a rush. I would have definitely expect something with more thought behind it being released to market.

Nintendo needed a stopgap product to buy them some time, Yokoi wanted Nintendo to hold on for about 6-Months until Green and Blue LED's that were efficient enough to be released which would have made it possible to make the VirtualBoy color but the management refused and it was launched early to keep interest in it high and hopefully drive extra sales.