The Hall of Shame 09.24.08: The Worst Consoles You've Never Heard Of

Posted by Vincent Chiucchi on 09.24.2008

Consoles so bad it was better off that they were forgotten.

When a website or YouTube person does a worst consoles of all time list, the usual offenders are always going to pop up like the Virtual Boy, Sega CD and 32X, N-Gage, and 3DO. But there are plenty of really bad consoles that have been released that are hardly ever talked about. Why? Because these consoles were so bad that barely anybody talks about them. They came and went faster then it takes Fox News to blame video games for societies problems. For this week's Hall of Shame, we take a look at four consoles that odds are, you've probably never heard of before up until now.

RCA Studio II
Year Released: 1977
Launch Price: $149.95

Video game console, or some weird ass telephone?

If you think video games are really popular now, imagine how popular they were in the 70's when everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, tried to release video games or consoles, mostly all clones of Pong which was a clone of an Odyssey game. Despite several consoles coming out during that decade, only a few of them are talked about frequently because the rest were just absolute garbage; The RCA's Studio II being one of them.

The first problem with this console are the controllers, or rather lack thereof. Instead of controllers you would actually hold, players would use the numbers keypads built to the side like this they were playing PC games with a keyboard. Second was that the colors of all their games were in black and white, while the Fairchild Channel F and soon to be released Atari 2600 had games in color. Finally, the only sound the system had was one freaking beep. The Studio II had five games built into it and cartridge games later released, but because it was out of date the moment it was released, it was crushed like an ant by the competition and was discontinued quickly.

This would be RCA's second failure in the video game business. Their first? Turning down Ralph Baer's Odyssey, which would get manufactured by Magnavox and history was made. History that barely involves RCA.

Here's a look at one of the games for Studio II: Speedway.

Apple/Bandai Pippin @World
Year Released: 1995 Japan, 1996 USA
Price Launched: $599

Proving that Apple can make crappy hardware other than iPods.

The 90's for video game consoles was all about Nintendo, Sega, and Sony. Nintendo was continuing it's domination from the NES days, Sega was building itself to be a worthy rival, and then Sony came along to decimate both of them. Everyone else went straight to the grave. One of the victims was the Pippin, which had absolutely no chance of gaining an audience.

The Pippin was supposed to be more of a computer rather then a video game console, but everyone considered it a console anyway, and a really bad one at that. When creating the Pippin, Apple decided to follow the "3DO School of Marketing" and sought other companies to license their console, and they found their partner in Bandai. By the time Bandai released the Pippin, the big three (Sony, Sega, and Nintendo) already had their consoles out and at much cheaper prices. Plus, those consoles actually had games. Because the Pippin used a Mac OS, there was barely any games out for the system at launch, and overtime barely games were released in America. Production was so limited on the Pippin, there was actually more keyboards and accessories made then the Pippin itself. The system was discontinued and only sold a pathetic 42,000 units, making it one of the worst, or perhaps even THE worst selling home console.

Here's a look at DBZ AnimeDesigner, which is basically a crappy paint program with DBZ stuff:

Amstrad GX4000
Year Released: 1990 UK
Price Launched: £99

Despite having the number 4000, this console was nowhere close to looking futuristic.

By 1990, Nintendo had a big share of the video game market with the NES. Atari was struggling with the 7800, while Sega and NEC debuted their 16-bit consoles. Somewhere along the line in the UK, Amstrad released a console that was based on their popular CPC technology called the GX4000. Despite getting favorable reviews before it's debut, the console was dead in just a few months. What happened?

First off, it was released as a 8-bit console, meaning it was already outdated. Few games were available at launch, and all of them wound up being made by UK companies Ocean and U.S. Gold. The biggest problem however was that the games was ports of Amstrad's computer games, which were selling for £3.99 a cassette, but they costed £25 on the GX4000. Nobody was willing to pay more money for the same games, especially since the games were nowhere as good as the ones on the other consoles. A few weeks after release it was being sold at discount prices, and died a very quick death. In an interview with UK magazine Retro Gamer, one Amstrad insider said the console was technically on par with the SNES.

Here's a look at someone playing it's packed-in game Burnin Rubber, and tell me how well this game looks compared to Super Mario Kart:

EVO: Phase One
Year Released: 2006
Price Launched: $679.99

Does anybody know where I can get one?

The EVO: Phase One was more of a home computer that looked like a video game console. It sold for $679.99, has a built-in DVR, and you download the games for it by going to their official website.

And that's it. Seriously! Aside from the press release stating how it would be introduced in October 2006, nothing new about this console was ever heard from the company again. I went to the companies websites in order to find out what the latest on the hardware front was for them, but they don't mention the console anywhere, and it's not available in their store. No other website seems to have it available for sale either. Did it fail? Is there some kind of special process you have to go through in order to actually get the system? It's as if this console never actually existed, and when you look to be forgotten by even your own company, that has to put you on the list as one of the worst consoles.

Despite talking about four different consoles, this was a pretty short column. Aside from all the technical aspects of the consoles, there's barely any information about them, and that's because barely anybody bought these consoles in the first place. But there is one horrible hardware device that was as forgotten as these consoles, but the story surrounding it is a tale for the ages. A tale involving horrible marketing, terrible concepts, Ferraris getting destroyed, and involvement of the Swedish Mafia.

Tune in next week as I detail The Shameful Story of Gizmondo.