In today's console market, it's rare to see a console become a commercial failure. In the past fifteen years, the competitors have more or less remained the same: Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Very rarely does someone step in𒅌 and try to dethrone any of the big boys. There have been a few times that one of the Big Three have made a misstep (usually Nintendo), but the three major players have always managed to make copious amounts of money. Some have just been making a little less than others.

Go back a bit further and you will see a console market that was entirely over-sa꧅turated. Several companies wanted a ✃slice of the home gaming pie. Some of this was because it was a relatively new market and no one had really been solidified as the best of the best. There was room to possibly dethrone one of the major performers. Heck, it even happened. Atari and Sega, once major players in the home console market, eventually opted out of hardware development and went into strictly developing the software for other consoles. As sad as it can be to say goodbye to a classic, it was probably for the best. It made room for Sony and Microsoft to offer some rather powerful home consoles and neither company shows any sign of slowing down.

In addition to Sony and Atari dropping out of the console market, there were also a number of console manufacturers that you've probably never even heard of. Did you know Phillips was in the console game at one time? Did you know that Commodore, the manufacturers of a popular computer that was already known for its ability to play quality games, even tried to get into the cartridge console market? To find out more about these colossal console failures and a number of others, keep your eyebal༺ls on the screen and read on.

15 OUYA

We won't spend too much time picking on the OUYA. It was a crowd funded project so it isn't like there weren't people out there that thought this console was a good idea. On the surface it sounds okay. It's Android powered and easy to develop for. It would obviously have a lot of free-to-play/pay-to-win and other types of freemium games. The OUYA also solved a major probleꦫm with Android mobile gaming - you could now play your games with the more familiar contro🐼ller input device and a full screen from your couch.

Unfortunately, the only people who seemed to want the OUYA were those that supported the Kickstarter. Even though t🐼he reviews for the console were decent, OUYA had a hard time attracting developers and selling the development kits - so the console had very little in the way of games. Razer eventually bought out OUYA's development team and their software assets.

14 Commodore 64 Games System 🍒

It's not much of a surprise this item didn't sell all that well. This was an attempt for the Commodore 64 computer to get a piece of the cartridge home console market. The thing is, the Commodore 64 computer already had some excellent games like Hot Wheels, Donald Duck's Playground, and The Great Giana Sisters (which was essentially a Mario clone that even had its own Mario hack).

The Commodore 64 Games System was released in 1990, which was just a bit too late as Nintendo and Sega h♐ad already surpassed Atari and were completely dominating the console market. Anyone interested in a Commodore 64 for gaming probably already had the comput🍎er by this point. There was also the issue of finding parties willing to develop for it as Nintendo and Sega were the go-to systems by then.

13 🥃 🀅 Sega Saturn

It's a shame that this beefy black box didn't sell too well since it would mark the beginning of the end of Sega's decline on the hardware side of the console market. It offered a lot of excellent games that you couldn't find on the Saturn's major rivals - the Nintendo 64 and the Sony PlayStation - but most of these were arcade ports and not Sega Saturn exclusives. When it came to exclusives, the Saturn was quite lacking. There was a Scud: The Disposable Assassin (mad props if you're familiar) game, but even the then acclaimed comic book didn't offer much in the way of a great gaming experience. They also had Shining Force III, an installment of an excellen♋t Sega exclusive RPG series. What was ⭕noticeably lacking from the Saturn's library?

A proper Sonic game. That's right. The Saturn didn't even offer a Sonic game. What was Sega thinking?

12 Se𒀰ga Dreamcast

Here we have the Dreamcast. The final nail in Sega's console coffin. Though Sega has gone on to develop software for its former competitors and Microsoft's Xbox, this would be the last console developed by one of the original big boys of the console market. It's downfall would lead to something we never thought we'd see in a million years: Sonic games on Nintendo systems. We even saw some games that co-starred Mario♛ and Sonic. In a way, there is a bright side to the po🦂or performance of the Dreamcast.

The Dreamcast did have some amazing games though. They had a port of House of the Dead, one of the greatest arcade games of all time. Space Channel 5 was a great time, and you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't play Dynamite Cop. Jet Set Radio has even seen a revival in the Live markets for 💖PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.

11 𝓡 ⭕ Virtual Boy

I don't think there is a surprise as to wh🌳y the Virꩵtual Boy never took off. First off, it was marketed as portable. It wasn't really portable as the VR "headset" didn't actually strap to your head. Instead, it was mounted on a tri-pod. You had to have a flat surface like a floor or a table. Second, it was entirely uncomfortable to use. Putting it on the floor and keeping your head at an unnatural right angle with your body for the amount of time it took to play a game was painful. You also had to deal with your head constantly pushing it forward and straying away from your eyes. Some gamers tried rectifying this with duct tape, but you shouldn't have to bring in duct tape to play a brand new gaming system. Third, it presented the games in only two colors: black and red. That's not a very good representation of reality, even if it is supposed to be virtual.

10 3DO Interactive Multipla﷽yer

The 3DO wasn't really a console per se. It was actually a list of specifications that hardware companies could use to make their own consoles. The most popular of these hardware manufacturers was Panasonic, as many gaming magazines at the time often referred to⛎ it as the Panasonic 3DO due to the fact th༒at Panasonic manufactured the first wave of consoles. Later, manufacturers like Sanyo and LG (then GoldStar) would manufacture their own 3DO consoles.

The system was highly promoted in gaming magazines and Time Magazine even heralded the system as the Product of the Year in 1993. Unfortunately, the console market was completely over-saturated at this point with Super Nintendo and Genesis being huge hits. There was also the Atari Jaguar, the TurboGrafx 16, and the Neo Geo to contend with. It didn't help that the 3DO released some alarmingly terrible games, like the infamous Plumbers Don't Wear Ties.

9 ActionMax

The Action Max seemed really cool. It was also pretty cheap when you consider the costs of consoles at the time. It was also the first console to have completely live-action games as the console was really just a periph🏅eral for your television and VCR. The games themselves were on VHS tapes!

Games like Pops Ghostly, a game about making your way through a haunted house, looked really appealing. Unfortunately, playing Pops Ghostly was like playing any other game on the Action Max. Every single game was a shooter. The console had no controller, only a zapper. The zapper didn't even actually shoot anything on the screen, it simply interacted with a light receiver that you stuck to your television screen🐠. You didn't actually win or lose any game on the Action Max. You just shot at the light receiver while a VHS tape played in your VCR. It was the equivalent of giving a very young child an unplugged controller to trick them into thinking they were playing a video game with you.

8 Philips CD-i 𒈔

The Phillips CD-i had its heart in the right place. The intention wasn't actually to make a beefy game console, but to make an all-in-one device that had more functionality than a CD player that didn't cost as much as computers with CD-ROM drives at the time. If this sounds a bit familiar to you, you might recall that the Xbox One gets the "one🐬" in its name from the fact it was intended to be an affordable all-in-one device. Unfortunately for Phillips, they wouldn't see the same kind of success as Microsoft. Perhaps they were just ahead of their time.

One odd feature of the CD-i is it had its own exclusive Mario and Zelda games 🐠through a part𒁃nership with Nintendo. These games are widely considered to be the worst games ever offered by either franchise.

7 🐻 Atari Lynx ♒

On the surface, there doesn't seem to be a good reason for the commercial failure of the Atari Lynx handheld. The device came out just a short-time after the Nintendo Game Boy and it was the first handheld gaming device to feature a full-color LCD screen. You'd think this would be a major selling point. Unfortunately, the Lynx couldn't compete with the game library of the Game Boy. The Lynx remained second in sales until the🉐 Sega Game Gear came out. Even though the Game Gear was bulkier and had shorter battery life than the Lynx, the Game Gear had a more impressive game library and knockedꦡ the Lynx down to third.

Despite being highly regarded and being credi൲ted with pioneering handheld gaming (note that distinction doesn't go to the Gam🌜e Boy), its lack of games and lazy marketing campaign kept it out of the minds of most gamers.

6 ℱ Commodore CDTV

Much like the Phillips CD-i, the Commodore CDTV was also supposed to be an all-in-one machine that could single-han♌dedly replace your CD player, game console, and computer. It also had the added bonus of connecting to your TV as opposed to sitting on a desk with a monitor. It could be enjoyed by the whole family at the same time.

The CDTV was essentially a Commodore Amiga 500 computer with a CD drive🥀 and a remote control. All your computer peripherals could be connected to it. Even though the device was an Amiga, it dropped the name for the CDTV. It's very likely the Amiga name wouldn't have hurt the sale of the Commodore CDTV more than the $1,000 price point. That's a hefty sum for a console ꦚtoday. The CDTV was released in 1991.