Aged Like Fine Milk: The Ten Most Future-PRONE Game Formats

Some game consoles have smart hardware designs that keep them relevant years and even decades past their expiration dates. The Atari 2600's life spanned three decades. The Neo-Geo only died because its manufacturer SNK did, some thirteen years after its introduction in 1990. Heck, they may still be selling Master Systems in Brazil, forty years later! Their longevity alone makes these machines legendary.

Like Squidward, these game systems
are not E.

Not every game console has that kind of endurance... in fact, an unlucky handful were obsolete on launch, held back from greatness by limited resources, bewildering architecture, and plain old short-sighted design. They're not necessarily bad systems, but they're a whole lot harder to love than the machines in my last article...

MAGNAVOX ODYSSEY2

Back in 1981, most game-loving families had an Atari 2600. A lucky few had the Mattel Intellivision, while the less fortunate- myself included- had to slum with the Magnavox Odyssey2.

In the first console war, the Odyssey2 wasn’t a major player like Stalin or Churchill, but more akin to Colonel Klink from Hogan’s Heroes. At first glance, it looks like a genuine threat, with a membrane keyboard and neon-lined science-fiction box art. However, from its first stumbling step, the Odyssey2 demonstrates that it’s far from the Dutch uber-console Phillips would have you believe.

Every game system in the early 1980s had compromises in its design to keep it at a consumer-friendly price point. The 2600 had no video RAM, and the Intellivision had a sluggish clock speed... these were severe handicaps, but smart developers could work around them to deliver fun and distinct gaming experiences.

Pop-Aye-Aye-Aye!

Phillips’ compromise for the Odyssey2 was cutting the available RAM down to 64 bytes, while including a built-in character set with all the objects one would need to make a video game. That was fine in 1978, when the machine was first designed, but as the gaming industry evolved and video games developed as an artistic medium, the Odyssey2 couldn’t keep up. Ports of arcade hits like Frogger, Q*Bert, and Popeye were eventually released for the system, but they were more like abstractions, drained of visual identity and even basic play mechanics. 

Against all logic, the Odyssey2 has fans in the 21^st century, including a few programmers who’ve made their own games. Writing a video game for this machine must be like painting a detailed landscape on a grain of rice, but at least the Odyssey2 is still providing gamers with a challenge...

EMERSON ARCADIA 2001 

Shitty box art rounds out
the thoroughly shitty
Arcadia experience.

Powered by a Signetics 2650 processor (in the same way a potato might power an alarm clock), this early game console designed by Hong Kong’s Universal Appliances Limited was released in a whole lot of countries, under a whole lot of names. Here in America, we either called it the “Emerson Arcadia 2001,” or “the only game console my parents could afford.”

The problem with the Arcadia is that it was designed to compete with the Atari 2600... with budget Hong Kong parts... in 1982, on the cusp of the arrival of the ColecoVision. The Arcadia couldn’t compete with the massive library of titles on the Atari 2600, and certainly couldn’t go toe to toe with the next wave of game consoles, with their boosted specs. The ColecoVision promised an arcade-quality gaming experience, and sometimes hit that mark. With eight acrid colors and screechy sound, the Arcadia had no chance of reaching that target, let alone the bullseye. What else would you expect from a game system designed by Universal Appliances Limited? Maybe they should have stuck with toasters... 

ATARI JAGUAR

Oh, you want me to do the math? Here’s an equation for you! One leftover Atari ST, plus a handful of new chips that work about as well together as The Three Stooges, plus an obnoxious marketing campaign, equals one of the least popular game systems of all time, selling a miserable 250,000 units. The 3DO sold three million units, and that was at three times the price!

Cybermorph gets the lion's share of ridicule
from gamers, but for my money, it's Trevor
McFur that deserves all the contempt. It's
a game that thinks it's Star Fox on the Super
NES, but is actually more like Star Fox on
the Atari 2600.
(image from retrogamesreview.co.uk)

Atari pushed the notion that the Jaguar was 64-bit, which wasn’t really true... putting two 32-bit processors together in the same console doesn’t add up to 64 bits. However, you don’t have to be an IT expert to know that Jaguar games fall well short of expectations for a next generation console. Many of the Jaguar’s titles were holdovers from the Genesis and Super NES, a little shinier than before but not dramatically improved. It could handle 3D better than Sega and Nintendo’s 16-bit consoles, but was soundly thrashed as a polygon pusher by both its rival, the 3DO, and the 32-bit consoles that would arrive years later.

In spite of, well, everything, the Atari Jaguar has a small but dedicated fanbase, and homebrew software does exist for the system. It couldn’t have been easy to code with the Jaguar’s convoluted architecture, and it can’t be easy to run with so few physical units and a dearth of worthwhile Jaguar emulators, but it’s there.

NEC SUPERGRAFX 

From an American perspective, the entire Turbografx-16 brand was a fizzle, but Hudson’s almost 16-bit console was a hit in Japan, coming at just the right time to tempt players away from the Famicom. Nintendo’s first console was released much earlier in Japan than the United States, and players in the East had more time to get disillusioned with the Famicom’s limitations. The PC Engine was originally conceived as a sequel to the Famicom, with a similar processor but access to larger sprites and richer colors. Nintendo didn’t want the machine, but the players did, and the new and improved PC Engine sold millions of units. (The number is contested, but long-running Japanese magazine Famitsu seems to think it was five million.)

Hudson and manufacturer NEC picked the perfect time to release the PC Engine, at the peak of Japan’s Famicom fatigue. (You may recall that this tactic also worked pretty well for Sega, which released the Genesis at the peak of America’s own Nintendo burnout.) However, with the powerful Super Nintendo on the horizon, what would Hudson and NEC do for an encore? 

The choppy aerial combat game
Battle Ace illustrates how unprepared
the SuperGrafx was for the Mode 7
effects of the Super NES.
(image from StrategyWiki)

The unfortunate answer is the SuperGrafx, which took the momentum NEC built up with the PC Engine and slammed on the brakes. What did Japanese gamers get for their three hundred dollars? A PC Engine with double the RAM... and that’s it. While this opened the door to parallax scrolling and more sprites, as illustrated in its killer app Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, the measly five and a half games of the SuperGrafx library didn’t provide much of a value proposition for players. Even the Sega CD, widely considered a failure, introduced significant improvements to the core Genesis hardware, and had... let me crunch the numbers on this... thirty-four times the games.

The SuperGrafx was an evolutionary dead end for NEC, the definition of “too little, too late,” and its negligible performance enhancements would be left out of NEC’s later consoles. The company’s final misstep in the console wars, the anime-heavy, gameplay-light PC-fx, would face similar issues... it was much too expensive for what it offered players, and was instantly eclipsed by later 32-bit consoles.

GAME DOT COM

“Oh, come on! You can’t put a Tiger handheld in a list like this!”

Oh yes I can! Especially when the Game dot Com was specifically designed to challenge the Game Boy with its own library of cartridges. Tiger made a lot of tall promises about the system’s abilities to the gaming press of the time... it’s got digitized voice! It’s got big names like Sonic the Hedgehog and Duke Nukem! It’s got online capabilities! It’s got a touchscreen!

The Game Dot Com got a slimline model,
the Pocket Pro. It's a game system no pro
would ever put in their pockets.
(image from eBay)

What it’s really got is plenty of disappointment. Technically, you can play Duke Nukem on a game dot com... but don’t expect it to be much like the shareware hit on home computers. Same deal with other high-profile game dot com titles like Sonic Jam and Fighter’s Megamix. They exist, but with a blurry monochrome display and a processor so primitive it should have come with a wind-up key, you won’t be enjoying them much. As for the online features, wi-fi wasn’t a thing back in those days, so you’ll have to be plugged into a phone line to use them. So you can use your game dot com to surf the internet, but only twenty feet from your home computer, which does it better, and in color. Okay...?

The game dot com was soundly spanked by the black and white Game Boy, and didn’t stand a chance in hell when more powerful handhelds like the Wonderswan Crystal and Neo-Geo Pocket Color arrived. By the time the Game Boy Advance joined the fray, the game dot com was a distant, bitter memory. As they say, “and nothing of value was lost.”

PANASONIC 3DO

The 3DO was a victim of bad timing... too early to start a new console generation, but too dated in design to compete with the next generation consoles released two years later. With a bleeding-edge RISC processor, a dual-speed CD-ROM drive, and 3D visuals beyond the grasp of the Genesis and even the Super NES, the 3DO was pretty amazing. In 1993. If you could afford it. (At seven hundred dollars, you couldn’t.)

Immercenary for the 3DO. Hey, 3D gaming
had to start somewhere.
(image from MyAbandonware.com)

Two years later, the 3DO dropped in price. You know what else dropped? The Playstation and Saturn, two consoles from Japan which had two years to mature, improve, and streamline. Suddenly the 3DO, which was a hard sell at seven hundred dollars, was a hard sell with two cheaper, more powerful consoles bracketing it on store shelves. The token support the 3DO received from Capcom, Taito, and SNK quickly shifted to the Saturn and Playstation, and the system was finished. A sequel system, the M2, was planned but cancelled, with units being repurposed as video kiosks in car dealerships. (Hey, it beats the Atari Jaguar’s master mold being used to make dental equipment.)

As an orphaned game console, the 3DO doesn’t get much love from homebrew developers. It’s a little too slow to run emulators and a little too obscure for arcade ports, although there was a valiant attempt by a fan to port Mortal Kombat II to the system. It’s a bit cramped and the AI doesn’t perfectly match the arcade game’s, but it’s still better than any other digitized fighter on this system.

SEGA SATURN

Let me preface this by saying that I love the Sega Saturn. With its famously responsive six button controllers and a buttload of old-school arcade titles, it’s like Sega made a game console just for me. And Del the Funky Homosapien. And a handful of Japanese hipsters.

Shining Force III, one of the final releases
for the Saturn in the United States. If
you're underwhelmed by this, you should see
one of the Saturn's bad games.
(image from MobyGames)

The problem is that millions more did not want this system. As a 2D powerhouse that struggled mightily with first and third person action games, it stood in defiance of what gaming had become in the late 1990s. Rumor has it that support for polygons was added to the Saturn hardware at the last minute, and you can feel it in the way many of its 3D games look and play. Almost without exception, the Playstation versions of a major release, be it Resident Evil or Tomb Raider or Doom, look better than their Saturn counterparts, with more detail and better special effects. 3D is just not the Saturn’s forte, which was unfortunate for Sega, as it was what players wanted in 1998.

It should also be noted that the CPU that handles the 2D games in the Saturn and the CPU that handles the 3D games don’t play well together, resulting in headaches for both game designers in the 1990s, and emulator authors now. Ymir has made great strides in Sega Saturn emulation, but it’s taken twenty five years to get to that point. If you’re expecting a Saturn mini built with budget parts, you might have to wait another twenty five years.

ACTION MAX

Move over, "blast processing!" Worlds
of Wonder has given us the most
meaningless marketing catchphrase in
video game history!
(image from Parry Game Preserve)

When Nintendo first launched the Nintendo Entertainment System in America, they partnered with Worlds of Wonder, a toy company responsible for the runaway success of Teddy Ruxpin in the mid 1980s. When the popularity of the NES snowballed, Nintendo broke its ties with Worlds of Wonder... and WOW retaliated by releasing its own game system. If you want to call it that.

The reality is that the Action Max was about as much of a “video game system” as the animatronic bear they sold years earlier. The console includes a light gun, a siren light, and connections for your VCR. The “games” are video tapes; corny movies with targets on the screen. Firing at the targets lights up the siren and adds to a counter on the console, which goes all the way up to 99!

Even in the distant year of 1987, the Action Max looked like a low-tech, cobbled together relic. There were only five late night cable movies- er, games- and the best Worlds of Wonder could do to promote it was product placement in the woeful spy comedy Leonard Part VI. (There were not five previous Leonards. Be eternally grateful for this.) The Action Max couldn’t catch a break. As a VCR toy disguised as a video game system, it didn’t deserve one.

MATTEL HYPERSCAN

Slightly better than the Action Max (but just barely...) is the Mattel Hyperscan, the toy company’s not-so-triumphant return to the video game market in 2006. The Hyperscan, which looked like the unholy love child of a Sega Dreamcast and a George Foreman Grill, used trading cards to boost the stats of your character. When the trading cards actually scanned properly, which wasn’t often. Also, the library was comprised of throwaway licensed games, roughly on par with what you might find on a Jakks-Pacific Plug ‘n Play unit. Five titles are available for your playing, uh, pleasure, including a stiff rendered X-Men fighting game and an action title starring shape-shifting boy hero Ben 10.

With its patented design, the HyperScam
drains the fun directly out of your fingertips!
(image from Kinguin.net)

Forget future-proof, the Hyperscan wasn’t even present-proof. It was released in 2006, when the Xbox 360 was already on store shelves and the Wii and PS3 weren’t far behind, yet would have been put to shame by consoles released ten years earlier. The Hyperscan processor is a system on a chip which runs at 100MHz. There’s 16 megabytes of RAM, a fraction of what you’d find in 1998’s Sega Dreamcast. It’s got no I/O beyond a couple of proprietary joystick ports, the CD-ROM, and a hardwired A/V cable. It runs five games, none good. The Hyperscan probably could be hacked, given enough time and a hacker with absolutely nothing better to do. However, considering its wimpy, obscure hardware, it’s not so much of a question of “how?” as “why?”

NINTENDO 64

Nintendo 64 games have a distinct look, as you
can see from this snapshot of Turok: 
Dinosaur Hunter. His greatest enemy?
Nearsightedness!
(image from MobyGames)

The Nintendo 64 feels weirdly out of step with Nintendo’s previous consoles, using hardware originally crafted for Silicon Graphics’ CGI workstations. You’d think this would give the system an advantage over its competitors in rendering 3D visuals, and indeed, the Nintendo 64’s best moments were presented in three dimensions. However, Nintendo 64 graphics weren’t necessarily better than those on the Playstation; just different. Instead of wobbly but sharp polygons, N64 games had blurred edges, smeary textures, and low frame rates, with thick curtains of fog to mask the short draw distances. This brings a hazy, dream-like quality to Nintendo 64 games. That ethereal vibe fit epics like Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time perfectly well, but in a lesser game like Superman 64, it just felt cheap. Apparently Superman now has super-cataracts.

The look and feel of Nintendo 64 games is subject to personal taste, but almost nobody was down with Nintendo’s decision to use cartridge-based media. While this meant instant loading for games and Tonka-tough media that could withstand a child’s wrath, it also significantly curtailed the scope of the N64’s games, and left third party publishers with high aspirations scrambling to Sony and its Playstation. Nintendo lost the support of Squaresoft for years because the company’s big ideas just wouldn’t fit on a cartridge. Other publishers continued to support Nintendo, but reluctantly... their N64 games often felt feeble next to their Playstation counterparts, due to the limitations of the cartridge format and general indifference.

After attempting to fill the void of a CD-ROM drive with the 64DD, an oversized floppy drive, Nintendo stopped trying to plug holes in the Nintendo 64 and abandoned the sinking ship, replacing it with the PowerPC-based GameCube in 2001. Time has not been kind to the Nintendo 64 in the years since... its complicated architecture makes it a bitch to emulate. And forget about homebrew games! Even the professionals at Treasure lamented the stubborn N64 hardware in an interview with Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata. If even they can’t get a handle on this machine, the average coder doesn’t stand a chance.