Amstrad GX4000 returns to haunt list of failed consoles
Gearfuse collects its selection of the worst video game consoles of all time. Its methodology appears to have been to simply select machines that allow for the snark of least resistance, but author Ryan Ash makes at least one splendid choice: Amstrad's GX4000 is a a perfectly obscure example of Why Consoles Fail.
There are problematic selections, however, such the Mattel Intellivision and SNK's Neo-Geo. And then there's the attention-hunting inclusion of Nintendo's Wii. Worse, the Vectrex is in the list. That's just heresy!
A better challenge would be to discover the absolute worst consoles of all time, by scouring junk stores and eBay for genuine trash. I think this is a job for Joel.
The 10 Worst Video Game Consoles Of All Time [Gearfuse]
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Wow, I hope whoever wrote that doesn't have a journalism degree. What was bad about the Amstrad? I'm an older gamer and I haven't even heard of the thing, but I was one of those people held in the thrall of NES at the time. I mean, I'm sure it was bad, but the author didn't tell me why.
My old roomate bought an N-Gage, and I laughed at him. He has a security clearance at a large defense contractor (I know the boingers love to hear that) and he isn't allowed to have a smart phone that connects to any sort of network. So if he wanted a gadget-type phone the N-Gage was it. He loved it, and played it pretty constantly. A big bonus was when it tanked he bought every game for it on the super cheap. I'm sure he still plays Tiger Woods Golf while in the water closet.
And yeah, some of his Wii points might be valid, but #1? It's worse than the Jaguar? Than the Virtual Boy? How many shades of stupid does the author think I am?
The SNES came with Super Mario World, not Super Mario Land, and the 32x was an expansion rather than a full fledged console. The Wii is at #1 just to bring in page views. The whole thing stinks.
No 3DO?
No Gizmoto?
No game.com?
If you allow any and all consoles ever sold, the list would probably be filled with Pong clones, which were so prevalent in the 70's.
Neo Geo wasn't a bad console, it was just a bad business model, on the home console side (the console cost way more than the competition, and the games sold for around 200$ each, in cartridges that were about as big as a Wii.)
The Intellivision, while not super-successful, sold respectably before the crash of '83-'84, and had fun games. Its main fault was probably that it didn't allow / attract any third-party developers, so the game library was smaller than it could have been. Some people still swear by the Baseball game you could play on it, and Snafu or Astrosmash were always lots of fun. The controller was stupid by today's standards, but it worked well for some games.
Enochrewt, the quality of that piece's writing has been noted.
The **Vectrex** is one of the worst video games, they say?? Obviously they never owned one.
I apologize for being redundant Mr. Beschizza, I commented on the writing because I was hoping someone would explain to me why the Amstrad was so bad, and that completely did not come through in my comment. Luckily I'm not saddled with any sort of language degree, so I have an excuse ;)
I don't care what anyone says. I loved Burnin' Rubber on that machine.
How about "Worst Title Font EVER!"
Ah, no, Mr. Enochrewt -- I didn't mean to criticize you -- I merely meant to point out that we *haven't finished with this post* yet. Watch this space.
Continued here:
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/05/20/graded-the-worst-10.html
Horrible article, poorly researched, etc. Shame on the bbgadgets crew for double posting it.
I considered myself knowledgeable about console history but I'd never heard of the Amstrad GX4000 until today. After learning a tiny bit about it, I see why its not even a dust speck in the console history books.
laughety whut? We didn't double-post anything -- go and read the continuation.
Mr. Beschizza: After seeing the next post on this article, I get it, and like I said in the other post, it has made my day.