What is the most disappointing video game console of all time?

Good hardware with no games, bad hardware with a decent idea, and one that arrived before anyone thought to tell the retailers. Failure comes in more varieties than you would expect.

1

Nintendo Wii U

Nintendo's 2012 console, sold on a second screen nobody understood, stopped at 13.6 million units.

2

PlayStation Vita

Sony's 2011 handheld: excellent hardware, proprietary memory cards, and almost no first-party support.

3

Xbox One

Microsoft's 2013 console, whose always-online reveal cost it the generation before it shipped.

4

Nintendo Virtual Boy

The 1995 red-on-black headset that sold 770,000 units and was gone within a year.

5

Sega Saturn

Sega's 1994 machine, hard to program for and launched early without warning retailers.

6

Sega Dreamcast

A genuinely good 1999 console abandoned by its own maker within two years.

7

Atari Jaguar

The 1993 machine marketed as 64-bit, with a controller shaped like a telephone.

8

3DO Interactive Multiplayer

The 1993 console that launched at $699 and asked buyers to fund a licensing standard.

9

Ouya

The 2013 crowdfunded Android micro-console that raised millions and shipped almost nothing worth playing.

10

Nokia N-Gage

The 2003 phone-console hybrid that made you hold it sideways to take a call.

11

PlayStation 3 (launch)

Sony's 2006 debut at $599, with a hostile architecture and a slow first two years.

12

Google Stadia

The 2019 cloud console that shut down in 2023 and refunded every purchase.

13

Philips CD-i

The 1991 multimedia player Nintendo licensed characters to, remembered only for its Zelda games.