Take 5: Forgotten consoles

Making a successful console is a remarkably tricky process. Unless the right launch titles are picked, or effective marketing and pricing are used, it's very difficult to convince a gamer to part with £200 to £300 for something that may well be obsolete within a couple of years. For every Wii, there's a GameCube. For every MegaDrive, there's a Sega Saturn. Here are a few systems that failed to cut the mustard.

3DO Interactive Multiplayer, 1993

Panasonic's attempt to claim a share of the Nintendo/Sega dominated 90s console market never really got off the ground. Despite a much-hyped launch (the system was Time magazine's 1994 product of the year) the hefty price tag put off any gamers not already fiercely loyal to the italian plumber or blue hedgehog – despite offering 32 bit CD gaming a year before the Sony PlayStation. The lack of any outstanding software was the nail in the system's coffin. Now remembered most fondly for carrying one of the most well regarded versions of the motorcycling-while-hitting-people-with-lead-piping classic Road Rash.

Nintendo Virtual Boy, 1995

Proof that even Nintendo make mistakes, one of the company's biggest missteps was the Virtual Boy, an attempt to bring 3D effects to the portable gaming market. Despite offering a couple of decent games the system had two major drawbacks; one, that the "portability" offered was severely limited – the eyepiece had to be placed so it could stand exactly at eye level to be comfortable; and two, that gamers would report of watering eyes and headaches if the system was played for more than 10-15 minutes at a time. Less than a million were sold, making the console hot property for collectors and sadomasochists alike.

Atari Lynx, 1989

On the face of it, it seems odd that the Lynx wasn't a roaring success. For original Game Boy users, the idea of playing portable games on a colour screen must have seemed like some unimaginable luxury – the Lynx, released two years before the similarly unsuccessful Sega Game Gear offered just that, and some nine years before Nintendo would release its Game Boy Color. Despite this advantage, the Atari system was considered unwieldy, and sapping six batteries in just a few hours, prohibitively expensive to run (let alone costing twice as much as a Game Boy on its launch). Plus, it didn't have Tetris. Or Mario. It had Chip's Challenge. Which says it all really.

TurboGrafx-16, 1987

NEC's attempt to enter the late-80s console war seemed destined for success – like the 3DO it offered more processing power than any of its rivals on release, offering 16-bit gaming a year before the Sega MegaDrive. Like so many failed consoles however, the system lived and died on its software, and with many developers choosing to work instead with Sega or Nintendo, the TurboGrafx was unable to offer anything like the extensive games catalogue that would be accumulated by the SNES and MegaDrive, let alone any games of the quality of Sonic or Mario – games alone worth buying a system for.

Apple Bandai Pippin, 1995

Hark back, if you will, to a time before iPhones and iMacs, when Steve Jobs was much less famous than Bill Gates and Apple was still more often than not suffixed with the word Macintosh. Even hardcore Apple-philes may never have heard of the Pippin, the company's sole foray into the world of home gaming consoles. Designed by Apple but produced by Bandai, both companies must share the blame for this ill-conceived attempt to sneak a PC-like games system into our living rooms. The right system backed by a company liked Apple could have made a real impact in the marketplace (as the Xbox later proved). With sales reportedly falling below the 50,000 mark, Sega and Nintendo bosses probably didn't lose too much sleep.