DIGITISER
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ

10 STUPID CONSOLES THAT HAVE BEEN DESERVEDLY FORGOTTEN

25/5/2017

23 Comments

 
Picture
They say that the past is a different country, but they are wrong; it isn't a different country. It's just the past - a different time, yeah? You see, a country is a region that is identified as a distinct national entity in political geography, whereas the past is a term used to indicate the totality of events that occurred before a given point in time.

Why can't people understand this?!?

And because time moves depressingly ever forwards, each moment being one we shall never return to, the past unravels behind us as the days ahead grow smaller.

And so on, and so forth. Here are 10 old consoles that were well shit, brah.
RADIO SHACK ELECTRONIC TV SCOREBOARD
Picture
From the days when children were stupid enough to be impressed by a square white thing on a black background having a thing done to it by some other square things, the Radio Shack Electronic TV Scoreboard was one of the things that did the above thing.

​It included games such as squash, tennis, hockey, and shooting a square thing - all of which were literally identical to one another. Nevertheless, the people of the era remained profoundly impressed and terrified by how realistic it all was - just look at the two youths in the above image, screaming with mortal fear. They probably think it's going to eat them! The ignorant little pigs.
VIEW-MASTER INTERACTIVE VISION
Picture
Most of us are more familiar with View-Master as the perverted eye-device which allows us to see images right up close to our face, without anybody knowing what it is we're looking at.

"Pray tell... what are they observing? Is it the Taj Mahal wearing a bra? Frankenstein's brass melon? Or perhaps a Star War?"

Is it any wonder that the View-Master Interactive Vision - a version of its looking-at-things device, but done so that bystanders could also see what you were seeing - was an abject failure? It didn't help that the Interactive Vision's games all came on VHS tapes - a sort of cross between a book and a DVD that had gone sour - and that the console looked like something a sick architect might wrongly assume was a good design for a new art museum.
DICK SMITH WIZZARD
Picture
Though called the CreatiVision almost everywhere, it's far more jolly to call this console by its Australian name - the Dick Smith Wizzard.

Famed throughout Australia for its "fantastic serviceability & robust design", one of the Dick Smith Wizzard's biggest selling points was that its games had no need for instruction manuals. Instead, each came with an integral demo mode - something rare for the time - that was hosted by Ned Kelly, a famous bucket-headed bogan and dicksmith.
CASIO LOOPY
Picture
"Casio Loopy nuts are we,
Me and him and them and me,
Sold in Japan and nowhere else,
It had an in-built thermal printer that could be used to create stickers."
MATTEL HYPERSCAN
Picture
Released in the space year 2006 AD, the Hyperscan was aimed at "younger boys" (although it could also be aimed at younger girls, if you could get them to stop running around and squealing at one another for longer than 30 seconds). Its unique selling point was scannable RFID cards, which would change the pitiful characters and pitiful gameplay of its pitiful five games.

​Still... you have to give it kudos for its unique design - it looks like a sort of magic space book that one could imagine a whimsical sprite reading!
BBC BRIDGE COMPANION
Picture
If you thought that the only computerised hardware the BBC were involved with was the BBC Microcomputer... you are wrong. So very, very wrong. So wrong that if you were a Special Administrative Region of China you would be Wrong Wrong (Hong Kong).

You see, the BBC were also responsible for this: the BBC Bridge Companion - a console designed exclusively for people who wanted have some company while crossing bridges. Step onto any bridge, and the BBC Bridge Companion would start chirruping phrases such as: "I am with you now"; "You are not alone"; "I hope you're having as much fun as I am on this bridge"; and "I need a poo now".

It could also be used to help users improve their skills at a card game called Bridge. Available cartridges included the enormously exciting-sounding Advanced Bidding, Club Play 1 - 3, and Duplicate 1.
TIGER GIZMONDO
Picture
Given Nintendo's dominance of the handheld market, you would've had to have been a pretty rare sort of idiot to try to take it on. Step forward Gizmondo - a system which can list its greatest feat as convincing certain mid-90s games journalists that it might actually be pretty good. But then, that the kind of reward you deserve for inviting idiots to a swanky party at London's Park Lane Hotel.

What a shame that so much unwarranted positive PR was wasted. The Gizmondo sold terribly, and the company's director, Stefan Eriksson, was revealed to be the leader of the Uppsalamaffian - a Swedish criminal syndicate. Eriksson was known to local police as "Fat Steve", and had already spent five years in prison before the release of the Gizmondo - for breaking into a man's home, and punching him repeatedly in the face.

In 2006, a year after the release of the Gizmondo, Fat Steve was arrested in California for driving while under the influence of alcohol, after crashing his Ferrari at an estimated 162 miles per hour. Since then he has spent time in prison for charges including embezzlement, possession of cocaine, and owning a really illegal gun.
​
None of that is made up.
TIGER R-ZONE
Picture
A sort of proto-Google Glass (although, to be fair, the Google Glass itself is a sort of proto-Google Glass), Tiger's R-Zone games hovered in front of the player's eyes, via the means of a stupid headset.

Having already cornered the market in licensed handheld LCD games, Tiger was able to secure for the R-Zone such big brands as Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Jurassic Park, and Batman Forever. Unfortunately, the terrible display system and awful games ensured that the R-Zone was a flaccid catastrophe from day one.

It also didn't help matters when it was leaked to the public that the "R" actually stood for "Rectal Prolapse". What were you thinking, Tiger? Nobody is going to buy their child a toy called the Rectal Prolapse-Zone...!
SEGA MASTER SYSTEM GIRL
Picture
Released only in Brazil, the Master System Girl was a battery-powered version of Sega's Master System - but for girls. Due to their dainty hands and genetic oversensitivity to electricity, girls are not allowed to use AC adaptors, in case they become electric.

Also, due to their eyes being weaker and more feeble than powerful male eyes, they are unable to perceive darker colours - and this is why girl things must always be pink; the colour of a womb.
DAEWOO ZEMMIX TURBO
Picture
Zemmix was a range of MSX-based consoles developed by South Korea's Daewoo. Most were pretty unremarkable, save for the Zemmix Turbo - which went all-out to look like something out of Battlestar Galactica. What was that big t-bar bit on the top? It was an all-seeing eye, of course! 

Not really; it was actually a sort of sensor that groaned and moaned when you rubbed your lower belly on it.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
10 FAILED CONSOLES
11 CONSOLES YOU'VE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF
IF VIDEO GAME CHARACTERS WERE SPOONS

23 Comments
MrPSB
25/5/2017 09:38:41 am

Ugh can we please stop with the stupid videogames articles and go back to the serious stuff? Thanks.

Reply
Captain Whoops
25/5/2017 09:59:01 am

Girls don't play Sonic The Hedgehog

Reply
Sexist link
25/5/2017 02:27:55 pm

Yes they do. Sonic is the very dictionary definition of a girls game. You can look that up!

Reply
Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
25/5/2017 03:21:10 pm

They don't even play, they just write elaborate fan fiction inserting themselves as a love rival to Amy Rose, and once they're bored of that, draw artwork of Sonic's anus or what it would look like if Cream the Rabbit was huge and swallowed Rouge the Bat whole.

Alejandro
25/5/2017 10:03:41 am

I received a game.com for Christmas as a child. It managed to combine the worst features of the game gear (bulky size, shape, awful battery life), Gameboy (black and white display, though the shading was so poor you would struggle to see any detail on the games) and the Lynx (no good, or even remotely good, games). The best game was wheel of fortune. Says it all.

Reply
Chris Wyatt
27/5/2017 01:50:41 am

I always wanted one of those. I'd stare longingly at its entry in the Argos catalogue, with each new edition. I guess I wasn't missing much.

But a Gameboy-kind-of-thing that you could connect to the internet! I was sold on that alone! I still kind of want one, even though I know it's shit.

Reply
Ian
25/5/2017 10:05:09 am

They missed a trick with the BBC Bridge Companion. Couldn't they have shoehorned in another B to give us the the no doubt hilarious BBC BBC?
Just as you missed a truck with your Hyperscan synopsis by not including more incidences of pitiful. Pitiful I tell you.

Reply
Colin
25/5/2017 10:26:10 am

Oh man! No Wonderswan? I was convinced you made it up for years

Reply
Spiney O'Sullivan
25/5/2017 12:46:02 pm

Do NOT apply Swan Paint to your Wonderswan. That is the wrong type of Swan.

Reply
MENTALIST
25/5/2017 10:32:24 am

Wow, that Gizmondo (which for years, I would get confused with the past-its-prime tech news site of almost the same name) really is the epitome of mid-noughties, pre-iPhone design isn't it?

Reply
John
25/5/2017 11:41:30 am

Designed by the chap that did the original ZX Spectrum if memory serves.

Reply
John Veness
25/5/2017 04:40:31 pm

Yep, Rick Dickinson, who also designed the ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum Plus, QL, *and* the new Spectrum Next. All great designs, so I guess he's allowed one bummer with the Gizmondo.

Fat Steve
25/5/2017 10:37:52 am

So Biff me old chum, what was that Park Lane party like (makes assumptions).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Eriksson

I remember a trip to London, deffo post Millllennnnniummmm* and seeing that BBC Bridge Computer in a glass case in Harrods. I have no idea why I was in Harrolds, but was impressed by it's use of the old BBC logo and it's exhorbitatnt price tag of £400, as was Harolds want not to price things ending in 99 new pence.

*Rumour has it that Robbie Williams collects all Daewoo MSX consoles and has a private museum that only him and his old English teacher are allowed to enter.

Reply
Mr Biffo
25/5/2017 10:51:28 am

I never went to no Park Lane party. I'd stopped doing Digi by that point.

Reply
DEAN
25/5/2017 12:44:03 pm

"VHS tapes - a sort of cross between a book and a DVD"

Jesus Christ that nearly killed me!

Reply
Mr Biffo
25/5/2017 12:57:48 pm

Easy there, Deano...

Reply
Alastair
25/5/2017 01:41:33 pm

"its Australian name - the Dick Smith Wizzard"

No, pretty sure that's a Digitiser name right here.

Reply
Clement Carrickfergus
25/5/2017 01:51:59 pm

What no Nokia Ngage? I'm may be the only human on your planet you call earth to have bought two Ngages,it must have been aboot 2003/4 when my first born took his to school as it was the end of term(easter), when my son( miniature rat) returned home that afternoon in floods of tears telling his mum,my wife,that it had been stolen. I said that in the morning we will head to town to but I new one. Could we find one? The first one was bought in a MVC but that had since left our town(Hampreston) so we had to result to eBay,miniature rather was happy(for aboot 2 weeks)

Reply
John Veness
25/5/2017 04:46:55 pm

The packaging of the DAEWOO ZEMMIX TURBO seems very proud that it has passed an EMI test!

Reply
Damon link
25/5/2017 05:29:36 pm

A comment here reminded me of one of the most absurd derrivitive works of fiction (fan fiction) I've ever read. Princess Sally Acorn (from Sonic, yeah?) decided to use a chair leg as a dildo. Then it got stuck. The only way for it to become unstuck was, apparently, for her to orgasm in front of 16+ people she knew.

The other is Harry Potter sneeze fetish fiction, which seems more absurd to me.

Reply
ChorltonWheelie
25/5/2017 07:11:46 pm

I think I may have married Stefan Eriksson by mistake.

Reply
GigerPunk link
25/5/2017 09:26:56 pm

R-zone? R-zoles, more like. Great big smelly tiger's ones.

Reply
Kelvin Green link
25/5/2017 10:42:38 pm

I can never forget the GAMATE. I didn't have one, I never saw one in real life, but I did see an advert for it in some early 90's game magazine and the air of overwhelming naffness has stuck with me for decades.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    This section will not be visible in live published website. Below are your current settings:


    Current Number Of Columns are = 2

    Expand Posts Area =

    Gap/Space Between Posts = 12px

    Blog Post Style = card

    Use of custom card colors instead of default colors = 1

    Blog Post Card Background Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Shadow Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Border Color = current color

    Publish the website and visit your blog page to see the results

    Picture
    Support Me on Ko-fi
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    RSS Feed Widget
    Picture

    Picture
    Tweets by @mrbiffo
    Picture
    Follow us on The Facebook

    Picture

    Archives

    December 2022
    May 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014


    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ