The 10 Worst-Selling Handhelds of All Time

hellboy99

Police Bust

Dr Bob

EnterNow wrote: »

That type of screen tech would push the cost up very high though, & even at that, I'm still not sure it'd compensate for the movement generated by playing games.

We need Nintendo, imagine a games world dominated by Sony & MS...eugh.

meh
I wont be popular for saying this but I could quite happily live in a world without the big N.
Hardware wise they were quite innovative (bar the 3ds snafu) but software wise they've just been going through the motions since the mid nineties .They've about what four or five franchises that they've flogged to death with remakes and updates and re-releases.
Third party releases have meant that the Wii is a ghetto of kids games, apps for grannies and shovelware.The DS is great provided you love Jrpgs , otherwise again kids and grannies.
What the world needs is a sega/nintendo merger . Nintendo hardware and sega software Win/Win.
That or Apple buying the Atari name and going head to head with Sony/MS.
Or someone completely new like Samsung getting in on the act..

Myrddin

luas_dublin wrote: »

meh
I wont be popular for saying this but I could quite happily live in a world without the big N.
Hardware wise they were quite innovative (bar the 3ds snafu) but software wise they've just been going through the motions since the mid nineties .They've about what four or five franchises that they've flogged to death with remakes and updates and re-releases.
Third party releases have meant that the Wii is a ghetto of kids games, apps for grannies and shovelware.The DS is great provided you love Jrpgs , otherwise again kids and grannies.
What the world needs is a sega/nintendo merger . Nintendo hardware and sega software Win/Win.
That or Apple buying the Atari name and going head to head with Sony/MS.
Or someone completely new like Samsung getting in on the act..

I have to say I agree with a lot of your comments man. But Nintendo hold a strong sentimental position in my mind, & there's always a hope they'll shine again like they did during the NES & SNES era.

But even though a lot of what they're aiming at recently doesn't appeal to me, the sterility & greyness of Sony & MS just bore me to tears. The industry needs someone who innovates, & pushes the boundaries that bit every now & again. As it stands, the two most popular consoles are the same thing in different shells. Sure their technology is different in them, but aside from a few exclusives...they both play that same sh1te & it near enough looks the same on both also.

Both Sony & MS are so terrified of losing out to each other, its safer just to emulate what each other does, & handful of exclusives a year seem to be the biggest risk each will take.

I miss being the likes of a Sega person, or a Nintendo person etc etc. When you hear today people saying "I've a PS3 coz the 360 is sh1te"...its really sad & worrying.

CiDeRmAn

Nope, a world without Ninty is a world without fun.
Would you leave it up to the two big corps to tell you what you're going to play next?
I mean, you'd imagine that every genre would get a superlative airing, regardless of format or dev, eventually, but just look at the overall output on the PS3.
Look at the desperation to get a decent, console exclusive, FPS on the system and so far nothing, not a blip on the radar.
So, without the DS/GB/Wii we would not have seen Metroid Prime, Monky Ball, Mario 64/Galaxy, NSMB etc.

I think, in retrospect, the Wii will be far better regarded, when, in 5 years time, we can cut out "Carnival Games" and their ilk and instead focus on the good titles that appeared on the machine, and I reckon we could all be surprised by the number of good exclusives that appeared on the format.

As for the DS and GB/C/A, they ruled the 90's and with good reason, tons of great games made by all parties.

I agree we have seen a relentless stream of games from Nintendo that re-uses IP's but that's what an awful lot of people want.
Not so much the IP's themselves, that is the characters in the games, but the quality of the game itself.
Don't you think that Crash Bandicoot Racing would have sold better if it had of been a better game than Mario Kart? Has it anything to do with the characters?

The thing is that we get mixed up between the characters in the games, Mario Tennis/Golf/Kart and the necessary familiarity with these and the actual gameplay of each iteration of a series, Super Mario Kart-Mario Kart 64-Mario Kart GBA-Mario Kart DS-Mario Kart DD-Mario Kart Wii, these all differ quite a lot from format to format, gameplay evolving (or regressing in the case of MK64!) giving a genuinely different experience each time.
The Tennis and Golf and other games with these characters are similarly changed with each iteration.

The reason, I suppose, Ninty are known for this more than others is because they are better at it than anyone else.

So, no, I couldn't imagine a games market without Nintendo, I could happily live without Sony though, who have contributed little original since the PS, most of the great games on the PS2 were either 3rd party games or games by devs who were bought up by Sony, like Psygnosis...
At least the PS1 changed the game, gave the market a shake up, the PS2 just killed the DC! Feckers!

Retr0gamer

I'd probably lose interest in gaming if Nintendo went tits up. They might rehash franchises but they mix it up with so much variety that it doesn't matter. I'd rather play something like New SMB Wii where every level adds something different to the mix and is fresh the whole way through than something like gears of war which is the same gameplay repeated over and over.

And then there's when Nintendo innovates and does something truly spectacular. The Kirby franchise is special to me in that it always tries something new. Look how different the likes of Canvas Course, Super Star Saga and Mass Attack are from the original game.

I still think Nintendo have the old magic, it's just that there games are getting unfortunately ignored. I'd rather have more Xenoblade, NSMB Wii, Mario Galaxy, Mother 3, Hotel Dusk, Sin and Punishment 2 etc. than the big games on the other 2 platforms. Games don't have to be gritty and dark.

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Games don't have to be gritty and dark.

Exactly, and that's why Halo 3 is so so great!!!!

But you're dead right, Ninty bring a certain something to the scene, a spice that the others lack.
Even when former hardware dev Sega started multiformat publishing the game that came to the GC were nothing if not individual,
Billy Hatcher anyone??

pdbhp

If Nintendo went belly up I'd actually cry. Seriously!!
It's a thought not worth thinking about, just imagine it the only games available would be generic shooters and Fifa.
A faith worse than death.


Boourns I say.

Doge

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I remember the barcode battlers and the tabloids running scare stories about gangs of teenagers cutting the barcodes off of products in stores to use on them. Apparently it was happening in Japan at the time. I know a few people that won them through a Quinnsworth competition. I was so jealous.

Now that's a flashback and a half.
I can actually remember there was a TV with quinnsworth mentioned in it,

and I remember being excited by the ad at the time too!

Glad I didn't buy one though!

CiDeRmAn

I can remember training in Sligo when the Barcode Battler craze came and went, like that Quinnsworth had a big promotion and were probably the only reason the console got as much attention over here.
I can remember rolling my eyes as I was a 16bit boy at that stage, and had a far superior Gameboy to keep me going while on the go.

Mr.Saturn

As an aside, apart from the entailing semantics, I've not seen a mention of the N-Gage anywhere in this thread.

batari

Ah man, second post in the thread! I still stand behind the N-Gage, an innovative machine for its time, kept me entertained for hours.

Mr.Saturn

Yeah, I'm going blind, sorry. Both for the mistake and your misguided purchase. :pac: I kid, it's a curio alright, I've seen the odd title and wonder if it may be worth a poke around, but I've still to get a NGPC, so it's a difficult investment to justify at the minutes.

batari

I picked up a bit of a soft spot for the N-Gage, have two model ones, three N-Gage qd's, one of which is a promo shop model. Great machine for emulation before its time, still have mmc cards in my wallet choc full of gb, gg and md games! Needless to say I now own an Xperia play, was the obvious step up

Retr0gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd probably lose interest in gaming if Nintendo went tits up. They might rehash franchises but they mix it up with so much variety that it doesn't matter. I'd rather play something like New SMB Wii where every level adds something different to the mix and is fresh the whole way through than something like gears of war which is the same gameplay repeated over and over.

And then there's when Nintendo innovates and does something truly spectacular. The Kirby franchise is special to me in that it always tries something new. Look how different the likes of Canvas Course, Super Star Saga and Mass Attack are from the original game.

I still think Nintendo have the old magic, it's just that there games are getting unfortunately ignored. I'd rather have more Xenoblade, NSMB Wii, Mario Galaxy, Mother 3, Hotel Dusk, Sin and Punishment 2 etc. than the big games on the other 2 platforms. Games don't have to be gritty and dark.

I think I already have.

While I did get a GameCube and Wii, they never had the same appeal to me that the NES and SNES did. The games I played most were New Super Mario Bros Wii, Super Paper Mario and Mario Kart Wii. I couldn't get into Galaxy at all. I've been thinking of starting Sunshine from scratch to see if I can reignite my interest in the 3D platformers but I'm not so sure.

Retr0gamer

Try Nintendos DS stuff and looking outside of the popular Wii games, there's plenty there that's got the old nintendo magic.

K.O.Kiki

This thread made me remember these images.





Carry on!