Each generation of gaming consoles/handhelds has a "winner", in terms of dominating the market and making a profit. But by what standards is a console labeled a failure? Here's what got me thinking about this. I always hear the Atari Lynx referred to as a failure. While it wasn't a perfect machine (and it definitely wouldn't fit in your pocket) the Lynx hung in there for 4-5 years, has about 100 games, had some ambitious hardware, etc. If you compare Atari's experience to Sega's Game Gear, by measure of longevity, software catalogue, and market share, Sega reads as the success. Then compare Sega to Nintendo, and the Game Gear is a flop, and the Gameboy is the blockbuster. I know everything exists in relation to other things, but I'm just wondering in a larger context, what standards most people use when assigning a failure label to gaming platform? Market share? Initial longevity? Quantity or quality of hardware? Quantity or quality of software? Ambition? Contemporary critique? What evaluation do you use? Give an example.
Games. Pure and simple. Gameboy had Tetris. Game Gear flew on the back of MS ports and Sonic for a while. The Atari Lynx had.....I can't think of anything truly spectacular off the top of my head. It's always about games. Look at the Saturn and PS1. Sega still thought the home user would be happy with 30 seconds of intense arcade experience. Sony knew better.
More like Sony got lucky. The didn't make out like they did for being exceptional. They were just the only ones not to go with really weird hardware choices and their business practices were right for the time. Sega and Nintendo both made strange hardware choices and poor business practices. Everyone has their own view of whether or not a platform was a success or failure. For example the NeoGeo could easily be seen as a failure since it was so expensive and few people bought them. But on the other hand many games were released for it and for a long time span. So then maybe it was a success though perhaps not a huge one. The Sega Saturn is viewed as a failure by some particularly in the US because it died out early and the PS1 seemed to go on for a long time after. But in Japan it continued and had alot of great games released and many consider it to be a great platform that was a success atleast in Japan. For a company a platform is a success or failure solely based on their bottom line. If it made them money, great. If they lost a bunch of money, it was a failure unless they can use the experience and history for future profits. I think the original Xbox lost money but it built a foundation for the Xbox 360 that is clearly a success.
If it was profitable it was a success, if it wasn't was a failure. Quality of hardware/software, "ambition", "contemporary critique" etc are all hugely subjective. As an end consumer it's certainly "always about games" for me too, but I don't think my personal feelings towards a platform should have any bearing on the way I use the term "success". To me that word is only relevant in this context when we're talking in business terms. Making games I personally like, or having an ambition for the platform that I find attractive, certainly doesn't guarantee you any measure of financial success (see also: Dreamcast).
Atari (well the Tremiels anyways) always stated until the vary end that the Lynx and Jaguar did not lose money for them but they had no products to sell (and probably saw the writing on the way anyway). I think you can measure success or failure in relative terms rather then absolute ones, how long did the console and the games sell for, as well as how games were in the library. I do not think that Market share matters as long the company sell the console and games and make a profit. A good system should have least a handful of games that were good and still playable now. The Atari Lynx was a nice console and survived for 5 years, it had some nice games including the excellent chips challenge and the best version of california games. Ignoring homebrew, prototypes and self published games it had around 70 games for it and there are a few gems in there. You could say it was a failure as it had a small library of games but a success as it was sold for 5 years. The SNK Neo Geo Pocket had comic timing, first they release the SNK Geo Pocket with it's black and white screen just before Nintendo released the Game Boy Color and although they released the Pocket Color it was creamed basically by the Wonderswan which did manage to get a much larger market share, within 3 years the console was dead... (The wonderswan did not do much better only lasting 4 years but had a much larger number of games released....)
I think for the Wonderswan it was all down to Bandia and their mass of Japanese anime licenses and bloody Gundam. An awful lot of Wonderswan games are pure shit but because of the license they were built upon they sold well. The fact that it was never sold in the west proves this. The system just didn't have enough good games. Neither did the Neo Geo Pocket but as far as a wester player was concerned it was way ahead in the playable games department. So in a Japanese point of view, the wonderswan was better than the NeoGeo Pocket but from a western view it's the complete oppossite. Yakumo
Quality of software is #1. That isn't to say shoddy equipment doesn't play a big part, but software will always determine what console is good to me.
One game doesn't make a system, nor does it define it. A killer app could be the most soul destroying title in the world from a gameplay point of view but from a technical standpoint be head and shoulders above it's peers. Conversely half of the systems software catalogue could look like shit but still have that hook that draws you in.
Well, the PSP had some great games that I loved, but in many ways it has been a failure. So what it boils down to I guess is the what the companies aim for. Sony tried to be more successful than Nintendo in the handheld market, and failed. The Neo Geo Pocket, for instance, cannot be seen as a failure in that regard as they never had that ambition.
Developing, marketing, and selling any piece of gaming equipment is solely about one thing. Profit. At the end of the day there is no room for personal opinions. If the company set out to make a profit and it does in fact turn a profit. Then the platform was a success. The amount of profit can and will set the tone for how much of a success it has been, but personally disliking any platform does not have any effect on its success or failure rate beyond your ability to decide not to purchase said platform.
The Wonderswan did have a lot of half decent games, a lot were only playable in japanese but they, I do have a Wonderswan and and a Neo Geo Pocket and I prefer the Wonderswan, with it's Mr Driler, Gunpey (any of the versions of it...), Makaimura, Rainbow Islands, Slitherlink, Guilty Gear Petit, Pocket Fighter, Crazy Climber, Final Lap Special, Side Pocket, Xi Little, Pro Mahjong Kiwame and a few others that I know I have missed. Say what you want about Bandai but the Wonderswan does have a larger range of games on the machine then the Neo Pocket does. Bandai did get a small coup with signing up Square to release Final Fantasy games on the machine and that is why it sold, Bandai probably knew that they did not have a strong enough library to even think about competing with Nintendo and probably did not want to take the finicial risk of converting a lot of their Japanese only games to English. SNK mainly had pick up and play games that were easy to convert to English and made this so anyway, then they made a hash of the western release killing it in record time (a year is a failure in anyones books) and with it's tiny collection and limit number of games, it is easy to get a full collection so collectors collect for the sake of collecting rather then playing the games.
That's kind of a hard question to answer, considering most consoles have more than one "killer app". But if it was one amazing game with decent replay value and a great story compared to just semi-fun games that you get over in a week, then I would say killer app. Also, In my previous post that was my definition of what makes a console/handheld a failure. I see people mentioning profits and the other factors that cause companies to either fail or succeed, but the topic title is "How do you measure failure", And I am a human, not a giant corporation looking for cash gain. So quality of games is still #1! ;-)
Yes, an that's interesting way to look at it. An associate of mine from Argentina is really into handhelds, as am I. He brought to my attention something that once I thought about it, I knew I agreed with. He said (and I'm paraphrasing here...) that Handhelds, conceptually have an inherent quality that makes them seem more like the "dreams of a child",(especially the failures) than ideas of men. Do you know what I mean? Often the goal can be to incorporate some far-out feature or raw-technology that a reasonable person should know wouldn't work. So often it's like chasing rainbows. I love it too. Thinking of the moment when an idealistic engineer succeeded in convincing a group of investors, to invest in say.....the Turbo Express ( a beauty, but 1990 retail $349.99 !) makes me smile. It seems to be a real juncture between the practical side of our brains (let's make a buck) and the irrational creative kid in (most of) us.
