Survival of the fittest or just plain bad business decisions. Just as Betamax was left in the wake of the VHS behemoth, the video games market is strewn with carcasses of systems and games that just never made it.
Some of history’s most spectacular gaming console flops come from two of the industry’s heavy hitters, Atari and Sega. The hardware manufacturing death knell was getting quite loud at Atari – they decided to throw in the towel and quit making games consoles after the Atari Jaguar was caught in the crossfire of the Sega versus Nintendo battle of the 1990s. The Jaguar was rushed to market and suffered the consequences. Selling fewer than 250,000 units just wasn’t going to cut it. Perhaps Atari should have done the math (get it!) before they embarked on the Jaguar.
A few years after Atari ceased making hardware, it was Sega’s turn to wave the console making white flag. Once a pillar of the video games console industry, Sega’s Dreamcast was met with initial enthusiasm but Sega also abandoned making consoles after the Dreamcast was smashed by the new kid on the block, Sony’s PlayStation 2.
As for gaming flops, Atari’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial takes the gong. The game was rushed (it took 5 weeks to develop) to retail stores for the 1982 Christmas season but was such a disappointment, that millions of unsold game cartridges ended up in landfill in the New Mexico desert. Atari ordered more E.T. cartridges to be made than there were installed Atari VCS 2600 units! Again, Atari should have DONE THE MATH.
Located at Pier 45 in Fisherman’s Wharf, this wonderland is Mecca for arcade nostalgia buffs. Once you enter the museum, you are greeted by familiar sounds of coins dropping into machines, pinball bumpers being hammered, plastic fire buttons being mashed, and good old Zoltar providing fortunes – music to the nostalgic ear. This Musée contains one of the world’s largest (over 200) privately owned collections of coin-operated mechanical musical instruments and antique arcade machines in their original working condition. The best part is, you can play them all!
The most difficult decision in the Musée is where to go first, and what to see next. It is a huge place! It is akin to being a kid in a candy store. But after Pong, we proceeded to the ‘mechanical’ machines, built 80+ years ago. No photos can do these old machines justice. They have to be seen and touched in the flesh. Their build quality is second to none. Now I understand why people say “they don’t build them like they used to”. These things are built like tanks and are priceless relics.
At the rear of the Musée, you will find the largest concentration of golden era games (Centipede, Spy Hunter, Rally X, Battlezone and others) as well as more modern arcade machines, including SNK’s Neo Geo cabinets. Let’s just say, I spent a considerable amount of time (and money) in this area.
