Looking back, which system has been the most disappointing to you?

I was thinking it would hands down be the PSP for me just 'cause I thought I would get way more use out of it. But I'm not sure. I did have some good times with games like Lumines 1 & 2, Ridge Racer, and Valkyria Chronicles 2. Burnout, Hotshots, Chinatown Wars, and Wipeout were pretty good on it. Crisis Core is a pretty amazing 2nd tier Final Fantasy game and it still remains exclusive. MGS: Peace Walker was a PSP only game for a long time and it was ton of fun waaay before MGS: PP came along. Kingdom Hearts BBS was an exclusive for a long time. Metal Gear Acid games and Persona 3 Portable remain PSP exclusives.

I never owned a PS1 so it was my PS1 system as well and I played games like FF7, FF8, and Resident Evil 2 for the first time on it. It's really an awesome portable PS1 player so that's a major bonus.

Recently, I cracked it open with custom firmware just 'cause I felt like it's been long enough and I'm not really hurting anybody at this point and wow, I'm gonna get so much more use out of this little system.

So, I was thinking what else do I own that has really bummed me out instead and I know most of you will definitely disagree with me on this but my most disappointing console?

XBox 360

Seriously, this system was a headache from the beginning imo. I preordered way before launch and I didn't get mine until January. It was loud as fuck and broke on me 3 times. I've never broken any other console, ever, EVER. My time with the system is punctuated by periods of not being able to play on it. I just don't have that kinda memory with any other gaming system. It's soured me on the Xbox brand forever.

Ppl talk about the library but most of it was multiplatform. Most of it's exclusives were not my cup of tea. The front end got worse and worse. I honestly don't get why ppl like it so much. I stuck with the PS3 'cause it always ran like a champ and I still use it to this day. It had way better exclusives and Blu Ray was legit. I haven't bought an XBox One because of my experience with the 360.

Xbox 360, the console that disappointed me the most.

Gotta be the PS3. I got the YLOD 4 freaking times.

I kind of hear you. After my 360 broke for the second time I gave up and just had a ps3. The 360 really did have a great line-up of games though, there's no doubt about it.

For me I'd probably have to say n64.... or maybe 3ds. Both kind of crazy picks, I know, but hear me out. I got the n64 late, I already had a ps2 and Dreamcast at the time and I never really sampled it's better games. I didn't buy OOT, Banjo, or smash for example. I got rid of it not too long after I got it. As for the 3ds I got it at launch like a dickhead, never really played much on it, the only great game I played was Link Between worlds, which in itself is almost worth me buying it lol. But Yeah, I ended up trading it in and man... the hours I spent playing the OG DS.

The PlayStation 2, was a weird system for me. In its full run, I went through seven of them. I can’t explain what would happen, after a while they would just stop reading disks. Two of them were my fault, though. One I dropped during a move, and the second got an accidental soda bath. It was an alright machine, but pretty much all of the complaints you listed for the 360, is my experience with the PS2.

The WiiU was also pretty disappointing, as it kind of came out to die.

I think the PS Vita. I bought 4 games for it and mostly used it to play PSP or PS1 games on it. I will throw my fat PS3 in as well because I loved that thing and it worked great for 4 years, then the disc reader stopped working and I attempted to replace it at first, but was sent the wrong disc drive, so I said screw it and ended up buying a slim PS3. Oh yeah I did have a 360 that died on me as soon as I started playing Halo Reach, but honestly I didn't really care. I just threw the thing in the garbage.

The 3DS. I keep hearing everyone praise how good it's library is but I don't see it. Mario 3D Land, Zelda and Fire Emblem were good but for me that was kind of it. Compare that to the original DS where I had like 30+ games with some of those being my favourite games of all time and I was very disappointed. I guess it doesn't help that I bought it full price at launch and the price dropped a few months later but I really feel like the games just weren't there for me.

Out of what I've owned - Probably the 3DS.

I was really irritated by the fact that a 'New' 3DS was released and specific titles would only work on that. That pretty much put the brakes on my enthusiasm for the thing and I ended up selling it.

I tend to not be a console early adopter, so I only buy when I know the library and hardware are already good. The only time this strategy has failed on me is the PS3. It took Sony three years to come up with a slim model that fixed the PS3 thermal design problems, and the PS3 fat is the only console that's ever failed on me. As pretty much all of them do eventually.

I loved my 360. So everything leading up to the Xbox One was just a major bummer to me. The console was such a letdown that I didn't even pick one up despite my love for the 360. Now, almost 5 years later, I finally picked up an Xbox One X this past summer, and yet it somehow still let me down (despite me not expecting much). It's shocking just how bad the dashboard is in that system.

Probably the GBA. Just didn't do much for me.

Highlights are probably SNES, PSP, and PS3/4. My PS3 broke though (stopped reading discs, so there went my whole physical library), so that was a huge bummer. Still kinda want to get a new one just so I could play some Uncharted 2/3 co-op, maybe run around in Demon's Souls a bit.

@theht: it’s super cheap to get a replacement Blu Ray drive and a cinch to install. Highly recommended. ?

@liquiddragon: that's... probably a whole lot smarter than buying a new one lol. i'll look into that, thanks!

Overall experiences with consoles after sega dreamcast have been awful and the worst experiences. PS3/PS4/360/ONE. ALL are trash and have been nothing but awful. All dissapointing

Change my mind.

With the full benefit of time I would probably say the N64.

Certainly at the time I loved the thing to death but thinking back now it's more like I sure loved the 4 or 5 ($80) games I had for it..

@gamb1t: All video games are bad and I should just take up knitting.

Change my mind.

Probably the Playstation Vita. It remains a fantastic piece of hardware that was left to die without appropriate software support. I look at the way Nintendo has bridged home console gaming with handheld and even mobile experiences, and I can't help but feel frustrated about the whimpering way in which the Vita existed for years without features or first-party attention. Perhaps the technology simply didn't exist at the time for it to be used to its potential, but Remote Play was a highly undervalued, underpromoted feature that could have kept the Vita, or a Vita-alternate released closer to the launch of the PS4 in some separate universe, relevant to this day.

It still finds use in my house as a portable PS1 classics library, and there a handful of titles that I look back on fondly. But overall the Vita feels like a missed opportunity.

For me, the Xbox One since I bought one at launch. The first party support has been disappointing, the interface is terrible, etc.

The PS2. I'm going to go out and say that the PS2 single handedly killed my enthusiasm for new console hardware.

I had a Dreamcast and loved the crap out of it. I played and loved my Playstation, but I have always been a PC guy. I had a pretty decent machine at the time, but the Dreamcast blew my mind. Yes, the controller was a POS, but graphically it was amazing. All my favorite arcade games had amazing, sometimes better than arcade ports.

And when they showed the PS2, I knew I had to have one. Look at all those old man renderings it can do at once! FF8 cutscenes in real time? Yes!

I plunked down however much the launch price of the PS2 was. I also needed a sweet new VVega TV to make that PS2 shine. And while I'm getting that, I'll need 5.1 surround sound.

I bring home well over a thousand dollars of AV gear home, hook it up and... all the launch titles looked like a huge step back from the Dreamcast. I spent the first year of the PS2's life playing FF9 and Ring of Red on it.

SNES, easily. I'm always somewhat surprised when people claim that's the best console, or that it has the best catalog. The best game on the whole system was the fucking pack-in (Super Mario World). It was all downhill from day one.

In terms of time I actually ended up spending with them, it would either be the PSP or the Game Boy Advance.

I think I played through two games at most on them because at the time I really wasn't a portable gamer. In fact, I don't even think I finished a game on the GBA and the only game I can recall finishing on PSP was Liberty City Stories. It's a shame because looking back, I think I missed some real gems on the GBA and I was genuinely pumped for both consoles.

Every other console I've owned, there has always been at least one or two games that I can point to as a great experience, it's just those two that never had that hit for me. Even the disappointments like the N64, WiiU and Xbox One have all had some really amazing game experiences I associate with them.

It doesn't really count, but Microsoft sure treated it like a console launch, Kinect with the caveat that I really liked Gunstringer, but everything else I recall being trash.

Hmm, good question. I can't decide between my Xbox One, Wii-U, or Wii? All three of them, I feel like I barely played and were a waste of money. I do have a handful of games for each system though (some even still sealed.) Having gone through two Nintendo systems like this (not sure I'd count my Gamecube in there), I have almost zero interest in the Switch. Nintendo only exists for like.. a couple good game series and they release one every few years. It's ridiculous.

My Dreamcast, PSP, and Vita I probably didn't use that much, but they didn't feel like wastes of money. 3DS like barely gets used but when I do, I use it on a good game. PS1/2/3/4 have all been the best investments. My launch 60Gig PS3 still works and is kept in the original packaging now. I have like a mountain of good games and memories with all of them.

The 360 was a good console, but I always hated that I had to be afraid of turning mine on or using it for extended periods of time.

I'd actually go a little left field with mine and say the Tiger R-Zone. I was just the right age to be suckered by its marketing and gimmick. I do have good memories of sitting up in a tree and playing it on lazy summer days, but yikes, what a shitty thing that was. The Virtual Boy seemed awesome by comparison.

I thought the Wii was total bullshit and actively disliked it even as a dumb high schooler that grew up living almost exclusively on Nintendo platforms. It really soured me on the company for a long time and at some point after its release I bought a refurbished PlayStation 3 and had more fun with GTAIV, Soul Calibur IV, and Oblivion in a weekend than I did with the Wii in its entirety.

Not to say the Wii didn't have its gems but the loss of big third party support, control scheme, and shovelware really took a toll on my adoration for the company.

I think the Wii U and Vita are both real bummers too. I waited a long time to buy a Wii U and got one for cheap, and went in expecting it to be a short lived source of entertainment. I had little invested into it though from the beginning and although I think it's an even lamer console than the Wii, I had already tempered expectations from the Wii so I felt less burned. For what it's worth, the Switch looks like the best thing Nintendo have put out in well over 10+ years and has me potentially interested in the future. Other aspects of their business still push me away though even if it isn't necessarily their hardware anymore.

The Vita was squandered and I feel bad because I love the hardware and it could have been a great portable if it was properly supported. Sony failed the Vita.

Last one might be a surprise to some, but I don't love the PS4. I feel like last gen had better games across the board in both exclusives and third party stuff. This has felt like the most "wheels spinning" gen and I've been playing lots of old games as a result.

My PS4 has been collecting dust as of late due to most stuff I want to play being available on a PC/Laptop. Most of the PlayStation exclusives do nothing for me.

Wii U

I am weirdly with you on this. They had all this goodwill after the DS, and only had to compete with the underselling PSP and Vita, yet I think all of the good 3DS games basically came out in 2011-2013 and that was largely it. Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Fire Emblem: Awakening, SteamWorld Dig 1, all fucking great games, all from 2011-2013. 2014 to present has honestly been a pretty rough period for the 3DS, barring a few dowloadable gems like SteamWorld Heist and BoxBoy (also Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam was good but nothing new, and Fire Emblem Echoes: SoV and Metroid: Samus Returns are both rad but are elaborate remakes).

This might just be a me problem, but most major 3DS releases after 2013 were either diminished sequels or cookie cutter sequels (Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, Zelda: Tri-Force Heroes, all those fucking Fire Emblem Fates games) or entries in a series that I don't really have any interesting in playing on a handheld or ever again (Mario Party: Island Tour, Monster Hunter, Pokemon, Super Smash Bros.) or complete disasters/baffling decisions (Code Name: S.T.E.A.M., Metroid Prime: Federation Force, Hey! Pikmin).

Also, just overall, the 3DS has weirdly low 3rd party support compared to the DS. Other than the continuation of a few series like Professor Layton and Ace Attorney, and the juggernaut of Monster Hunter, I can't think of many super notable 3rd party games on the 3DS. Bravely Default is the big one I can think of that was actually pretty cool.

But even looking at 1st party, I have no fucking idea what Nintendo was doing from 2014-2017, where they put out few truly great 3DS games, and the Wii U continued to toil on in obscurity. At least the first year of the Switch was a real banger. Obviously 3DS development is all but dead now that the Switch is out, but while the DS continued to have cool games come out even in its later years, I was already starting to feel disappointed in the 3DS library in 2014 and 2015, years before the Switch truly killed the 3DS. Maybe the DS library and lifecycle just gave me impossible expectations.

Also, nobody did any cool shit with the 2 screens anymore, or even used stylus controls for fucking anything.

@bisonhero: To be fair, here is a list of Nintendo releases from 2014-17 on the Wii U

• Bayonetta 2 (2014)
• Mario Kart 8 (2014)
• DKC: Tropical Freeze (2014)
• Captain Toad (2014)
• Super Mario Maker (2015)
• Xenoblade Chronicles X (2015)
• Yoshi's Wooly World (2015)
• Zelda: TP (2016)
• Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE (2016)
• Pokken Tournament (2016)
• Paper Mario Color Splash (2016)
• Zelda: BotW (2017)

Combine that with all their 3DS releases during that time period and a new gen of Pokemon and you have a company that was at the very least, trying.

I barely played any DS games on my DS, pretty much only played GBA games on it. Only one kinda good zelda game, a port of chronotrigger, and "new" mario bros were basically the only worthwhile DS games for me. I feel like the 3DS got way more exclusives I liked out of it. I also kinda hate that the "pinwheel world" view for animal crossing was caused by the DS installment.

Also to all those people who seem to have forgot the good 3DS games let me remind you:

Pushmo, Rayman 2, Star Fox 64 3D, Super Mario 3D Land, Resident Evil Revelations, Dillon's Rolling Western, Kid Icarus Uprising, Theatrythm Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem Awakening, Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon, Harmoknight, Animal Crossing New Leaf, A Link Between Worlds, Gunman Clive, Bravely Default, Smash Bros, Box Boy, Pocket Card Jockey, Metroid Samus Returns, Ocarina of Time 3D, Majora's Mask 3D.

I will be waiting for your DS game rebuttal.

@liquiddragon: Fair enough, there are some better games in that span than I remembered. I still feel like the GB staff always glossed over how weak the 3DS library got over time (other than Pokemon and Monster Hunter selling quite well), but as the Wii U floundered they would always say "at least the 3DS is doing well for Nintendo", despite pretty much none of the GB staff actually playing their 3DS anymore. I was the same way at the time, having a fond impression of the hardware but realizing by the end that I barely played any 3DS in 2014-2017. As much as they were releasing *new* 3DS and 2DS and whatever hardware revisions, I think the 3DS game library just wasn't there.

The Wii and it isn't even close. Not that any expectations for me were ever sky high for me but outside of like 4 games I thought every game on it was junk. Meanwhile the hardware was a major step down compared to the competition.

The Wii, maybe? Even then, that had a handful of great games.

I only had a WiiU because my son wanted one, but I got to play Bayonetta 2, so that was cool.

The Sega CD was a bummer, but it had the absolute best Final Fight port, which more than made up for it, back then.

Ps3. I paid $600 for the freakin thing. The games didn't even look better and the UI/PSN was a disaster. I got YLOD twice (once in warranty, thankfully). Also: That fucking Kill Zone 2 TRAILER!!!

@bisonhero: You definitely have a greater perspective than I ever will. And you must be on to something with the 3DS 'cause I'm seeing a lot more posts mentioning it than I thought I'd see. I don't own a 3DS or a Wii U but on paper, it seemed hard to accuse them of not putting in work. I was also under the impression that ppl were generally happy with the system.

I know what you mean about the crew. I'm kinda having that moment in the last week or 2 with Hitman 2. They keep saying "the first Hitman" when referring to the last entry and as someone that started with Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, it feels like they're glossing over history or rewriting it and presenting a narrative that is just off.

Probably the 360. I got lucky in the sense that the 'only' problems I had were faulty disc drives that laserburned discs. I traded one in, sold the other to a stupid girl down the street and the Elite's still going strong. I barely have any games for it, when compared to the PS3. That system got off to a slow start but the backwards compatibility meant it was nice to see PS2 games and DVDs upscaled. The 360 became an exclusives machine.

Also, that thing came at two skews. I bought a core with an HDD to save myself £20. The talk of the next Xbox rumours have triggered some flashbacks to that.

@shindig: "sold the other to a stupid girl down the street"

hahahaha, this made me laugh. Idk why you felt the need to put that detail in but that is hilarious.

3DS. Actually I bought a 2DS because I did not like the 3d effect. Hated the interface and OS, and the sleep mode is totally useless, the lack of a proper sleep mode like the vita has was a deal breaker. Ended up playing basically just Pokemon Moon and Pokemon X.

N64 never got use to that controller, i never owned one but all my friends got one ( i was the playstation kid). Stuff like golden eye always felt weird to me, i was a big fan of the SNES but that N64 controller man it's feels like it's made for a alien. Or designed by one. To this day i have no idea how to hold that thing.

As for all the 360 hate i had to buy a second one Just to play GTAV. What a lot off people seem to forget was the lack of third party support for PS3 at the start, or them missing out on timed exclusives like TES: Oblivion and Mass Effect I. Two of the best games of that generation IMO. So the 360 was a no brainer for me, cause the PS3 had barely any games on lauch and the price was fucking 600 euro's at launch and for a 13 year old at the time that's a lot off money.

Gonna go with PS4 because I at least used my ps3 for playing ps2 games. I almost never touch my PS4 and there are maybe a handful of games I like on it. I also just despise it's controller. My Xbox is my go to console just because it's a better ecosystem so I only play PS4 for exclusives and it hasn't had many that interest me this gen.

I guess Sega Dreamcast...it was gone too soon

PS4, i got it for the exclusives but besides Gravity Rush Remastered i haven't touched it, and i haven't even finished that.

Sega Saturn or Wii.....I was soo pumped about the Sega Saturn and then I went over to a friends house and played their playstation and was soooo bummed. I could not find a game like Metal Gear Solid or FF7 on Saturn, the best games I had were Bug or Mr Bones........sigh.

@soulcake: Regarding the PS3, I don't think it's that ppl forget, it's that ppl are more lenient the first year or 2. There is sort of a grace period and also, there is the preceding 5 years to consider. It's a console that stumbled all over the place but managed to make the right moves to catch up and pass the 360 globally.

For me it was the PS3 (fat boy edition), the only console that's broken on me so far, twice if I remember rightly. Man the first few years with that console were kinda rough. I had always been more of a Playstation fan up to that point but ended up switching to 360. Nowadays I have both a PS4 and Xbone but generally only use the PS4 for exclusives.

Wii U, a handful of good games but not nearly enough to justify buying the console. Pretty good emulation box though tbf.

I'm going to be extreme odd one out and say the Ouya. Not the odd one out to say that it wasn't a good system, but to even mention it at all. I followed the Kickstarter campaign from early on, and even got convinced that it was going to be a legitimately good console alongside a few other consoles. Just wow, how wrong that one turned out.

@someoneproud: how many games does it take for you be justify your purchase? Just curious

When you're the only person with a Master System in a school full of NES owners it feels pretty disappointing.

@frodobaggins:>10 would be good if I had to put a number on it, it also doesn't help that many of the good games were re-releases or were released again on switch. Off the top of my head, not counting games that I could play without purchasing a Wii U, I enjoyed:

Xenoblade Chronicles X

Tokyo Mirage Sessions

Smash Bros.

Paper Mario

Bayonetta 2

I know there are some notable games missing but these are the ones I would miss if I didn't have my Wii U, access to 5 games for the sum total of >£400 has always left a bitter taste in my mouth. They're great games and I'm glad I can play them but the value isn't quite there for me.

For me personally it's either:

3DS - Not necessarily the fault of the system, I just never really played it. All I remember playing on it was A Link Between Worlds, which was great. Phoenix Wright and a little bit of Fire Emblem. Just don't really play handheld all that much, and I always had trouble seeing the screen.

Xbox One: This is more recent. I got the Xbox One at Launch and really like it. I think that in that launch time and early first year or so, it actually had a better library than the PS4. I liked the Kinect voice commands. The UI wasn't entirely unusable - it was solid. I don't think though that I've used my Xbox One in a year or more now. Forza Horizon 4 is the only thing I'm half thinking about maybe playing on it. Otherwise I'm just using the PS4 Pro now. The lack of games and the fact that they broke the UI more and more just drove me away from the Xbox One.