When gaming consoles were introduced in the early 1980s they were so expensive many kids couldn't afford them, so the lucky kids who could were forced to share their rad new console with their friends and family.
This prohibitive pricing may have contributed to the North American video game crash of '83, which sunk the Magnavox Odyssey 3 before it could change the gaming world with its high resolution graphics and precision keyboard.
It took decades for game companies to realize price is everything in the world of gaming consoles, and yet EA founder Trip Hawkins didn't think about price when he left EA to create the 3DO, so it bombed hard.
Released in 1993 at a staggering $700, the 3DO was supposedly HDTV compatible with graphics that blew away the competition, but the 3DO simply couldn't compare to the mighty $90 Nintendo Entertainment System.
Nintendo has made their fair share of mistakes too, like the Virtual Boy or the more recent Wii U, but their biggest failure was also one of their biggest leaps forward in terms of tech- the 64DD.
The 64DD was released as a magnetic disk drive peripheral for the Nintendo 64, but console gamers couldn't wrap their minds around all the 64DD's high tech features:
"DD" is short for "dynamic drive".[1] Plugging into the extension port on the underside of the console, it allows the Nintendo 64 to use proprietary 64 MB magnetic disks for expanded and rewritable data storage, a real-time clock for persistent game world design, and a standard font and audio library for further storage efficiency. Furthermore, the 64DD's software titles and hardware accessories let the user create movies, characters, and animations to be used within various games and shared online. The system could connect to the Internet through a now-defunct dedicated online service called Randnet for e-commerce, online gaming, and media sharing.
Only 10 games were ever released for the 64DD, and Nintendo sold about 15,000 units worldwide, making it one of the worst console failures of all time.
Read Why These Great Game Consoles Failed Spectacularly here