Can’t think of one now but I almost bought an OUYA. You know you screwed up when Homestar Runner makes fun of you.

edit:

Not disappointing as in bad but disappointing I couldn't make it work for me. I bought a 3DS XL on two separate occasions. I got horrible headaches after playing, even with the 3D completely off. I think it was the low DPI coupled with the fact I had to have my nose almsot touching the screen. I'm not sure what possessed me to try again. It wasn't even a different model.

But I missed so many good games. I'm tempted to try emulating them, DS as well as I missed that too, but I'd hate to resort to piracy, even though there aren't any other ways to play DS and 3DS games on a big screen.

Probably the Ouya....

I am one of the few lucky ones to actually get an Ouya... It wasn't great.

Unpopular opinion, but Xbox 360. The first ones didn't have hdmi, didn't have a hard drive, the giant power brick was unsightly, the controller has the worst dpad I have ever touched and playing any fighting game on it was a pain, the paid multiplayer cancer grew there, the ads in the main menu of the console... And I didn't get to see the red ring of death since I've switched to PS3 as soon as I could afford one.

I know a lot of people have fond memories of it, but for me the 360 represented the worst of the console manufacturers' greed, milking the consumer to the bone while cheaping out on everything that was possible to cheap out on.

Xbox One. Everytime I booted it up to feed the Halo crave, there’d be an update that took like an hour. Finally get on… Halo needs to update. 1 hour later, I’ve lost interest.

Repeat 6+ months later.

Probably the Sega 32X. The messaging around it was kind of confusing, and still being fairly young when it came out, I was expecting it to be the gateway to 32 bit gaming that I would be enjoying for years to come. I ended up getting virtua racing on it, which was better than the Genesis version, but nothing spectacular really. I also got virtua fighter, which was a genuinely good game. Almost everything else was ports of mediocre games that had already come out on the Genesis. A couple of original games like knuckles chaotix just... Kinda sucked. Then when I found out that all of the support was going behind the Saturn, and that's where all of the new and original games were going, well I just felt swindled.

Tiger GameCom. I really think it had a lot of potential and was ahead of its time. They didn't make a lot of games for it and it was underpowered. Some really cool ideas though, it was the first touch-screen anything I had. It had 2 game cartridge slots. It had built in utilities, tools, and games.

Xbox. I wanted a gamecube but my parents didn't like nintendo for some reason. Now im old and i don't like nintendo for some reason, and I still don't like xbox

I owned a fucking Virtual Boy. Do I really need to explain why I was disappointed?

I haven’t gotten into a console since SNES.

I bought a PS5, played it a few times, but it gathers dust. I think it was last powered up in 2024. I don’t find the games fun.

Nintendo Switch

Mario Odyssey was fine, but I didn't really see the use for a portable slab compared to a pocket-size device like my phone or the 3DS. Also, this was the first Nintendo device that felt completely soulless. At least the Wii U had some charm to it.

The Switch.

Damn thing was fragile af, and they wanted to rent everything to us, no more Virtual Console no more solid hardware, they spend more money suing people for fixing it then they do on it like blocking local backup of saves so they can force a cloud sub and them still not having fixed the drifting JoyCons then charging you more than they are worth for repairs.

PS5. Minimal games

The Sega Game Gear. That sucker could drain six AA batteries in about three hours. Do you know how hard it was to find a place to buy AA batteries on Christmas day?

While a rechargeable battery pack fixed that problem, most of the games were garbage compared to the GameBoy. The first party games were the best, but most everything else was 'meh.'

I never did get that TV tuner add-on either.

Nintendo Switch

I've never really clicked with the Switch and we've had one since launch. It's not all bad, handheld and home console in-one is a pretty cool concept, but it underwhelms in all ways. Also browsing the eShop is painfully slow too.

Honestly, my gaming laptop. Bought a few years ago, 3050. It was good and I could play games on it - but I live in a situation where all my electricity is solar generated and limited, charges 12v batteries and runs mains appliances via inverter. And the laptop was just too power hungry for long gaming sessions.

It was more a failure of me to properly research than a problem with the product, but was a let down. Bought a steam deck and never looked back.

Meta Quest 3s. It was an initially a cool way of playing games but the novelty soon wore off and most games are not that good with VR. Up until then I iterated through Nintendo systems and was always satisfied.

My Switch 1 broke after just a few months. That gets it the worst spot for me.

They all have flaws, but I've had a lot of consoles over a lot of years and don't have any I'd call "bad" all around. Each did its job masterfully.

Thinking about the question made me remember this bad boy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Advance_SP

That might be the favorite. Great size, battery, controls, games, peripherals... I kinda think I remember it got internet hate for some reason? But I LOVED this thing. Ultimate evolution of GameBoy.

PS3. Coming from the PS2, the library was bland in comparison. And later on, when I got interested in console modding, the PS3 was the slowest and most cumbersome to do anything and with barely any variety of homebrew stuff. And also, I'm dreading having to replace the controller (due to the 3rd party PS button situation) and replacing the HD (due to how entangled pieces apparently are).

Later on, it'd become an overpowered PS2 console for me.

Nintendo has ironically made my favorite and most disappointing consoles.

Most disappointing:

Virtual Boy WiiU Wii Switch

Best:

NES SNES Game Boy GBA

I wouldn't call any console I own a disappointment, even the Wii U had several games I loved and put too many hours into. But the system I ended up playing the least was the Steam Deck. It's just too bulky to feel like a proper portable, not nearly as cozy as the Nintendo handhelds I grew up on. I get some use taking it to FGC events as a monitorless setup (and I will be bringing it to Combo Breaker 2026 next week), but that's kinda all I ended up using it for.

I still don't regret buying it as the most important thing to happen to Linux gaming, but it was a system I bought to have more than to use. I later bought a Miyoo Mini Plus and ended up putting far more hours into that than I ever did the Deck. If anyone ever gets SteamOS running on a device in that size form factor, they'll get my entire bank account.

The Switch, because it removed all the cool features the DS had.

I owned a Virtual Boy back in the day and... yeah. It sucked. I bring it up every time people think Nintendo are infallible - they do have shit ideas from time to time.

I also owned a PSP and I just didn't use it much. I know it's a well beloved console but I didn't really like anything that I played on it.

The Wii was just okay, I just got tired of the gimmick too quickly, and the library was just atrocious. If you don't like movie tie-in games, you miss out on like 3/4ths of the entire catalogue of titles.

I think I'm just tired of console gaming at this point. The only reason I would buy a console is if it were a mobile console that I can take with me when I want to game away from my PC, and so far the only companies that are interested in developing mobile consoles are Nintendo and Steam.

Probably the virtual boy. It was so cool at the time, I got Red Alert(?) and it was fantastic. Then there was like, a bowling game, and maybe a wario game? And nobody made anything else for it, and it sat in a drawer for years before my parents made me get rid of it. It could have been so good.

In my case, there were two:

• Phillips CDi (need I say more?)
• PS2 after having a Dreamcast and a Gamecube

For me it was Xbox One. From day one (no pun intended) it just didn’t feel good to me. The UI experience never got away from being awful. The system itself was a sluggish awful mess. It should never take more than 3 seconds to load your options menu . On top of that Everytime I turned on my console it would take a half hour or more to update. The must have games just never came. The games they did come played worse than nearly anywhere else. If I was a teenage when I bought this system and played everyday some of these short comings could have been avoided. But as an adult it just felt terrible . From here I went back to Pc gaming made a rig that would destroy any console at the time. It was so bad to me I canceled my Xbox Live Subscription I had for 15 years ! That killed my love to Xbox entirely.

Probably second place was the PS3 but I bought it at the end of the generation and never got the exclusives I should have ..