Home Gaming Five unreleased consoles you can’t have

Five unreleased consoles you can’t have

3 min read
23

NoConsoleForYou

The Xbox One has been available globally for a week now, and the PlayStation 4 sees release in Europe and much of the rest of the world tomorrow.  Unfortunately, you can’t have them. The PS4 is out here in two weeks, and gourd alone knows the Xbox One will be coming to South Africa. Here’s 5 more consoles you can’t have. Ever

Some consoles, though hey get hyped at game trade shows and shown off in print magazines, just never actually see the light of day. Here are just such consoles.

The Taito Wowow

258421-taito-wowow-1992

Taito, the primarily arcade-game focused company that brought you Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, Operation Wolf and Xain’d Sleena was set to release its own console in the early 90’s. It was set to compete with other systems of the early 16 bit era, mostly NEC and Hudson’s PC Engine (or TurboGrafx-16). It would have been released in partnership with a Japanese satellite TV company, and allowed arcade-perfect games to be downloaded via satellite. It was shown off at tradeshows and even made it to market-testing, but was never released. 

The Phantom

infinium_phantom

The Phantom from Infinium Labs lived up to its name when it failed to come to market after years of development and over $70 million in funding. It was meant to be a console that allowed gamers to past, present and future PC games straight off the console, and would apparently feature on-demand streaming of games, well before the technology to do that was even available. In the end, Infinium did release a product; a wireless laptop keyboard by the name of the LapBoard.

Action GameMaster

gamemaster

The Action GameMaster was one of the most over-ambitious console projects in history. It was planned to be a handheld system that would be able to play  NES, Genesis and Super NES cartridge games, as well as CD-ROM games from other systems – only you’d have to buy hardware adapters for each of those systems individually and would also have had its own exclusive games. It an included 3.2″ colour screen, a TV tuner, a built-in battery charger and come with a car cigarette lighter charger, which it would most certainly need –  because back in 1994, this thing would have eaten batteries for breakfast.

Atari Mirai

mirai

There’s very little known about the Atari Mirai, just that it was borne out of a partnership between Atari (which by then was already a shell of its former self) and SNK, who’d recently released their own, very expensive Neo-Geo AES system. In 1991, the Neo Geo debuted at $649 – making it a wildly expensive system, and the Mirai was rumoured to be a much cheaper version of the thing, which would have made arcade perfect ports of Neo Geo games a viable thing in the home. Other rumours say it was based off Atari’s ST systems, while others insist it was a wholly new system. It was never released, nor was the Atari Panther that was set to follow it. We did, however get the Atari Jaguar. Lucky us.

SNES CD/ Play Station

SnesCD

This is one of the most famous unreleased systems in history. Nintendo was looking for a way to improve its 16-bit  SNES console – and partnered with Sony to develop a CD-based add-on. It would have allowed that console to have more fully featured games, with FMV. Unfortunately after years of development, licencing disagreements ensued and Nintendo shocked the world by partnering with Phillips instead (resulting in some terrible Phillips CDi games based on Nintendo properties), just a day after Sony showed off its standalone SNES CD system at CES.

That prototype was called the “Play Station” which became the basis for Sony’s foray in to the world of being a console manufacturer. The rest, as they say is history.

Last Updated: November 28, 2013

23 Comments

  1. ToshZA

    November 28, 2013 at 15:37

    If that Mirai was released, we’d probably have had a lot more female gamers today. Bad Atari!

    Reply

  2. Eric

    November 28, 2013 at 15:40

    The Phantom has such a cool looking controller

    Reply

    • Vampyric Squirrel of the Sith

      November 28, 2013 at 15:44

      Yeah, looks like a cooler Xbox controller

      Reply

      • Unavengedavo(aka. MadeYouLook)

        November 28, 2013 at 16:21

        But it doesn’t look as though it would feel right in your hands…

        Reply

        • Vampyric Squirrel of the Sith

          November 28, 2013 at 16:56

          absolutely

          Reply

  3. Hondsepop

    November 28, 2013 at 15:43

    No Maraai for you today, next!

    Reply

  4. Vampyric Squirrel of the Sith

    November 28, 2013 at 15:43

    LOL! Notice the connectors for the controllers on the SNES playstation are the same (or very damned similar) as the PS1

    Reply

    • RyseandRepeat

      November 28, 2013 at 16:27

      Yeah, good point.

      Reply

  5. Lord Chaos

    November 28, 2013 at 15:52

    I’ll just leave this here:

    Reply

    • Her Highness the Hipster

      November 28, 2013 at 17:20

      hey, so apple users are above console gamers?!

      Reply

      • Lord Chaos

        November 28, 2013 at 17:32

        It would appear that way. Lucky you…

        Reply

    • John Skyle

      October 20, 2015 at 23:34

      There is no other way to respond except for agreeing.

      Reply

  6. oVg

    November 28, 2013 at 16:16

    The day after Nintendo moved to Philips, Square said goodbye Nintendo, hello SONY.

    Time for some Final Fantasy FMVs. What a win that was for SONY.

    THEN the world shook once again when FFXIII went multi platform. SONY FAIL.

    Reply

    • Brian Murphy

      November 28, 2013 at 17:58

      Square Enix fail, imo. Sony wasn’t willing to pony up the money for exclusivity and the IP suffered because of it. Hope it was worth it Square….you’ll never get to FFVII levels of excitement again you suckers!

      Reply

  7. Unavengedavo(aka. MadeYouLook)

    November 28, 2013 at 16:20

    It looks like The Razer Edge’s design was copied from the Action GameMaster

    Reply

    • oVg

      November 28, 2013 at 16:22

      I think the concept is great. It runs Skyrim for starters and you do not have to rub your grubby little fingers all over the screen like the unpopular screen rub version of GTA San Andraes.

      When will people learn. just because it has a swazy menu interface like the kinect that these stupid tech demos do not work in immersive gaming.

      Reply

      • RyseandRepeat

        November 28, 2013 at 16:28

        Ya, Skyrim at lowest settings 😛

        Reply

        • oVg

          November 29, 2013 at 08:27

          I think its ultra

          Reply

  8. Aussious

    November 28, 2013 at 20:48

    The Phantom was the most promising of all basically what Newell is trying to do with his Steambox… But I must admit till this day a Nintendo Sony console just gives me jitters brings to mind an alternate reality where Hilter won WW2…

    Reply

  9. HvR

    November 28, 2013 at 21:41

    Taito Lil’ Bowowow looks like a golden retro Playstation 3.

    And Sorry MS you still can not get the stupidest console name award.

    Reply

  10. Zubayr Bhyat

    November 29, 2013 at 07:40

    Anyone remember the Indrema?

    Reply

  11. Cesco

    December 15, 2013 at 11:19

    You forgot to mention at least the Konix Multisystem

    Reply

    • Cesco

      December 15, 2013 at 11:20

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