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

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

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.

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.

I was pretty disappointed after getting a Switch 2 when I found out that Nintendo had blocked all video streaming apps on it. Even apps like Pokemon TV, which had transferred from my Switch 1 during account migration, were blocked from opening despite being downloaded on the device.

My Atari 2600 that i got for xmas from my grandparents when i was 11. I loved it, but my stepdad monopolized it and rarely let me play it. Him and my mom made a rule in our house that we weren't ever allowed to play videogames, so they basically took it away from me, and only let me play for a few minutes a month. I didn't really play videogames until i bought an N64 when i was in my 20s.

I was a gen-x free-range kid that wasn't really allowed in the house until it got dark outside.

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.

Nintendo Switch, I should have known better. Nintendo consoles are great for kids who are new to playing games, not so much for people who have been gaming for generations.

Atari Lynx. Don't get me wrong, I loved the thing and spent many an hour playing on it. But just like most Atari systems it never got its claws into the market and ended up playing second (at least) fiddle to the Gameboy, even though it was way more advanced.

Switch Lite. Great console, but limited in stupid ways. Why no video out?

The OG Xbox. I'm sure it's actually a fine console with great games on it, but my own personal experience with it was frustrating. I had already owned a GameCube and a PS2, both modified to play games from a SD card/hard drive and output an HDMI signal for modern tvs. I figured I'd might as well own the main 3 consoles from that generation and get the Xbox. I bought one that came with some cheap third party controllers and the first thing I did was replace the old capacitors on the circuit board. No problem there. Now there were 3 modifications I wanted to install, a mod chip with a new OS, replace the HDD with an SSD to install games on, and the HDMI converter. First up is the mod chip, and the install went fine. Except that after installing it with the new OS, the controller doesn't work. From here, I'd tinker with it for a day or two and then get pissed and shelf it for a couple of weeks before going back to it. I even bought extra controllers which didn't work, and a fucking oscilloscope to trace the controller signals through the motherboard to see if I accidentally de-soldered something installing the mod chip. Turns out the problem was the guy who made the OS didn't put any tolerances in for the controller signals, so the third party controllers I had just didn't work. Got some original Xbox controllers, and everything was fine and fucking dandy. The SSD install actually went in no problem. The HDMI converter was a pain in the ass because I had to solder in this ribbon cable with tiny contacts, but I got it in. And it just didn't work. Apparently the two mods, mod chip and HDMI converter, were supposed to work together but sometimes they just didn't since they are made by two different people. Only remedy is get another mod chip or converter and maybe those work. But I got lucky and one guy made a dual mod chip and converter. So I got that. Installed it. It fucking worked. I spent some time downloading and installing a bunch of games to the SSD. When I was happy with my newly acquired library of Xbox games, I unplugged it from the setup on my work bench and moved it to my living room, and when I turned it on the TV showed no signal. Fuck. When I cracked it back open, the mod chip had an LCD display with a fault code that should mean a bad solder joint or firmware needs to be reinstalled. I did both, but no luck. Checked the forums and found good news and bad news. The good news was that at least a dozen of other people are having the same problem, so there should be a fix, right? Well... Bad news was that the creator was responding to everyone with a, "I've never had that problem, you must have done something wrong. Buy a new kit and install it correctly this time." ... This bitch... I put that Xbox right in my closet and haven't touch it since 2023. I spent 2 and a half years and a lot more money than I want to admit on that console and I'm just fucking done. I might go back and get it working some day, but I still want to vomit whenever I glance at the damn thing

PS Vita. It had so much promise, but the games weren’t really there and Sony kinda just forgot about it. I remember it was the first time you could stream a PS4 game to a handheld, which was novel at the time. But it never felt “good enough” and most games didn’t support it or were too finicky. If I look at my Steam Deck now, I think that’s more or less what Sony had in mind for the Vita as well

I guess the PS3?

I felt like I begrudgingly bought it, out of spite. Like I HAD to buy it, or I was no longer a modern gamer.

And then it just fell flat for me. I played GTA, and maybe a handfull of other games, but mostly GTA.

I guess the PS4 is actually the same story, except I just never played it. To this day I have a PS4 that I never really used. But I also had no excitement for it.

And I guess the same for PS5. I bought it to play GTA 6, thinking it was coming soon. That was 4 years ago. I've watched dvds more than I've played games on it.

But with PS3, I actually had excitement brewing. I expected big things. It just never materialized.

I've already decided I'm not buying a PS6, and I'm not buying GTA6.

Xbox Series X. I sold it right when Starfield early access hit and it wasn't an Internet darling. Knew it was downhill from there. Before that by the end to 2020, they Bought Obsidian, Inxile, Bethesda/Zenimax, iD, Ninja Theory, and studios I thought would make a major quality jump like Compulsion games. I thought they'd be releasing awesome RPG games every year by 2021. That didn't pan out

Before that, Xbox and GameCube had so little compared to the PS2 but still had great games unique to themselves. PSP was fun but definitely was happier when I switched to the DS

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.

PS5. Minimal games

I was a bit conservative myself (or maybe lucky that neighbor kids had a 3DO and Sega CD I could try) but I did own a Sega Game Gear. That thing drank 6x AA batteries like there was no tomorrow. And the game library was very looser lackluster after the Sonic titles.

my dad got a 3do and it was a piece of shit he never got a console for himself again lol

I bought a WiiU for Bayonetta 2.

Not only was the WiiU itself little more than a paperweight beyond running it, the game itself was extremely lackluster and simplified.

I didn't even bother emulating bayo 3.

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.

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