Is there any retro consoles that you never lived up to their potential? where the games fell short of the hardware?.
Personally I feel that the NDS was under-utilized, as it was a fully 3d capable console, that was used mostly for 2d pixel art games, and platformers. When it was able to support full 3d platformers and even a fan remake of portal.
The PSVita but I’m a GenZ so I haven’t used any hardware before the PS2
The Vita’s first-party though are remarkable compared to other stuff releasing, it kinda felt like everyone wanted to port PS3 games and forgot to make games targeting the handheld itself, the community is making a great job though, you can run CUPHEAD AND HOLLOW KNIGHT on that tiny beast
My votes go for the Amiga and the PC Engine.
The Amiga was tricky to develop for, particularly if you wanted to use all its custom chips to their full potential. So many Amiga games are just questionable ports of Atari ST or even 8-bit home micro games.
The PC Engine was really ahead of its time, but it’s now kind of an obscure little thing, and a bit quaint when put up against the SNES and Mega Drive.
Commodore CD32
Possibly the Amiga CD32, the akiko chip wasn’t really used for anything graphics based that it could have done. Someone with a more technical mind would probably know how that could have been better used.
I often wonder if mobile gaming wouldn’t be in the current freemium hellscape if the N-Gage had a better launch library. We knew even back then that everyone was going to have a phone, so it was a natural evolution. Unfortunately, the games weren’t very good, and they also weren’t again when Square Enix tried up-front pricing a little while later with Final Fantasy Dimensions and The After Years, for example.
Now I don’t know if single-price games are ever going to have a chance in the mobile market.
