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4 Most Expensive Mistakes in The Gaming Industry

gameist.com — There's no mistake quite like a big one, we present to you, our dear reader, four of the most expensive mistakes in the industry we love and loathe so much.

Who dugg this? Made popular Mar 12, 2009

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  • senseilmno, on 03/11/2009, -4/+56Spore.....enough said
  • Sublex, on 03/12/2009, -0/+33E.T.?
  • dancecmdr, on 03/12/2009, -0/+23No Virtual Boy?
  • blackfox026, on 03/12/2009, -0/+22Daikatana?
  • mpn401, on 03/12/2009, -2/+20Where the ***** is Virtual Boy?
  • Mandeponium, on 03/12/2009, -1/+17I actually squinted and punched myself in the dick to see if it looked like pac man.
  • NathanielJ, on 03/12/2009, -1/+16What on earth are you talking about? Sony's decision to add a Bluray player to the PS3 is the smartest thing they ever did. Up until a whopping one year ago there was still a war going on between Bluray (the Sony brand) and HD DVD (the Toshiba brand), and Sony including Bluray in the PS3 was one of the huge deciding factors that pushed it over the edge to winning.

    Besides that, there are a LOT of people (myself included) who have bought a PS3 in large part because of the Bluray player. If I want a game console and a Bluray player, why wouldn't I get a PS3?
  • stix213, on 03/12/2009, -0/+14ET was a worse disaster than Pac Man, but at least it got a mention. I would have ranked ET probably as number 1
  • gsthomas606, on 03/12/2009, -0/+13I love the Dreamcast and Shenmue is its crowning jewel!!!

    Sixaxis anyone? Also, the GC controller too, it through a lot of people off and it was hard to map on cross platform games when the PS2 and X-box controllers both had similar layouts.

    The biggest one is fast becoming the death of the Nintendo seal of quality though.
  • nublet, on 03/12/2009, -0/+11shenmue was good!!!11 >:(
  • morningmatters, on 03/11/2009, -4/+15I honestly thought the first Final Fantasy movie (Spirits Within?) would make the list. That cost Square something like 100M+ to make and only made back a fraction in box office/dvd sales. Since the movie didn't really have anything to do with the game I am not sure if sold any more games either.
  • krustie, on 03/12/2009, -0/+9If Shenmue was for the PS or Xbox, I'm sure it would of gone down in history as one of the greats. Amazing game, can only hope for a third.
  • bemaniac, on 03/12/2009, -1/+9That article was so painful to read. There were grammar and punctuation mistakes throughout. This person should not be allowed to write things that people read.
  • Megalomatthew, on 03/12/2009, -0/+8"Try asking Chinese people about Chinese."

    Oh Shenmue, I love you so.
  • LoveWidescreen, on 03/12/2009, -0/+8That flickering Pac Man image is priceless ... because it's *accurate*! Still, Pac Man should probably be #2 with ET at #1.
  • inactive, on 03/12/2009, -4/+12Spirits Within wasn't a game and it wasn't aimed at trying to sell games for Square - it was a legitimate venture in the movie-making business, they even spun-off a whole new subsidiary - Square Pictures. In the same way each Final Fantasy has a new storyline, cast and plot, the movie followed suit hoping to apply the same formula that made Final Fantasy as a game franchise so successful, except the movie wasn't able to appeal to a wider audience besides a few otakus.

    It was an expensive mistake in the movie making business, *by a video gaming company*.
  • NathanielJ, on 03/12/2009, -1/+8You must feel very witty being the 4th or 5th person to say it.
  • idc5, on 03/12/2009, -1/+7DRM didn't make the list
  • demodawid, on 03/13/2009, -0/+6...So? did it look like it?
  • Clbull, on 03/12/2009, -0/+6Imho, the Gamecube controller was quite good, and just like the Xbox Controller S (not the MASSIVE original controller) and the Dualshock 2 was a standard game controller. The Wiimote and Nunchuck control scheme can be quite confusing or even gimmicky in some games.
  • Adgeman, on 03/12/2009, -1/+7You forget that the PS3 was last year's was the top selling blu-ray player. While the decision was questionable at the time I think the above fact and the hassle the Xbox is having with storage problems using a DVD more than makes up for the original issues from the decision. I'm not bitching about the Xbox just stating a clear fact; the 360 DVD limitations are hampering the console, particularly the game I've been working on.
  • Vivifyer, on 03/13/2009, -0/+5you can play ET on 2600online, man its so bad.. hilarious though - http://www.2600online.com/page3.html
  • lilbitmoreslyk, on 03/13/2009, -2/+7No mention of Nintendo sticking the middle finger to Sony? THAT is the whole reason we have Playstation. Nintendo decided to go with Panasonic for their "CD Dock" after they had Sony basically FINISH the project.

    And Shenmue rocked. Dreamcast was butchered by SEGA but still, Shenmue would have gone down in history if it were released on PS2.
  • NathanielJ, on 03/12/2009, -3/+8Quick, become defensive.

    No seriously, why do people take comments about consoles so personally? If he insulted a Sony television set, would you make a snide remark in its defence? Of course not.

    What's YOUR point again?
  • LoneWolf01, on 03/13/2009, -0/+4I preferred the larger controller, it was nice to hold.
  • GeekNurse, on 03/13/2009, -0/+4FTA: Shenmue: "In order to make any profit from this at all, every Dreamcast owner would have had to buy the game twice and, unless that second copy came with a bucket full of naked ladies, that just wasn't going to happen."

    That's an awesome mental image
  • staffa, on 03/12/2009, -0/+4Dugg, but I wonder how much money they actually lost, it did sell well.


  • zyxxyz, on 03/12/2009, -1/+5There were 10 million Atari's, 12 million copies of Pac-Man, only 7 million copies were sold, and yet I still had to wait over a month to get because it was sold out in Bremerton, WA when it was new. Their distribution planning clearly sucked as badly as their sales forecasting. Good riddance, Atari.
  • techtock, on 03/12/2009, -0/+4Just what I was thinking.

    From Wikipedia:

    "While the game did sell well (it ranks as the eighth-best selling Atari cartridge of all time), only 1.5 million of the 4 million cartridges produced were sold. Despite reasonable sales figures, the quantity of unsold merchandise coupled with the expensive movie license, and the large amount of returns, caused E.T. to be a massive financial failure for Atari. This game was one of many decisions that led to Atari posting a $536 million loss in 1983 and led to the company being divided and sold in 1984."

    Also, Shenmue was great, regardless of how much money it lost for SEGA and had one of the best soundtracks ever.
  • CasinoJack, on 03/12/2009, -0/+4How about Gizmondo? The Swedish mafia's first foray into the gaming industry.
  • CalcProgrammer1, on 03/13/2009, -0/+4The GC controller maps easily to the Xbox controller...ABXY buttons aren't exactly in a diamond but there's still 4 buttons in a similar layout, it has two analog sticks (just like PS2's DualShock and the Xbox controllers) and a D-pad, and it has two variable triggers (just like the Xbox, though the GC's triggers also have a click feature). I guess it's missing a select button, honestly, who needs a select button. It also doesn't have the click feature on the analog sticks, but again, not used in a whole lot of games (and you can find other ways to crouch/zoom in FPS).
  • sunnycuts, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3shenmue was ahead of its time... pray for a third.
  • snareguy17, on 03/12/2009, -0/+3Would you like to try a game of lucky hit?
  • Nishnabotna, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3I will make you my bitch.
  • inactive, on 03/12/2009, -0/+3I was looking for that as well. The book Masters of Doom goes into juicy detail about how that tragedy unraveled. Hint: it takes more than an ginormous overinflated ego and a penthouse workspace to make a great game.
  • graemee, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3
    Not a bad choice, but to me the most expensive gaming industry mistake was by Nintendo when they canceled the CDROM for the SNES. Sony then formed the Playstation around it and Nintendo lost a lot of market share as a result.
  • anthropodeus, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3the game was notorious for the pits into which ET could fall and never escape except after intense labor
  • Exhibitionist, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3Oh yeah? Well last night whilst playing Diablo 2 I accidentally dropped a high rune into a ***** low level socket helm.
  • momedefome, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3I love Shenmue !!! I still own it and it kicks ass and I play my DREAMCAST all the time , it's a shame that the system died so soon
  • inactive, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3^^ Yea whenever i play the original xbox i still play with the original controller. Then again i do have massive hands....
  • dawglse, on 03/13/2009, -2/+5You do realize Microsoft made its first profit on the COMPLETE Xbox brand for the first time last year, right?
  • MiDri, on 03/13/2009, -0/+2My closet...
  • directedition, on 03/13/2009, -0/+2Aww, I liked Atari. Especially the Jaguar. Hmmm, two 32-bit processors means.... 64-bits! hurray!
  • almostnormal, on 03/13/2009, -1/+3No Duke Nukem Forever?
  • punkcat, on 03/13/2009, -0/+2the atari Swordquest games made no sense, i remember trying to figure them out as a kid.
    not just talking about game play, you had to look in the manual to find out what some objects even were due the horrible graphics.
  • Xspire, on 03/13/2009, -1/+3As much as I loved my Dreamcast, and as much as I claimed to hate the PS2 at the time (I eventually gave in and conceded that the PS2 was/is one of the best consoles ever), I would have to agree with this statement. Shenmue is really the only great game I can think of for the Dreamcast... okay wait Skies of Arcadia, and the Power Stone series are also noteworthy.
  • NathanielJ, on 03/12/2009, -2/+4The title of the article says "Mistakes in the Gaming Industry", not "Game Mistakes" or some such thing. FF:TSW was a huge mistake, and it was made by a major gaming company based off of a huge game franchise, and hence it was a mistake in the gaming industry. It was such a big mistake that the subsidiary you mentioned, Square Pictures, closed its doors after TSW (its first and last project).
  • jumpjet701, on 03/12/2009, -1/+3but not good enough to make money.
  • inactive, on 03/13/2009, -0/+2The sweetest part of that whole fiasco is that while Romero was promising that Daikatana would be the greatest game ever, another Ion Storm team was quietly and modestly working on a little project called Deus Ex. The lead for DX, was quoted with something to the effect of, "We're not interested in making anyone our bitch."
  • IIECONII, on 03/13/2009, -2/+4#1: Every consumer who bought anything under the pretense that it would help them run Crysis.
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