well there’s no patch for this welcome
to watchmojo.com and today we’ll be
counting down our picks for the top ten
notoriously defective pieces of video
game hardware before we begin we publish
new videos every day so be sure to
subscribe for more great content for
this list we’ll be looking at pieces of
video game hardware that had major
technical problems or just plain never
worked number 10 roll & rocker rolling
rock roll & rocker nope not rock n
roller that would be too clever this
contraption was meant to be used instead
of the NES controls d-pad you’d stand on
it and rock back and forth to move while
touted to be compatible with every NES
game it barely worked with a single one
especially if you waited over a hundred
pounds work you still had to use the
controller of course to press the a and
B buttons so if you were doing that why
would you just not use the d-pad instead
of struggling with this unwieldy piece
of plastic even if it worked the roll
and rocker was pretty much useless
each game responds differently but none
of them work Adventure Island keeps
walking right Excitebike keeps going
down skater die goes in circles kungfu
ducks to the right metal gear does
nothing at all
number 9 robbed the robot when you met
to rob the video robot
and meets the challenge of gyromite you
might know this cute but deadly robotic
operating buddy from super smash
brothers but rob was actually bundled
with original NES consoles back in 1985
if you were expecting a rad futuristic
experience though you were sorely
mistaken
he used flashes from the CR TV to know
when to move would press D B or a
buttons on controller 2 and would stack
up colored cylinders the main problem
was rob was horrendously slow so it was
much easier to just press the damn
buttons yourself add to the fact that
there were only two games that were made
to use rob and we have yet another NES
accessory that we can do without send
away their kids insisted the lipstick
batteries not included Super Mario
Brothers and other games sold separately
number 8 voice recognition unit aka v ru
let’s play oh yes I can’t take it
anymore and the 90s and voice
recognition you can guess how this
turned out right welcome for love here
Nintendo’s voice recognition unit known
as VR you was a peripheral for the n64
it was supposed to allow players to talk
and give simple voice commands in
certain games it was only compatible
with two games though Hey You Pikachu
and this train conductor simulator
anyway that’s not even the worst part
the VR you was made specifically for
younger audiences with higher pitched
voices that meant that anyone past
puberty would have a lot of trouble
getting the damn thing to work properly
whatever can i play thankfully no other
games required it and Nintendo’s Sam I
redeems themselves here later with the
we speak that’s because Professor Oak’s
always there to help sometimes friends
are good to have number seven the power
glove the power glove a you nintendo
entertainment system
you in the games at one okay if you want
to look like a Jedi Master
telekinetically moving objects on the
screen with your arms outstretched then
the power gloves definitely for you I
guess while wearing it after setting up
the sensors around your TV you could
control the game using fists clenching
finger wagging or hand waving well in
theory anyway
god I am getting tired despite an
awesome design in concept
motion sensors in the late 1980s just
really weren’t all that good leading to
trouble controlling nearly every game
the wizard made it look really easy but
that glorified ad kept the truth hidden
well enough to sell the accessory that
wasn’t even enough though and thankfully
the power glove was discontinued less
than a year later I love the power glove
it’s so big number 6 Atari mind link
ready for the amazing Atari mindless and
exciting an unusual new way to operate
Atari home computers
if you thought having a robotic friend
in the 80s was too ambitious for its
time you ain’t seen nothing yet
the Atari mind-link was meant to be a
hands-free controller reading the my own
neural signal voltage from your forehead
okay that sounds really high-tech but in
practice you basically just place it on
your head and move your eyebrows around
the state-of-the-art for the space of
your mind only three games were made to
use this Bionic breakthrough telepathy
and mind maze but none were actually
released why well technically the mind
link itself never got released testers
got frequent headaches from moving their
foreheads too much and it went down with
the rest of the videogame industry
during the crash of the mid 80s number
five
Sega activator I’m referring the box to
the polar opposite of the mind link the
Sega activator released in 1993 has you
punching and jump kicking to your
heart’s content after putting the
plastic octagon together you just step
inside it and infrared sensors detect
which move you want to do the problem
was that if you have any kind of ceiling
decoration like lights or a fan the
sensor won’t work properly
[Music]
even if the setup was perfect it would
be really inaccurate meaning your leaps
and roundhouse kicks resulted in
completely different moves on screen
factor in its immense price tag at the
time and you might want to deactivate
your interest in the activator there’s
never been anything like this jump into
the action with the activator number
four Atari 5200 controller in comparison
to the other control devices on this
list the Atari 5200 controller wasn’t as
innovative but it still managed to fail
spectacularly not only that it’s thought
to be the main cause of the 5200
commercial downfall the new Atari 5200
super system is here with a controller
so advanced it plays arcade it was
supposed to be an upgrade on the Atari
2600 controller offering 360 degree
analog control instead of the regular
eight directional control it came with a
number pad also and the now essential
pause button which was pretty cool at
the time unfortunately the joystick
wasn’t self-centering using rubber
centering instead of Springs and the
firing buttons were just too soft this
led to nine different controller
revisions and third-party developments
but it was all discontinued as Atari
focused on the 7800 is no serving no
honking game tag number three konami
laser scope a laser try to put it on
look through the crosshairs at the
picture and give it a voice command the
laser scope was meant to be an
alternative to the boring NES zapper
just put on the headset and yell fire to
shoot at the screen it was actually
supposed to make your gaming experience
quieter as the game audio came through
your headphones but ironically and I’m
sure you could figure this out having to
yell every time you wanted to shoot made
it way worse far in some of these games
you needed to be shooting constantly add
to the fact that basically any noise the
mics picked up caused it to fire even
background noise and the device became
completely ineffective as a plus though
the headphones were advertised to be
compatible with Walkmans but God help
you if you decided to wear these in
public even in the 90s fire fire
fire fire number two xbox360 being that
it’s red leads me to believe that
something is very wrong just when you
thought you were free of the maddening
blue screen of death Microsoft came out
with a sequel the red ring of death
seeing the three rings appear on your
brand new Xbox 360 was always heart
dropping it indicated a general hardware
failure and often came coupled with
freezes graphical and sound errors I
think we could have a billion-dollar
problem here failure rates for the
console reported as high as 33 percent
according to retailers with a repair
shop in the UK reported me receiving
2500 defective consoles daily in a
watershed moment Microsoft’s management
decided to pay for the shipping and
repairs of the faulty Xbox 360s the high
cost of 1.15 billion dollars was a blow
to the company but that move is thought
to have saved the Xbox franchise we were
a wealthy company can afford to do that
sure but not even hesitating because the
brand is more important we had to make
that decision there and then and try to
fudge over this problem then the Xbox
brand an Xbox one wouldn’t exist today
number one amstrad gx4000 the amstrad
gx4000
mostly unheard of outside of the UK
mostly unheard of inside of the UK
Amstrad jump into the console market did
not go as planned with this upgrade of
their 8-bit CPC released in 1990 it was
much too late to the party as the 16-bit
era was just around the corner but the
kicker was it’s cheap power supply unit
for whatever reason you had to plug the
wire into your console before plugging
it into the wall unplugging it from the
console first or plugging it into the
wall first risk either frying your unit
or straight-up exploding it
now you heard right your consoles power
supply could explode there were warning
labels on the power supply to alert
users but eventually those wires weren’t
recommended to be used at all it’s kind
of a good thing this system failed at
retail given the small size of the
software library they make an ideal
collector’s piece even if you’re
unlikely to ever own jch cube – do you
agree with our picks check out these
other great clips from watch mojo and
subscribe for new videos every day
to watchmojo.com and today we’ll be
counting down our picks for the top ten
notoriously defective pieces of video
game hardware before we begin we publish
new videos every day so be sure to
subscribe for more great content for
this list we’ll be looking at pieces of
video game hardware that had major
technical problems or just plain never
worked number 10 roll & rocker rolling
rock roll & rocker nope not rock n
roller that would be too clever this
contraption was meant to be used instead
of the NES controls d-pad you’d stand on
it and rock back and forth to move while
touted to be compatible with every NES
game it barely worked with a single one
especially if you waited over a hundred
pounds work you still had to use the
controller of course to press the a and
B buttons so if you were doing that why
would you just not use the d-pad instead
of struggling with this unwieldy piece
of plastic even if it worked the roll
and rocker was pretty much useless
each game responds differently but none
of them work Adventure Island keeps
walking right Excitebike keeps going
down skater die goes in circles kungfu
ducks to the right metal gear does
nothing at all
number 9 robbed the robot when you met
to rob the video robot
and meets the challenge of gyromite you
might know this cute but deadly robotic
operating buddy from super smash
brothers but rob was actually bundled
with original NES consoles back in 1985
if you were expecting a rad futuristic
experience though you were sorely
mistaken
he used flashes from the CR TV to know
when to move would press D B or a
buttons on controller 2 and would stack
up colored cylinders the main problem
was rob was horrendously slow so it was
much easier to just press the damn
buttons yourself add to the fact that
there were only two games that were made
to use rob and we have yet another NES
accessory that we can do without send
away their kids insisted the lipstick
batteries not included Super Mario
Brothers and other games sold separately
number 8 voice recognition unit aka v ru
let’s play oh yes I can’t take it
anymore and the 90s and voice
recognition you can guess how this
turned out right welcome for love here
Nintendo’s voice recognition unit known
as VR you was a peripheral for the n64
it was supposed to allow players to talk
and give simple voice commands in
certain games it was only compatible
with two games though Hey You Pikachu
and this train conductor simulator
anyway that’s not even the worst part
the VR you was made specifically for
younger audiences with higher pitched
voices that meant that anyone past
puberty would have a lot of trouble
getting the damn thing to work properly
whatever can i play thankfully no other
games required it and Nintendo’s Sam I
redeems themselves here later with the
we speak that’s because Professor Oak’s
always there to help sometimes friends
are good to have number seven the power
glove the power glove a you nintendo
entertainment system
you in the games at one okay if you want
to look like a Jedi Master
telekinetically moving objects on the
screen with your arms outstretched then
the power gloves definitely for you I
guess while wearing it after setting up
the sensors around your TV you could
control the game using fists clenching
finger wagging or hand waving well in
theory anyway
god I am getting tired despite an
awesome design in concept
motion sensors in the late 1980s just
really weren’t all that good leading to
trouble controlling nearly every game
the wizard made it look really easy but
that glorified ad kept the truth hidden
well enough to sell the accessory that
wasn’t even enough though and thankfully
the power glove was discontinued less
than a year later I love the power glove
it’s so big number 6 Atari mind link
ready for the amazing Atari mindless and
exciting an unusual new way to operate
Atari home computers
if you thought having a robotic friend
in the 80s was too ambitious for its
time you ain’t seen nothing yet
the Atari mind-link was meant to be a
hands-free controller reading the my own
neural signal voltage from your forehead
okay that sounds really high-tech but in
practice you basically just place it on
your head and move your eyebrows around
the state-of-the-art for the space of
your mind only three games were made to
use this Bionic breakthrough telepathy
and mind maze but none were actually
released why well technically the mind
link itself never got released testers
got frequent headaches from moving their
foreheads too much and it went down with
the rest of the videogame industry
during the crash of the mid 80s number
five
Sega activator I’m referring the box to
the polar opposite of the mind link the
Sega activator released in 1993 has you
punching and jump kicking to your
heart’s content after putting the
plastic octagon together you just step
inside it and infrared sensors detect
which move you want to do the problem
was that if you have any kind of ceiling
decoration like lights or a fan the
sensor won’t work properly
[Music]
even if the setup was perfect it would
be really inaccurate meaning your leaps
and roundhouse kicks resulted in
completely different moves on screen
factor in its immense price tag at the
time and you might want to deactivate
your interest in the activator there’s
never been anything like this jump into
the action with the activator number
four Atari 5200 controller in comparison
to the other control devices on this
list the Atari 5200 controller wasn’t as
innovative but it still managed to fail
spectacularly not only that it’s thought
to be the main cause of the 5200
commercial downfall the new Atari 5200
super system is here with a controller
so advanced it plays arcade it was
supposed to be an upgrade on the Atari
2600 controller offering 360 degree
analog control instead of the regular
eight directional control it came with a
number pad also and the now essential
pause button which was pretty cool at
the time unfortunately the joystick
wasn’t self-centering using rubber
centering instead of Springs and the
firing buttons were just too soft this
led to nine different controller
revisions and third-party developments
but it was all discontinued as Atari
focused on the 7800 is no serving no
honking game tag number three konami
laser scope a laser try to put it on
look through the crosshairs at the
picture and give it a voice command the
laser scope was meant to be an
alternative to the boring NES zapper
just put on the headset and yell fire to
shoot at the screen it was actually
supposed to make your gaming experience
quieter as the game audio came through
your headphones but ironically and I’m
sure you could figure this out having to
yell every time you wanted to shoot made
it way worse far in some of these games
you needed to be shooting constantly add
to the fact that basically any noise the
mics picked up caused it to fire even
background noise and the device became
completely ineffective as a plus though
the headphones were advertised to be
compatible with Walkmans but God help
you if you decided to wear these in
public even in the 90s fire fire
fire fire number two xbox360 being that
it’s red leads me to believe that
something is very wrong just when you
thought you were free of the maddening
blue screen of death Microsoft came out
with a sequel the red ring of death
seeing the three rings appear on your
brand new Xbox 360 was always heart
dropping it indicated a general hardware
failure and often came coupled with
freezes graphical and sound errors I
think we could have a billion-dollar
problem here failure rates for the
console reported as high as 33 percent
according to retailers with a repair
shop in the UK reported me receiving
2500 defective consoles daily in a
watershed moment Microsoft’s management
decided to pay for the shipping and
repairs of the faulty Xbox 360s the high
cost of 1.15 billion dollars was a blow
to the company but that move is thought
to have saved the Xbox franchise we were
a wealthy company can afford to do that
sure but not even hesitating because the
brand is more important we had to make
that decision there and then and try to
fudge over this problem then the Xbox
brand an Xbox one wouldn’t exist today
number one amstrad gx4000 the amstrad
gx4000
mostly unheard of outside of the UK
mostly unheard of inside of the UK
Amstrad jump into the console market did
not go as planned with this upgrade of
their 8-bit CPC released in 1990 it was
much too late to the party as the 16-bit
era was just around the corner but the
kicker was it’s cheap power supply unit
for whatever reason you had to plug the
wire into your console before plugging
it into the wall unplugging it from the
console first or plugging it into the
wall first risk either frying your unit
or straight-up exploding it
now you heard right your consoles power
supply could explode there were warning
labels on the power supply to alert
users but eventually those wires weren’t
recommended to be used at all it’s kind
of a good thing this system failed at
retail given the small size of the
software library they make an ideal
collector’s piece even if you’re
unlikely to ever own jch cube – do you
agree with our picks check out these
other great clips from watch mojo and
subscribe for new videos every day
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