Can’t think of one now but I almost bought an OUYA. You know you screwed up when Homestar Runner makes fun of you.

edit:

Not disappointing as in bad but disappointing I couldn't make it work for me. I bought a 3DS XL on two separate occasions. I got horrible headaches after playing, even with the 3D completely off. I think it was the low DPI coupled with the fact I had to have my nose almsot touching the screen. I'm not sure what possessed me to try again. It wasn't even a different model.

But I missed so many good games. I'm tempted to try emulating them, DS as well as I missed that too, but I'd hate to resort to piracy, even though there aren't any other ways to play DS and 3DS games on a big screen.

Probably the Ouya....

Unpopular opinion, but Xbox 360. The first ones didn't have hdmi, didn't have a hard drive, the giant power brick was unsightly, the controller has the worst dpad I have ever touched and playing any fighting game on it was a pain, the paid multiplayer cancer grew there, the ads in the main menu of the console... And I didn't get to see the red ring of death since I've switched to PS3 as soon as I could afford one.

I know a lot of people have fond memories of it, but for me the 360 represented the worst of the console manufacturers' greed, milking the consumer to the bone while cheaping out on everything that was possible to cheap out on.

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

Xbox One. Everytime I booted it up to feed the Halo crave, there’d be an update that took like an hour. Finally get on… Halo needs to update. 1 hour later, I’ve lost interest.

Repeat 6+ months later.

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.

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.

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

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

The Switch.

Damn thing was fragile af, and they wanted to rent everything to us, no more Virtual Console no more solid hardware, they spend more money suing people for fixing it then they do on it like blocking local backup of saves so they can force a cloud sub and them still not having fixed the drifting JoyCons then charging you more than they are worth for repairs.

I haven’t gotten into a console since SNES.

I bought a PS5, played it a few times, but it gathers dust. I think it was last powered up in 2024. I don’t find the games fun.

Tiger GameCom. I really think it had a lot of potential and was ahead of its time. They didn't make a lot of games for it and it was underpowered. Some really cool ideas though, it was the first touch-screen anything I had. It had 2 game cartridge slots. It had built in utilities, tools, and games.

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.

PS5. Minimal games

Honestly, my gaming laptop. Bought a few years ago, 3050. It was good and I could play games on it - but I live in a situation where all my electricity is solar generated and limited, charges 12v batteries and runs mains appliances via inverter. And the laptop was just too power hungry for long gaming sessions.

It was more a failure of me to properly research than a problem with the product, but was a let down. Bought a steam deck and never looked back.

PS4 - no games. Worse multimedia experience compared to PS3. No longer matters to me but did at launch.

Xbone - no games

Didn't buy PS5 or another Xbox myself but my roommate did get a PS5. No games. He's not buying another Sony console either.

Artificial value of exclusives lost combined with drastically less output from AAA and oddball titles like Sony had on PSN during PS3 era renders consoles completely pointless to me now. Since I was always PC gaming while also owning consoles in the past, I built a PC for the living room too.

Upcoming disappointment:

Probably Switch 2. I think Nintendo has lost their way ever since Iwata died. Certainly their style has evaporated. You will like your black/white barren GUI or else Mario's getting shot. Switch 1 was already borderline.

Nintendo Switch

I've never really clicked with the Switch and we've had one since launch. It's not all bad, handheld and home console in-one is a pretty cool concept, but it underwhelms in all ways. Also browsing the eShop is painfully slow too.

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.

For me it was Xbox One. From day one (no pun intended) it just didn’t feel good to me. The UI experience never got away from being awful. The system itself was a sluggish awful mess. It should never take more than 3 seconds to load your options menu . On top of that Everytime I turned on my console it would take a half hour or more to update. The must have games just never came. The games they did come played worse than nearly anywhere else. If I was a teenage when I bought this system and played everyday some of these short comings could have been avoided. But as an adult it just felt terrible . From here I went back to Pc gaming made a rig that would destroy any console at the time. It was so bad to me I canceled my Xbox Live Subscription I had for 15 years ! That killed my love to Xbox entirely.

Probably second place was the PS3 but I bought it at the end of the generation and never got the exclusives I should have ..

Switch is easily my least played console. Its library was nearly entirely made up of games I already played on the Wii U. On top of that they had the cheek to require a subscription to play online. No thanks.

PS3. Coming from the PS2, the library was bland in comparison. And later on, when I got interested in console modding, the PS3 was the slowest and most cumbersome to do anything and with barely any variety of homebrew stuff. And also, I'm dreading having to replace the controller (due to the 3rd party PS button situation) and replacing the HD (due to how entangled pieces apparently are).

Later on, it'd become an overpowered PS2 console for me.

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.

Switch was what made me realize golden era of gaming was over, but it took about a year to set in because of the disconnect between the NX presentation and the actual product.

Seriously, go take a look at the original NX Switch presentation and it would almost seem that Nintendo was selling a completely different product.

All of the Wii era inspired hardware went mostly unused because the Switch couldn't play Wii games, and Nintendo didn't bother to even port their own titles outside of recycled Wii U content that didn't sell well on the original console.

The software similarly was a joke. I have more functionality on a Nintendo DS than a Switch, and that isn't even including "unofficial" homebrew. You can't even voice chat with your friends without using an external app, which is insane considering the DS, DSi, 3DS, Wii, and Wii U that preceded this.

Major features that gave Nintendo the edge were gone. DS Downlaod Play, Streetpass, included minigames & apps, themes, free online, eshop points, wifi events, etc.

On top of that, the library was just not interesting enough to warrant paying $60 a pop for single player games, and the multiplayer selection was sparse, despite the main feature of the console being joycon controllers.

I got bored of it after only a year, and ended up having to change the joycon c-sticks a couple years later because of the drift issues.

IMO it was a massive success just because of the portable format allowing you to play big name games on the go, but it absolutely fails as a handheld console when compared to the DS line, which did so much more for so much less.

Now that other handhelds like the Steam Deck, AYN stuff, Legion, etc exist, there's really no need to buy a Switch (2) for third party titles, which makes it a complete Nintendo only buy in.

The kicker is that Nintendo made absolute bank which is now why the Switch 2 is going for $450 (soon to be $500) and bumped their game prices to a whopping $70-80 because they know people were fine with it.

If I had more time on my hands, I would legitimately go make a modern version of Streetpass and download play for modern handhelds because that stuff was so cool and useful.

Meta Quest 3s. It was an initially a cool way of playing games but the novelty soon wore off and most games are not that good with VR. Up until then I iterated through Nintendo systems and was always satisfied.

My Switch 1 broke after just a few months. That gets it the worst spot for me.

They all have flaws, but I've had a lot of consoles over a lot of years and don't have any I'd call "bad" all around. Each did its job masterfully.

Thinking about the question made me remember this bad boy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Advance_SP

That might be the favorite. Great size, battery, controls, games, peripherals... I kinda think I remember it got internet hate for some reason? But I LOVED this thing. Ultimate evolution of GameBoy.

Probably the Switch. It's ... fine, I guess? NES? Awsome. SNES? fantastic. GB? amazing for its time. Genesis was killer. Atari 2600 was huge in its day. The switch? Meh.

It doesn't help that I'm generally unhappy with nintendo being a bunch of greedy fucks as I see it.

Nintendo has ironically made my favorite and most disappointing consoles.

Most disappointing:

Virtual Boy WiiU Wii Switch

Best:

NES SNES Game Boy GBA