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It’s hard being the best. It’s even harder to stay there. In the world of gaming, tons of companies have come along in the hopes of cashing in on the millions of dollars that can be gained from having so many faithful fans willing to spend money on their hobby. But as so many companies have learned across every generation, never mind being the best console— it’s hard enough to even establish a foothold.
That’s why even maintaining second place is a prize to be coveted, as it generally means an established fanbase that’s invested in seeing the company succeed. However, to reach the number one spot there’s almost always something that’s holding that company back, keeping them from hitting the sales they would need to surpass the biggest company of the era.
9 Coleco TelStar Was Technically #1 Worldwide
Depending on how one looks at it, the Coleco TelStar was the #1 console of it’s generation. Launched by Coleco in 1976, the system retailed for $50 and sold around one million copies of it’s original model.
However, the Nintendo Color TV-Game sold around 1.5 million copies of it’s base model, and another two models would sell the same making it sell three million copies total. But the Nintendo Color TV-Game was only sold in Japan, with the company never bringing it to the global market, while the TelStar console launched in multiple markets.
8 Intellivision Needed A Stronger Software Library
Mattel’s Intellivision launched in 1980 for $299 and sold around three million copies. This is a pretty impressive success compared to all of the older consoles, but pales in comparison to the Atari VCS/2600 machine, which moved thirty million consoles.
What held back the Intellivision was what ultimately holds back most consoles: A lack of proper software support. Compared to Atari who was offering multiple hundreds of games including a popular (but admittedly terrible) port of the popular Pac-Man arcade game, the Intellivision had just over 130 titles, and their biggest title was Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack.
7 Sega Master System Was Held Back By Nintendo’s Strongarm Exclusivity Policy
Sega started taking the console race seriously with their introduction of the Sega Master System in 1986. It was a console that would immediately overtake the Atari’s successor and move over ten million consoles over the course of it’s lifespan.
This simply couldn’t compare to the Nintendo Entertainment System though, which moved over sixty million consoles. A large part of this though was that Nintendo required many of their platform partners to be exclusive to Nintendo consoles if they wanted to stay on the NES, which left Sega out of the loop on a ton of games which could have been on both systems.
6 Sega Genesis Had Way Too Many Add-Ons For Its Own Good
By the fourth generation, everything was primarily about the console wars between Nintendo and Sega. Every other console developer, even Atari, was basically a distant memory. And Sega had come up with some fairly effective marketing strategies, from their “Sega does what Nintendon’t” line to pointing out how their titles could have blood while Nintendo’s couldn’t, and even getting a great mascot in the form of Sonic the Hedgehog.
But Sega kept diluting its own market by making way too many versions of and add-ons for the Genesis. The Sega CD and the Sega 32X in particualr took the attention off the main console and resulted in exhaustion of the Sega brand.
5 Nintendo 64 Should Have Embraced CD Technology
The 32-bit era saw Sega and newcomer Sony switch to a new storage format for their games: CD-ROMs. The media allowed for larger storage and it was much cheaper to make them. This information is important because it plays a big part in why Nintendo fell so far behind that generation.
After being on top for two generations in a row, the company decided to keep publishing their games using the cartridge format. This left a lot of developers to leave for cheaper pastures by publishing on Sony PlayStation, including Squaresoft, who would go on to put their massive title Final Fantasy VII on the PS1. This resulted in Sony having more games that were of equal quality to Nintendo’s amazing first-party, so despite the Nintendo 64 being the more powerful console, it still lost in the end by quite a bit— selling only 32 million consoles to PlayStation’s 1o2 million.
4 Xbox Needed Stronger Third Party Support To Keep Up With PlayStation 2
With this generation, the Microsoft Xbox finally entered the console wars just as Sega was exiting after the Dreamcast wasn’t the massive success it needed to be. The Xbox released in 2001 and managed to sell 24 million consoles. The truth is, nothing was coming close to the PlayStation 2, which moved 155 million over the course of its 13 years on the market.
But Xbox simply had a far weaker slate of games, as it basically took a few Western developers along with Sega and made that their centerpiece, And while they published plenty of great titles— including launch game Halo and its sequel, two of the best games of that entire decade— they aimed at Americans more than anything, which made turning the console into a hit in Japan nearly an impossibility, and few consoles have ever been hugely successful without being big in Japan.
3 PlayStation 3 Needed To Launch At A Lower Price & Release Sooner
PlayStation 3 should have been as much of a success as the PlayStation 2 was, but Sony made quite a few mistakes here. To begin with, they launched later than everyone else, still high on the success of the PlayStation 2. But then they launched at a much higher price point than Xbox 360 or the Nintendo Wii.
For a long time, they were in third place as the Wii sold monster numbers and the 360 was the dominant HD console with exclusives Sony just didn’t have. But as the 360 lost its way in the latter half of the generation, Sony made a powerful comeback— yet they simply couldn’t catch up to the Wii’s 100 million consoles moved by the time that generation’s sales had leveled off.
2 Nintendo Switch Still Has A Chance To Become #1
It’s asking a lot, but the Nintendo Switch still might become the #1 console of its generation. While everyone thinks the eighth generation is over, both the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch are still moving units. In fact, more than moving units, the Nintendo Switch is frequently sold out and hard to find even all these years later.
While the PlayStation 4 is at 120 million consoles sold, the Nintendo Switch isn’t far behind with 84 million consoles sold. They’ve still got two more Pokémon games and a new Zelda game coming in the next year or so alone, not to mention the long-awaited return of the Metroid series with Metroid Dead this fall. Depending on when Nintendo decides to release their next console (and how big of a boost the OLED edition gives to the total sales tally of the overall Switch family), the Switch could absolutely still pass the PlayStation 4 to become the best-selling console of the eighth generation by the time that generation is declared officially over.
1 Xbox Series Will Have To Wait For Sony To Make A Mistake
Xbox Series S|X is in a great position right now, even though they’re selling roughly half what the Sony PlayStation 5 is. Fan interest is still strong, and they’re moving every console they release, which is a situation every publisher wants to be in.
But most of all, they have Xbox Game Pass, which means anyone who wants into their eco-system can have access to just about every Xbox first-party title (plus many great third-party titles) along with various other perks for only $15 a month. That’s a deal that Sony cannot compete with and isn’t even trying to, with PS Now nowhere close to being the PlayStation’s answer to Game Pass. All Microsoft needs is to make high-quality first-party titles that competes with what Sony offers, and wait for Sony to trip up— just like they did during the PlayStation 3 era.
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