These days, only a few titans stand in the video game console space. Any company looking to enter it now has a nearly impossible task ahead of them. With the online infrastructure built into these systems over the past several years, switching sides or going to a new platform is less appealing than ever before. Brands like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo will likely live on forever, but so many other companies tried their hand at gaming to no avail.

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The following list will pay tribute to the obscure consoles lost to time. Some of these were outright failures, while others were successes that didn't live on in gamers' memories the way the NES and Sega Genesis did. A couple are from well-known companies but failed to make a mark the way the best consoles did.

10 Atari 5200

Atari 5200

Older gamers have fond memories with the Atari 2600. Titles like Kaboom, Pitfall, River Raid, and many others occupied countless hours of fun for more than half a decade before the video game crash stopped it in its tracks. Few are aware of the console's successor, the Atari 5200. Despite the name implying it being twice as good, few were impressed with the upgrades offered by the failed console. Atari 5200 only lasted two years before being discontinued. The company would try again shortly after with the Atari 7800, which was more successful, but still didn't touch what the 2600 did in its prime.

9 Virtual Boy

Nintendo's victories in the handheld market make all other companies shiver in fear when they try their hand at mobile gaming. Sony's PSP and PlayStation Vita, for example, were no match for the Nintendo DS and 3DS, despite their technical capabilities. They have had their share of failures, however. Most notably, the Virtual Boy.

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Its clunky design required players to play with the allegedly handheld system on a table with their head resting against goggles for early 3D graphics. The effect didn't work well and gave many gamers headaches. It quickly failed and has a library of games one could quite literally fit into the palm of their hand.

8 Fairchild Channel F

Fairchild channel f

The Fairchild Channel F was one of the first video game consoles on the market, hitting shelves in 1976. The graphics look even more primitive than the Atari 2600, but it deserves respect for blazing the trail that numerous consoles would eventually follow. It also lasted until 1983, getting a relatively impressive seven-year lifespan. With few other consoles out at the time, it made sense for one to last that long. A true successor never came, but several redesigns were put out.

7 Odyssey

magnavox odyssey

The Magnavox Odyssey is the oldest console on the list. It is so old that it doesn't even contain graphics. Each cartridge just displays white dots against a black screen. To make sense of it, one has to set overlays provided by the system onto the television screen. The system wasn't popular, due to a large price tag and the difficulties of marketing an entirely new medium, but it did earn a successor, the Magnavox Odyssey Squared, released in 1978.

6 Atari Lynx

Atari Lynx

Early handheld systems were a tough sell. Powerful ones were bulky, expensive, and quickly drained battery life. Nintendo understood the trade-off between power and convenience, but many didn't and quickly faded away.

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The Atari Lynx was one such handheld. Its ultimate distinction was being the first of its kind to include color graphics, but the wow factor wasn't enough to justify an almost two hundred dollar price tag when the Game Boy was less than half that.

5 Cassette Vision

casette vision

Few of the consoles on this list hail from Japan, but the Cassette Vision earns the distinction of being the most popular console over there until the NES released. One weird quirk about it is that the controllers were directly attached to the console. Playing alone is awkward enough with the bulky console, but multiplayer is nearly impossible. It came out in 1981, so it had a few good years before becoming immediately obsolete by the Famicom. Cassette Vision saw a release in Europe but didn't catch on.

4 Philips CD-i

Philips CD-i

This console has the distinction of being one of the few non-Nintendo platforms to release games featuring prominent Nintendo icons like Mario and Link. Sadly, all of the titles with these characters were generally agreed upon to be virtual dumpster fires.

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The rest of the console's library didn't fare much better either. It was one of the earliest consoles to use compact discs, so it at least deserves a nod for going through the growing pains.

3 Gizmondo

Gizmondo

The N-Gage was a colossal failure, but at least people remember it as one. Ask any gamer what a Gizmondo is and they'll probably look at you like you have eight eyes. It came out in 2005 and sold less than twenty-five thousand units, an impressively small number. One of the company's higher-ups was also embroiled in a scandal involving the Swedish mafia and crashed a car in California while inebriated, getting him a two-year prison sentence. The bad press did nothing to help the console, but it's not like it would have done any better without it.

2 Sega Nomad

Genesis nomad

The Nintendo Switch is hailed for its home console-quality graphics on the go. They weren't the first one to achieve this, however. In fact, the Sega Nomad arguably went one step further by allowing players to directly play Sega Genesis games on the handheld. Despite this impressive feat, it suffered from a high cost and poor release timing. The original Genesis came out in 1989. By 1995 most gamers were ready to move on, so playing the old console's library on a handheld felt more like a novelty than a serious contender in the mobile market.

1 Intellivision

Intellivision-Console-Set

Mattel's Intellivision often gets left out of the conversation about classic video game consoles, despite it being more powerful than the Atari 2600 and having numerous strong titles like Shark Shark, Snafu, and Astro Smash. Their sports games were also particularly beloved. The controller is a little confusing and hard to adjust to, but later redesigns added compatibility with Atari's Joysticks. Many of the best titles live on in compilations for various consoles from the past few generations.

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