retroking1981 on 30 July 2007
gamerankings insn't a fair judgement of generations prior to the n64/ps/sat era as it requires a minimum number of reviews for a game to be counted.
otherwise this list would have far more snes, megdrive, nes etc games in the list.
it is a good site tho and i think its the best site to get an accurate review of a game.
in answer to the original question, no they are no failures because:
1. they had good games (to please the gamer)
2. they were profitable (to please the hardware manufacture)
nothing else really matters.
