Systems of prominent manufacturers that failed because of their gimmicky controllers and led to an exit from the market

[S.Peelman]

None of those exited the market because of their controllers though.

The Jaguar's controller was just a pointless thing, because no game needed anywhere near the seventeen buttons that were on there. The system failed because it was probably the worst engineered console ever and Atari was dead already, they just didn't know it themselves yet. They said 64-bit which was questionable, it needed like three different processors to do it, and games didn't look any better than 16-bit SNES.

The Dreamcast I thought was awesome, but I agree it's controller was weird. I never understood the point of the VMA. I never got it to do anything useful unless you count the stick figures that played tennis along with me playing Virtua Tennis. Anyway, obviously the Dreamcast failed due to the storm PS2 caused and SEGA's financial difficulties. It's sales weren't that bad actually in it's first year.

Though I do question the point of it's back touch pad (and it's a big hindrance in once ability to hold the system in their hands in any normal way), Vita lastly isn't dead yet, but it is failing simply because it wanted to go after a market that didn't exist. If not for the price that adds up with the memory cards any way and Sony's near total denying of it's existence.

The word "gimmick" shouldn't be thrown at stuff too lightly though, as happens more often than not. Often it seems people don't know what the definition of the word actually is. Simply put, it's only a gimmick when it's tacked on, not a necessity for the basic function and intend of an object. This inherently makes the VMA and the Vita's back touch pad a gimmick, while, as much as some want to call it that, makes the Wii Remote not a gimmick. The opposite in fact. WiiU's Gamepad would be debatable. Seeing as you are Rol, maybe this last paragraph though was what you were getting at with this thread all along...