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SWORDF1SH on 14 January 2016
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Johnw1104 said:

The gamecube and dreamcast were steals.

Otherwise, it's not entirely fair to a couple of these as they weren't really "consoles"... The pioneer and cdi, for instance, featured video games almost as an afterthought. The halycon probably shouldn't even be listed as it never went to retail.

I disagree. A snip from my article I did a few years ago.

3 | Philips CD-I

In 1991 Phillips released the CD-I, the first CD based games console. The CD-I was marketed as a “multi-media system” that could play games, run applications and be an educational tool for children. As time went on the changed their stance to compete with the 3DO and Sega CD but by then they lost support for the console and had few games to make a serious charge. The CD-I is credited for being the only non-Nintendo console to feature Nintendo franchises. Due to a contractual obligation that Nintendo had with Philips, a few Mario and Zelda games appeared on the console. The CD-I lasted 7 years on the market and sold around 570,000 units.

2 | Pioneer LaserActive

The LaserActive was the console that wanted to do everything and this shows with the massive price tag. Not only did it play LaserDiscs and LaserActive games, it had add-on support for the Genesis and TurboGrafx-16. It also had a karaoke add-on and could support 3D with 3D glasses with the relevant add-on, it’s basically a computer console you can mould into what you want. Released in ’93 it competed against the directly with the 3DO and while the 3DO was busy showing off its console, the LaserActive was only being shown behind closed doors. This led to hardly any hype with the majority of the public not knowing about it. The add-on modules were expensive; the Genesis add-on cost $600, this didn’t do it any favours with the Sega Genesis costing just $230 at the time. Only 10,000 consoles were sold.

1 | RDI Halcyon

The video game market just crashed so what do you do? Release the most expensive console in history of course. The Halcyon is by far the most expensive console ever created by being almost 4 times more expensive than the second most expensive console in history. The high price was mainly due to the use of laserdisc. You were able to talk to the Halcyon and it would talk back to you and you could also take the controls “out of your hands and into your mouth.” The RDI never got a full release and only a few were made for investors. Only 2 games were made for the system.