The Vita definitely felt gimmicky with its back touchscreen. Love the system, hate the memory card prices.

First thought was the atari 5200, Atari did abandon the home market for a few years after the release of that monstrosity.With these choices i will say jag.

Sony isnt pulling out from the handheld market yet, you could also put the wiiu into that category by that logic

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...

I dont think theres 1 person that thinks the Vita isnt the best handheld in terms of hardware to ever be released.

It just doesnt have enough software support which is the reason for its failure.

Almost any other handheld software ever to be released would be better on vita if it were released on it.

On the other hand, theres systems where you can downgrade some games and they still wouldnt run because those systems opted for gimmicks like 2 screens and tablets rather than give devs enough power to run their games at a respectable level. Its forced a certain company into venturing into mobile and 'quality of life'.

Yeah but this is Rologic

I got to hold a jaguar controller and it's rather comfortable... Just wish it had shoulder buttons.

Outside of the wire being on the bottom I was always fond of the Dreamcast controller as well. For those mentioning the gamepad on the Wii u... Yeah, I like that too.

Really the only controller that I didn't care for in the past that comes to mind were the playstation 1, 2, and 3 controllers, but those consoles didn't fail so I don't suppose they qualify. The PS4 controller is great, though the touchpad is a little silly :D

What's gimmicky about the Vita exactly? The rear touch pad? I'll admit it sucks and is uncomfy to use. Other than that it think the Vita is basically just a console with a touchscreen display. Also think the front screen isn't a gimmick as it offers a lot of user functionality with typing, moving from apps etc