Vita used to be my slam dunk answer, but I've become a very bitter Vita user. The last 2 years have been a ridiculously expensive, time consuming, mentally taxing nightmare, where simply getting the software to work at all has become the defining experience of ownership. Good thing I've supported it by buying 3 Vitas, 8 memory cards, and roughly 300 games, not including the PS+ games I have as well. I feel so vindicated! I basically hate the thing now. If I weren't so entrenched in PS overall, and I had alternatives in the console space that were appealing, I'd bail completely.

I've noticed a lot of failed consoles have a cult following of devotees who talk them up as if they're among the greatest systems ever; Gamecube, Dreamcast, Vita. 

First console that comes to mind is Gamecube.

Wii U

GameCube, easily.

The original Playstation.

It's always overlooked. Even for PS fans it's in the shadow of the Playstation 2. I really do think it is the best console of all time and vastly superior to anything else that generation. It was the birth of mainstream 3D gaming. Original Playstation games absolutely dominate my list of favourite games of all time.

ColecoVision is my number one pick.

Nobody ever really talks about it but it had an almost arcade perfect port of Donkey Kong a few years before the NES debuted in the US.

The main reason it's overlooked is because you'd have to be old enough to remember it in its hey day and it was mainly just a US console (where you lived in the 80s and even the 90s determined what consoles you were familiar with unlike today).  Also, it debuted during the crash of 83 in the US lol.  But it was powerful, you could hook up the module 1 to play hundreds of 2600 Atari games, and it came packed with a Nintendo game!  It was the most powerful console around until the NES rejuvenated the market.  

Other than the ColecoVision.... I feel most consoles are remembered fairly in line with their legacies.  Regardless, to pick a more familiar one in the same vein as others in this topic....

Dreamcast . 😊

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"Joni Mitchell never lies, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" 

That makes me wonder if Saturn has the see cult following in Japan as those kind of consoles do in the West. IIRC compared to other Sega consoles and Saturn's worldwide performance it actually sold pretty decently there despite failing worldwide. 

I wouldn't be surprised; Saturn sold more in Japan than the rest of the world combined, and even outsold the N64 there. They had a great marketing campaign there featuring Segata Sanshiro, a super-macho martial arts guy who was the mascot for the platform. 

So yeah, I'd say it's quite likely the Saturn has a similar cult following in Japan.