10 Failed Consoles You’ve Probably Never Heard Of!

Casio PV-1000

Kings of the cheap digital watch Casio made several attempts to get into the lucrative video games industry during the eighties. While getting on board with the MSX was their biggest success, the PV-100 is without doubt their most notable failure.

Released in 1983 to go head-to-head with the newly released Sega SG-1000 and all conquering Nintendo Famicom (known to us as the NES in the west), on paper they got several things right. It had a fast Z80 processor (same as the Sega console), 8 colours with a resolution of 256×192 and some hot arcade ports from the likes of Namco and Konami including Dig Dug, Super Cobra, Space Panic and Galaga. They also released a technically enhanced computer alongside it known as the PV-2000.

It’s rumoured that the console sold so badly that Casio pulled it from the shelves just weeks after its full release and this was the main reason behind their decision to make computers based on the hugely popular Japanese MSX standard instead (which, rather confusingly, also used the PV prefix). Because of this gigantic failure these machines are now very rare and highly sought after by collectors everywhere.

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