Strange/annoying design decisions

[Gren]

What did you think were rather bizarre and/or infuriating design choices in your favourite hardware/software of old?!

I'll give a starter for 10 on both counts:-

Software - Been playing a lot of MAME recently, and one of my faves from the early 80s is Scramble. I loved the game as a kid in the arcades, but never noticed back then the oddity that is a horizontally scrolling shooter (one of the first) running on a vertical monitor! Stands out a mile when you play it now in MAME on a widescreen monitor

Hardware - GBA SP and the removal of the headphone socket?! I mean WTF! A portable games machine with no 3.5mm headphone jack - that is a serious censored-up. And I remember buying the official adaptor and then finding out that you couldn't charge the machine if you were using headphones! I bet heads rolled for that one.....and I'm guessing no-one has repeated this same mistake?!

Over to you guys...

[Rayne]

3DS - Not an analogue stick but an analogue slider? only one of them? That led to this:



Fail!

[DPrinny]

Dreamcast controllers cable.

Running from the bottom?

[themightymartin]

This:



Aside from how abominable it looks, what you can't see in this picture (and what most people on this forum will already be aware of) is the ungodly mess of wires this travesty of a set-up requires! The AVGN put it perfectly when he said that it made the Mega Drive look like it was on life support.

Oh, and let's not forget this uncomfortable mass of plastic:



Laird, if you're reading this, I'm sorry but I still think this controller is a pile of plops.

[Negative Creep]

Cardboard boxes for games. Easy to damage, hence the relative rarity of complete SNES, NES etc games. Having said that the Saturn ones were a complete disaster as well

Cartridges without end labels

[gman72]

This:



Aside from how abominable it looks, what you can't see in this picture (and what most people on this forum will already be aware of) is the ungodly mess of wires this travesty of a set-up requires! The AVGN put it perfectly when he said that it made the Mega Drive look like it was on life support.

Oh, and let's not forget this uncomfortable mass of plastic:



Laird, if you're reading this, I'm sorry but I still think this controller is a pile of plops.

Yes, that Jag pad was awful and, for me at least, bordered on the unplayable.
Surely the worst ever, ever pad has to be the original X-box fat burger pad, an absolute travesty of design.

A travesty of bad design.

[DPrinny]

^Not Intellvision?


No power buttons on the console (stand by dont count)

[The Laird]

Hardware wise:

Super Nintendo - Slow CPU, 8-bit data bus and no sprite scaling.

Nintendo 64 - Cartridges, lack of RAM, integrated sound chip and the worst controller ever.

Atari Jaguar - Releasing the hardware without fixing the bugs, terrible dev kit, inclusion of the Motorola 68000.

Atari 7800 - Not giving Maria its own bus and not including a POKEY chip.

Sega Game Gear - Utterly terrible build quality that includes a rubbish screen.

Sony Playstation - No kind of expansion slot, no internal memory for storage or GUI system.

Sega Mega CD - No additional colours and poor quality video codec.

[DPrinny]

Sony Playstation - No kind of expansion slot, no internal memory for storage or GUI system.

Well hello there, it wasn't like Sony was going to make a load of add-ons for it.

Removed on later models due to piracy.

[themightymartin]

Atari Jaguar - Releasing the hardware without fixing the bugs, terrible dev kit, inclusion of the Motorola 68000.

The Laird saying something negative about the Atari Jaguar?

*Faints*

[The Laird]

Atari Jaguar - Releasing the hardware without fixing the bugs, terrible dev kit, inclusion of the Motorola 68000.

The Laird saying something negative about the Atari Jaguar?

*Faints*

I have said loads of negative things about the Jaguar over the years including stuff that has been published in magazines, I guess you don't pay enough attention

[The Laird]

Sony Playstation - No kind of expansion slot, no internal memory for storage or GUI system.

Well hello there, it wasn't like Sony was going to make a load of add-ons for it.

Removed on later models due to piracy.

Correct me if I am wrong but that didn't allow things like RAM cartridges to be plugged into it. The 2D fighters on the Saturn are far superior to the PS1 versions because of the addition of these.

[DPrinny]

Didn't see any.
But did see the likes of cheat devices, video CD players.
the PSX was a 3D machine, nobody knew hat Capcom and SNK where going to make some damn fine 2D ones.

Nobody really used it for anything interesting

[The Laird]

Didn't see any.
But did see the likes of cheat devices, video CD players.
the PSX was a 3D machine, nobody knew hat Capcom and SNK where going to make some damn fine 2D ones.

Nobody really used it for anything interesting

I was talking about the PS1, not the PSX.

This is a PSX - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSX_(DVR)

[DPrinny]

Didn't see any.
But did see the likes of cheat devices, video CD players.
the PSX was a 3D machine, nobody knew hat Capcom and SNK where going to make some damn fine 2D ones.

Nobody really used it for anything interesting

I was talking about the PS1, not the PSX.

This is a PSX - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSX_(DVR)

Old habits and that