Only Fools and Consoles

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

Hardware-wise, the original GBA. There's simply no contest. The most stupid, crappest piece of hardware ever. Why the hell did anyone buy that shit? It was impossible to see anything.

I loved my GBA, despite the crappy screen. I got quite inventive using every available ray of light in any environment to be able to play it. I even played gaming mammoths like Advance Wars and Golden Sun to completion on it.

It wasn't until I upgraded to the backlit SP that I realised how much of a pain in the arse it was.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

You can't blame Nintendo for the permanently overcast British weather. Still, everyone bought an Afterburner backlight, right?

I bought one and it had terrible trapezium and dust behind the screen issues. That was bang on the time when the SP was announced too. Fortunately I could send it back and instead of getting a replacement, I could put the money into a Japanese launch SP preorder.

[PikaStu]

Glad to see others in the same boat...

I bought a Goldstar 3DO when I was 15, just before the Japanese launch of the PSOne

Imported a PSP from Canada on launch, complete with a few stuck (bright yellow) pixels.

Steel Battalion, the second edition with both discs. Only played it 3 or 4 times.

Someone mentioned Megadrive Fantasia lol. I bought that. £40 for the worst game I'd ever played!

These days all I seem to do is buy retro stuff that I play for 10 minutes and put away. I need to stop that!

[Rayn]

The Amiga CD32

Got this at launch with Microcosm and Liberation (which was a fantastic game, btw) for the neat amount of £450. I was even contemplating forking out for the FMV addon to make it play CDi movies (which was another £200, if memory serves me right), which I'm glad I never did.

Prior to getting the Amiga CD32, I'd sold my SNES with about 12 games to be able to afford it. I ended up selling the Amiga CD32 to buy a new SNES, and I could only afford to get 5 games for the price I got

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

How many games were ever released for the CD32? I remember reading about it back in the time and thinking it was doomed to fail. And that was as a die hard Amiga fanboy.

[Pob]

I had an original GBA (two, actually, after I lost one) and also endured the stress of having to find an adequate light source to play it. I don't regret it, though, because there was nothing else like it at the time. It was only when the SP was announced that I wished I didn't have it.

Anyway, I found a lighting solution for it:

[bradigor]

I don't have any regrets when it comes to buying. I do however wished I had kept things like the 3DO and CDi rather than shifting them on.

[Vimster]

The only console I really regret buying was the GP2X. Attrocious battery life, rubbish screen. Poor touchscreen controls. When the battery ran out it just died, so playing anything that wasn't a simple arcade game was risky. Terrible.

I did also buy an original GBA but had one with one of those Afterburner backlights installed. It wasn't great but at least you could play games properly. Sold it for £50 on eBay in 2005, probably a damn sight more than most vanilla original GBAs went for. Bought a GBA SP.

[Not Thread Owner]

I never had a problem seeing the screen on my GBA. If it was daytime, I sat with my back to the window and it was perfect, if it was night I sat under my reading light and it was fine (although a bit more reflecty).

[Silence]

When drunk one night I bought a UK Dreamcast and about 10 games for £200, despite already owning a Japanese Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was on it's last legs at the time and I thought it would nice to have a blue UK one as well as an orange Jap one.

I never played on it, and it still sits in the attic.

[Qazimod]

Oh yes, I had lots of fun angling my original GBA to try and get enough light to be able to see what I was doing (but not so much that I get nasty reflections over the screen.) I didn't upgrade it until much later when I found an old GB Micro in the corner of Virgin Megastores' games area for about £30. And I've since thrown that out.

[Unofficial Who]

How many games were ever released for the CD32? I remember reading about it back in the time and thinking it was doomed to fail. And that was as a die hard Amiga fanboy.

I don't know that I regret it myself. I spent about $300AU on one back in the day and then another $300 on the SX1 which was useful for playing my old Amiga games. I installed 8 meg of fast ram and loved using it as a virtual drive. I would install Flashback onto the Ram and have zero load times

It also led me to discovering Spectrum emulation which pretty much kept me busy until the PSOne arrived. I'd only ever seen Speccys in magazines and loved playing the games I'd only ever seen murky screenshots of.

[Dandy_Sephy]

but my only regret :-)

a £550 Cave PCB kit that had a home port less than two years later

At £550 I'm guessing it was used and a SH-3 kit?

Give me a hint

[Triple A]

brand new Mushi Futari. looking at some prices lately i gather the value may well have gone up! perhaps i shouldn't regret that one after all

[Popo]

I'm not really surprised to find a few people who regret their Saturn purchases, but I am certainly disappointed!

The Saturn was the best fun I had with a console on memory - perhaps that was due to my age, but I bought another for peanuts last year while still living in Yokohama and played Daytona USA every night for 2 months! I finally learned how to do Seaside Street Galaxy!

On the other hand, I definitely regret buying all the back issues of Sega Saturn Megazine years leater off eBay while at uni. The amount of money I spent on those otherwise worthless magazines was a joke! Still the best magazine there's ever been though.

[Red Alignment]

My best buy was certainly the £160 for a SNES with Super Marioworld. Amaze

I got more use out of my Super NES than any other non-handheld console I've owned before or since. Bloody wonderful little machine, that.

Prior to getting the Amiga CD32, I'd sold my SNES with about 12 games to be able to afford it. I ended up selling the Amiga CD32 to buy a new SNES, and I could only afford to get 5 games for the price I got

Oooof. Reminds me of someone who sold his Super NES and huge collection for a 3DO, caught up in the next-gen hype in Edge magazine, and regretted it quickly.

I owned a CD32, but only because it was £60 in Rumbelows closing down sale. All the CD32 software was Amiga games on CD, even with those annoying copy protection sheets and single-button control, because they hadn't bothered to adapt the games for the CD32 joypad. Crap.

I do regret buying a Neo Geo Pocket Color, that's my only other regret. Thought it'd be exotic and interesting, and I thought the thumbstick was nice. What I got with like a Game Boy Color Plus, with equally murky screen, and poor games.