10 Most Infamous Unreleased Gaming Consoles

7. Sega Neptune

As weird as it was at the time, the period that played a big part in the eventual end of Sega as a hardware manufacturer looks even more ridiculous now. With the Genesis/Mega Drive doing well, you can't really blame them for releasing the Sega/Mega CD add-on at the height of the game industry's craziness over CDs and "multimedia".

It was the next step that eventually led to their doom: the 32X. Yet another add-on, it plugged into the Genesius' cartridge slot to upgrade the 16-bit console, turning it into some sort of 32-bit monstrosity that was allegedly comparable to the new standalone consoles that were coming out. If you had the CD drive, it was even better, because there were also 32X CD titles. Of course, this was incredible confusing when the Sega Saturn, a 32-bit standalone next generation console, was released in Japan just a day after the 32X's North American launch.

The confused launch has been latterly blamed on conflicts between Sega of America and their Japanese parent company, troubles which had persisted since Sonic 2's cross-continental development. Consumer confusion would only have increased had Sega went ahead with the Neptune, a hybrid console combining the Genesis/Mega Drive with the 32X in one sleek box for $200. It was cancelled when the whole 32X line was dropped, though prototypes have been seen in the wild. While Sega made a valiant attempt at recovery as a hardware company with the Dreamcast, this was the beginning of the end.