10 Obscure Consoles You've Probably Never Heard Of

3. Bally Astrocade

Perhaps a name not so well known to today€™s modern gamers, Bally were once the biggest operator in the whole arcade industry. They were part of the company that would eventually become Midway Games, producer of such huge hits as the Mortal Kombat series, NBA Jam and Rampage. With such a strong arcade heritage it only seemed natural that they would enter the new and exciting home console market. Released the same year as the Atari 2600, in 1977, it would be well ahead of its more illustrious rival with far more advanced graphics, three channel sound and a faster CPU but this had its own big trade off, the extortionate price, leaving it well out of the reach of most American households. After several rebrands as the Bally Computer System and Bally Professional Arcade, they decided to give up on it just two years later, selling it on - along with their consumer division - to Montgomery Ward, who continued to market it up until the North American video game crash of 1983.