This console, which was released around the same time as the PS1 and Saturn was NEC's successor to their Turbografx series of consoles. Given the excellence of the original Turbografx the machine was a hugely disappointing successor to say the least and ended up never even making it out of Japan.

A lot of the console manufacturers during the mid 90s were really caught unawares by the 3D gaming revolution, and NEC was among them. They'd essentially decided that FMV games like Silpheed and Starblade were going to be where gaming was going in the near future (games which had you playing with 2D sprites over a streaming video background), and as such they decided to focus on making their new console a 2D and FMV powerhouse with no real polygon pushing ability, a hardware feature that was to become largely indispensable by the time the PC-FX was to be released. NEC then chose to delay the system, making matters even worse, and even with all its hardware inadequacies it still managed to cost more than the PS1 and Saturn at launch!

The PCFX didn't get a whole lot of software support, and in fact reports say that they actually actively worked against companies putting what they felt were unimpressive 2D games on the system that didn't show off its FMV capabilities (such as the Bomberman games), due to the belief that they would make the console look bad, and because they were aiming for an older demographic. In the end, after dropping all restrictions the library ended up getting a load of dodgy hentai titles anyway! There are a scant few okay, though not particularly groundbreaking 2D games on the system, some of which have very nice presentation too but they're few in number.

This was the first console release from what would arguably be the most important console manufacturer in history, and its.... actually really quite mediocre to be honest, just a generic machine that plays a few variations of Pong, and truth be told its not even a particularly good or feature rich representative for its time! These types of machines were a dime a dozen in the US and Europe in 1977. By this stage Americans actually already had 2nd generation consoles that used interchangeable rom cartridges, and the release of the Atari 2600 itself was only a few months off.

The supervision was a very, very expensive console released in Japan in the late 70s. As was mentioned in the previous entry, Japan was quite behind in the home market at the time and the consoles that were available there tended to be overpriced and under-supported.

So this one was a somewhat generic console that went up against the 2600 and Odyssey 2 that didn't really manage to do anything to separate itself form the pack.

Another Japanese console released in 1983 (this was a really key year for new console releases there, with everyone attempting to capitalise on the burgeoning video game market in Japan at the time).

This one doesn't have a lot going for it truth be told, but it isn't one of the worst. The hardware is somewhat weak in comparison to what Sega and especially Nintendo were coming out with at the time, and there's not a whole lot of games available, but it could be worse.

This was the second of Sega's foray's into the edutainment market, with the first being the original Sega Pico released some 12 years prior. Unlike the original Pico this model never came to the west.

The earlier Pico had been a respectable product for the time with stylus and touch pad control, and with games that all came with books that would slot into a stand on the console. As the pages of the books were turned the onscreen elements would change.

This was the predecessor of the just mentioned Beena, like that machine it was an Edutainment console with an interactive book element that was controlled with a stylus and touch pad on the console.

The system was based on Sega's Mega Drive hardware, which was only just starting to go past its sell by date at this stage (which to be honest made the Pico much more advanced than most of the other Edutainment consoles were at release).

So this one was the first proper console with interchangeable games that took off in Japan and was likely the most popular 2nd generation console there. Previously it had just been Pong machines and other simple 1st generation systems that had gained mass-market success in the country. With the release of the Cassette Vision this would change and the Japanese would now have an affordable cartridge system that gave them access to simplified version of the most popular games of the time, Pac-Man and Space Invaders and such.

The Cassette Vision was honestly still very underpowered for when it was released though, and it still isn't quite like the other second generation cartridge systems from the era either. This was actually another one of the Soundicvision type consoles where all the hardware was included in the cartridges themselves and not the consoles, with each cartridge containing its own CPU and memory chips that held the game data.

The games were controlled by dials, switches and buttons on the top of the machine itself, which was also a bit closer in function to earlier 1st generation system released in the West, than the newer machines on the market at the time which had wired controllers.

This was a little known console from Capcom that was mail order only, it was essentially Capcom's answer to the Neo Geo, which had been SNK's attempt to enter the home console market by consolising their arcade hardware (which already used cartridges anyway) and selling it to a premium market as a luxury console.

The CPS Changer itself barely contains anything really, with all the hardware actually being included in the cartridges themselves, kinda' like what had been done with some of the later era 1st generation systems funnily enough. Essentially the CPS Changer is an adaptor that fits onto Capcom's giant, expensive arcade cartridges and gives them a video out port to attach them to a television through composite or S-Video, a port for the power supply, and two controller ports that are compatible with Super Nintendo controllers (including Capcom's own SNES arcade stick), that's it.

Unfortunately for the system though Capcom had released it woefully late. Whilst the Neo Geo console and its games were also eye-wateringly expensive, they were incredibly impressive. The Neo Geo was going up against the SNES and Mega Drive and blowing away what they could produce, the CPS Changer on the other hand was around the release of the PS1 and Saturn. Now even if we ignore the fact that 3D gaming was where it was at by this stage, both of those consoles ended up being able to produce very nice ports of 2D games like Street Fighter 2, and even Street Fighter Alpha 3 anyway and for significantly lower prices.

The Zemmix consoles were very obscure machines made by the big Korean electronics manufacturer Daewoo that were effectively just consolised versions of the MSX line of computers. These were a series of Japanese computers that were a little more gaming-focused than many of the others coming out of Japan at the time, and due to this they ended up having a pretty large library of games and a moderate effect on gaming history due to their support from major Japanese companies like Konami, HAL, and Compile. For example the MSX 2, which this particular Zemmix was based on, was where the Metal Gear and Aleste series originated, and the first Castlevania and Puyo Puyo games were originally developed for both MSX 2 and NES simultaneously, whilst the earlier MSX computer had been where the Parodius and Adventure's of Lolo series' had first appeared.

Anyway, essentially after having some success bringing the computers to Korea, Daewoo turned their eyes to the console market and decided to just repurpose the MSX machines. This was easy to do as most of the major MSX games were already on cartridge anyway and the games were usually controlled via joystick hooked up to the computer's industry standard joystick ports.

The first Zemmix console sold well for Daewoo and they released some minor revisions in the subsequent years, followed by this proper successor in 1990. Not only was this based on better hardware than the earlier Zemmix it was also reportedly more compatible, as it could be expanded into a full MSX 2 computer if the owner purchased the necessary peripherals (such as a keyboard and such).

So if it plays all the games of the first Zemmix and is more compatible than the first Zemmix then why have I placed it lower? Simply due to the release date. The original Zemmix's hardware was essentially like that of the Colecovision, except with a better sound chip so it was only a few years behind the competition when it was released in 1985, and as such still had games being produced for it for many years to come, whilst this one is basically a Master System-eque console being released when the SNES and Mega Drive were already available in the west, much further behind the times, and as a result its software lifespan was already starting to wind down even on release.