Is there any retro consoles that you never lived up to their potential? where the games fell short of the hardware?.
Personally I feel that the NDS was under-utilized, as it was a fully 3d capable console, that was used mostly for 2d pixel art games, and platformers. When it was able to support full 3d platformers and even a fan remake of portal.
despite my love for the Saturn, there’s no denying that between it’s bizzaro architecture and short lifespan to make way for the Dreamcast, it ended up leaving a lot on the table. thankfully the homebrew community is picking up more and more speed
if you’ll stretch the definition of console to include computers, the MSX Turbo-R is another example. it was an 8-bitter but with a souped-up, faster z80 meant to at least give it a fighting chance against the onalaught of 16-bitters, but the few games it’s known for are all RPGs that look great but don’t exactly flex the speed of the new processor. and while the MSX homebrew scene is massive and still pumping out games by the dozen, the Turbo-R is a rare target for new games with it still commanding 1000+ USD prices. someday!
you would assume it wouldn’t have taken the industry so long to learn from consoles like this, but they repeated it again with the ps3, and probably other consoles im not aware of.