The road to videogame greatness is paved with equally great failures—some merely ill advised, others so comical that you’ll wonder why the people behind them aren’t now working the grill at your local burger joint. As we inch closer to our 200th issue, here’s what we think are the top 10 blunders in game history—visit the 1UP.com message boards and bring up your own favorite mistakes.

10 Sony’s PS2 online hype (2000)

During the PlayStation 2’s infancy, Sony promised console owners a future of online Web browsing, video downloads, streaming music, the works. A few years later, it gave us...well, nothing even close to the features found on Xbox Live.

9 Microsoft’s enormous Xbox controller (2001)

The butt of jokes immediately after its unveiling, the first-generation Xbox gamepad was the console equivalent of a Hummer—huge, ostentatious, and a total waste of space. Microsoft quietly replaced it with the trimmer Controller S in 2002.

8 N-Gage (2003)

Another example of a poor first take, the original N-Gage handheld looked ugly, had a blinding screen, made you look like a ninny during cell-phone calls (as ex-EGMer Joe Fielder beautifully demonstrates here), and cost $300. Nokia rectified some of these problems with the quick release of its cheaper and smaller QD model.

7 Nintendo chooses cartridges for N64 (1994)

Even though CDs were less expensive and held more data, Nintendo thought cartridges were the way to go with its N64 console. End result: Third parties flocked to PS1, creating a hole that Nintendo is still digging its way out of.

6 Sega launches Saturn early (1995)

Sega released its 32-bit system four months early, but it didn’t tell anyone beforehand, including game makers and most retailers. Add to that a steep price, and Saturn was dead in the water by PS1’s launch.

5 Atari Jaguar (1993)

The first “64-bit” system showed just how clueless Atari was during the ’90s—Jaguar looked nondescript, had a terrible dial-pad controller, and its game library included such

“classics” as Club Drive and White Men Can’t Jump.

4 Sega 32X (1994)