VGEsoterica
Member
and that's saying something because Sega fucked up a LOT!
Remember the days of the RROD on the 360? When it seemed like 50% of consoles were just waiting to die on you? Well Sega outdid Microsoft and Xbox in an even worse and more preventable manner!
The Sega Hikaru was basically the final evolution of the Dreamcast spec. More powerful, more GPU based shaders and effects...and while it had a small library it was all awesome. So how did Sega manage to mung this one up?
THEY FORGOT TO TIN THE PROCESSOR SOLDER PADS! They just dropped solder balls on the motherboard, lined the chips up and hit them with heat! If you don't know...NOT tinning the pads on both sides causes very delicate and prone to failure solder joints.
So now 9 out of every 10 Hikaru's will just randomly have full processors FALL OFF the motherboard. I kid you not...I've tried to buy three and each had one or ALL the processors arrive loose in box just floating around...never to work again (well you COULD reball them but it costs a fortune...way more than the PCB does and even then the success rate isn't great)
But the list of games is awesome. Planet Harriers? Star Wars Racer Arcade? Brave Firefighters? All hits. It's especially a giant bummer because the last ever entry in the Space Harriers franchise was never ported home and is stuck on a platform that breaks if you so much look at it the wrong way. Plus Brave Firefighters would have been perfect for Wii
But it got me thinking...outside of this and 360 what are some of the other "worst engineering decisions" in gaming hardware? Because I am sure someone did even WORSE!
Remember the days of the RROD on the 360? When it seemed like 50% of consoles were just waiting to die on you? Well Sega outdid Microsoft and Xbox in an even worse and more preventable manner!
The Sega Hikaru was basically the final evolution of the Dreamcast spec. More powerful, more GPU based shaders and effects...and while it had a small library it was all awesome. So how did Sega manage to mung this one up?
THEY FORGOT TO TIN THE PROCESSOR SOLDER PADS! They just dropped solder balls on the motherboard, lined the chips up and hit them with heat! If you don't know...NOT tinning the pads on both sides causes very delicate and prone to failure solder joints.
So now 9 out of every 10 Hikaru's will just randomly have full processors FALL OFF the motherboard. I kid you not...I've tried to buy three and each had one or ALL the processors arrive loose in box just floating around...never to work again (well you COULD reball them but it costs a fortune...way more than the PCB does and even then the success rate isn't great)
But the list of games is awesome. Planet Harriers? Star Wars Racer Arcade? Brave Firefighters? All hits. It's especially a giant bummer because the last ever entry in the Space Harriers franchise was never ported home and is stuck on a platform that breaks if you so much look at it the wrong way. Plus Brave Firefighters would have been perfect for Wii
But it got me thinking...outside of this and 360 what are some of the other "worst engineering decisions" in gaming hardware? Because I am sure someone did even WORSE!