Nintendo Virtual Boy

A Gallery of Tech Product “Flops” Will be at CES 2023

The focus at CES each year is on the latest and greatest innovation in the technology space. But what about those products that never quite made it to market? The ones we call “vapourware” that were all hype and no substance? Or the ones that did eventually come to market only to fail miserably?

Sure, CES is all about looking to the future and the positive changes tech can make. But it can be fun, in hindsight, to look back at some of the biggest failures, too, and The Gallery of Flops at CES 2023 will do just that next year.

Organized by Prelaunch.com, a U.S.-based company that supports creators by testing their product market demand to help them understand product-market fit and price based on customer purchase intent, The Gallery of Flops will be located at Eureka Park’s Venetian Hall booth #60311 and will be open to all CES attendees. “Most of these million-dollar failures were 100 per cent avoidable had they run proper market/price validation before launching,” the company writes in its pitch.

Nintendo Virtual Boy

The Gallery will feature products from brands like Apple, Harley Davidson, BIC, Sony, Nike, and Nintendo. One of the items on display, for example, is the Nintendo Virtual Boy, a portable video game console that was released in 1995 and described as being the first to display stereoscopic 3D graphics. By 1996, Nintendo has stopped production of the unit and the company rightfully shifted its focus back to the widely successful Nintendo 64 video game console instead.

Apple PiPPiN

Another item on display is the Apple Pippin (marketed as PiPPiN), an open multimedia technology platform based on the Mac OS architecture and intended to be licensed to other companies. One much company was Bandai, which released several products. These came to market in 1996 but PiPPiN was only around for a year when Steve Jobs shut down the concept following his return to the company in 1997.

Also on display will be the Nintendo Wii-U, Nokia N-Gage, Parfum Bic, and the Rejuvenique Face Mask.

In each exhibit, Prelaunch.com will also provide a lesson about what the brand could have done differently to have made the product a success, along with advice for other brands that might find themselves in similar situations.

According to Prelaunch.com, thousands of start-ups launch within the global consumer electronics ecosystem every year, but close to 90% of them fail in the long run. This equates to only one-in-10 start-up businesses actually surviving.

Interestingly, however, many of the products featured in the Gallery came from not new start-ups but rather established companies people might consider “too big to fail.” This proves that even established brands can sometimes read the market incorrectly and not every product they develop is a massive hit.

“Based on my decades-long experience with thousands of start-ups, I’ve noticed one clear pattern that accompanies the majority of those that failed: no data-driven decisions during the prelaunch stage,” says Prelaunch.com CEO Narek Vardanyan. “Our team at Prelauch.com decided to address this issue by developing an all-in-one platform to help founders identify the real potential of their product before making investments.”

The Gallery of Flops is a great way for Prelaunch.com to promote its own business at CES 2023, and the services it provides for start-ups looking to determine if their innovation is a viable one and has legs. Nonetheless, it’s sure to be a fun exhibit worth exploring at the show.

Check out Prelaunch.com’s Gallery of Flops in booth #60311 in the Eureka Park exhibits in Venetian Hall.