Nintendo 2DS

Nintendo is responsible for innovating in many unusual directions. But unfortunately, those directions don't really always work out. After a tough launch, Nintendo's handheld 3DS system eventually became a huge success and a technological feat, merging a dual-screen system with touch sensitivity and an Internet connection, as well as a simulated 3D environment. But then Nintendo dumbed the system down into a weird tablet-like device at a slightly lower price point. Dumber still, the company cut out many of the 3DS' unique features to make it accessible to younger gamers. As a result, retailers couldn't move 2DS systems until they put them at steep clearance prices.

Virtual Boy

The poster child for Nintendo's boneheaded ideas, Virtual Boy launched in 1995 and was completely discontinued within a year. To use it, gamers would plant their faces into a stationary viewing port and play games with an external controller, while red LEDs simulate a parallax 3D environment within the system, years after Nintendo had begun using other 3D tech on games like Star Fox. Nintendo was forced to remove the virtual reality-like head tracking feature before the Virtual Boy's release due to health concerns, which may have made the system's reception even worse. Only 22 Virtual Boy games were released, and Nintendo seems to maintain their regret to this day, mostly because they were twenty years too early.

Power Glove

Even deeper in Nintendo's history is the terrible Power Glove, a sweaty mess of plastic from 1990 that players strapped onto their arms and desperately tried to control through a grand total of two dedicated games. Programmable finger motions sound like the Power Glove might be a fun novelty, but making Mario jump by flashing devil horns or poking at your arm with your one free hand proved too cumbersome of an alternate control scheme for most games. And the two games that specifically utilized on the device just weren't fun enough to make the Power Glove a successful peripheral. Plus, it made you look like a gigantic nerd.

R.O.B.
Another innovation that's awesome in theory but not in practice, R.O.B. is your Robotic Operating Buddy, a little guy who sets spinning gyroscopes into motion and drops them onto buttons on a modified controller adapter—and that's about it. While R.O.B. has a safe home in the memories of Nintendo fans, appearing as an easter egg in many of Nintendo's titles, the little robot man is practically useless. It was only included with Nintendo systems to make them look more interesting and interactive. And while it kinda worked, R.O.B. will always be one of the more asinine and confusing peripherals out there.

e-Reader

A peripheral for the Game Boy Advance, the e-Reader could scan tiny bar codes on the edge of specific trading cards, collect the data, and either use that information to augment an existing game, or load up a classic NES game. The device was relatively popular in Japan and received support for about six years, but the whole thing tanked in the US after just two. The e-Reader often had difficulty reading codes, and scanning ten cards to run Excitebike never really caught on, especially when cartridges that did the exact same thing were readily available. Even the inclusion of bar codes on popular Pokemon trading cards wasn't enough to make the e-Reader seem cool, even if the Pokedex feature was fun.