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Curated playlist

2010s toys

  • PlayStation 4Sony stood on the E3 2013 stage and promised no restrictions on trading PS4 games.
  • PlayStation 3Sony lost more than US$240 on every PlayStation 3 it sold at launch.
  • Nintendo SwitchPlayers found a hidden golf game inside the Nintendo Switch. It was a tribute to Satoru Iwata, who programmed NES Golf.
  • WiiNintendo's Wii ended up in hospitals and nursing homes. It was built as a console for everyone, even grandparents.
  • PlayStation 2In Japan's launch period, the PlayStation 2's best-selling title was a DVD of The Matrix, not a game.
  • Xbox 360Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 in 2005, just 69 days after production began. It sold out everywhere except Japan.
  • Xbox OneThe Xbox One reveal spent over thirty minutes on television before showing a single game.
  • Nintendo 3DSNintendo cut the 3DS price by nearly a third just months after launch. Early buyers got twenty free classic games.
  • Nintendo DSNintendo called its own Nintendo DS an experimental "third pillar" before launch. It went on to sell 154 million units.
  • Wii UThe Wii U sold just 13.56 million units, Nintendo's worst-selling home console.
  • Masters of the Universe"By the power of Grayskull... I have the power!" With those words and a magic sword raised overhead, a young prince turns into the hero He-Man. Masters of the Universe is the American franchise built around that moment, a sword and planet…
  • PokémonPokémon Red and Green came in two versions so players would trade. Each version held Pokémon that the other did not.
  • Dragon BallDragon Ball's seven orbs were shrunk down from eight Buddhist prayer beads in an old Japanese novel.
  • XboxMicrosoft tested the name Xbox as the option it expected to lose. Instead, it scored highest in consumer surveys.
  • OuyaThe Ouya game console raised a million dollars in eight hours on Kickstarter.
  • Power RangersPower Rangers owes its existence to a hotel television in Japan. Haim Saban was on a business trip there in the 1980s. The only thing his hotel set would show was a series about five masked people in spandex suits fighting monsters. He was…
  • Hot WheelsHot Wheels began as a 98-cent toy car in 1968, and in 2000 a single pre-production example sold for close to $70,000. The brand is an American franchise of scale model cars. Elliot Handler, a co-founder of Mattel, invented it, and the…

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