I’ve long dreamed of doing all my gaming on PC – a single platform that’s easily upgradeable and lets me play my overstuffed Steam library wherever and however I like. The Steam Deck is a fantastic handheld, but for my living room, I want something more powerful that works as well on my TV as it does at a desk. Believe me, I’ve tried. Gaming laptops are noisy and awkward, desktops are too chunky, and Windows is annoying to navigate without a keyboard and mouse. I had hoped that Valve’s Steam Machine experiment was my ticket, but it crashed and burned long ago. Nothing’s ever been as easy as a PlayStation 5.
The world never changes quite the way you expect. But at The Verge, we’ve had a front-row seat while technology has permeated every aspect of our lives over the past decade. Some of the resulting moments — and gadgets — arguably defined the decade and the world we live in now.
But others we ate up with popcorn in hand, marveling at just how incredibly hard they flopped.
This is the decade we learned that crowdfunded gadgets can be utter disasters, even if they don’t outright steal your hard-earned cash. It’s the decade of wearables, tablets, drones and burning batteries, and of ridiculous valuations for companies that were really good at hiding how little they actually had to offer. It’s the decade of Google filling up its product graveyard, Apple stubbornly denying obvious missteps, and Microsoft writing off billions of dollars.
Here are 84 things that died hard, often hilariously, to bring us where we are today.
—Sean Hollister
84. Google Nexus Q
Everyone was confused by Google’s Nexus Q when it debuted in 2012, including The Verge — which is probably why the bowling ball of a media streamer crashed and burned before it even came to market. Priced at $299, plus another $399 for speakers and $49 for cables, the Nexus Q was incredibly expensive for what amounted to a gimmicky paperweight. It only streamed from YouTube, Play Music, and Play Video; had weird connection issues; and required an app to change any of the device’s settings.
Shortly after it was announced, Google pushed Nexus Q’s official launch date, telling those that pre-ordered it that the company ”heard initial feedback from users that they want Nexus Q to do even more than it does today,” and it “decided to postpone the consumer launch of Nexus Q while we work on making it even better.”
