In this day of age, video game consoles have to be more than just a device to play your video games on. They now have to be able to play movies via streaming or using the built-in disc drive to play DVDs or Blu-Rays on. They can even be used to stream or save videos of your video game playthroughs without having to use a different system to do so. Heck, in a pinch, you can use it to stream music through your TV. So, yeah. Video game consoles are much more than just video game consoles nowadays. This means the companies that make them have to add more features to them to enable them to do that.

Well, it’s not like they haven’t been doing that way before the general public expected them to do more than that. In actuality, video game console manufacturers have been trying to cram as much extra stuff to their systems and, unfortunately, some of these extra features were hardly used, if ever. Let’s go look to the past and check out five video game console features that were severely underutilized.

#1 Nintendo Famicom’s Microphone

Let’s go check out a feature most Westerners are probably not familiar with as the 8-bit system Nintendo gave them didn’t include it. The Famicom was essentially the NES but was a top-loader and had their controllers permanently affixed to the system. However, both the Player 1 and Player 2 controllers on the Famicom were a bit different. The Player 1 controller had the Select and Start buttons that we’re all familiar with. The Player 2 side didn’t have these but, instead, had a built-in microphone. In fact, in the original Famicom version of the Legend of Zelda, this was the most efficient way to kill the Pol’s Voice creatures as all you would need to clear the room of these monsters is by yelling into the mic.

However, if you ask me what other games used the Famicom Mic feature, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. After all, most of the other games that did use the mic were Japanese exclusives I’m totally unfamiliar with. In fact, the best way to use the Famicom mic, from my experience anyway, was to yell into it while Player 1 was playing his turn. Then again, Player 1 would get his revenge by continuously pausing the game when it was yours.

#2 Sony PlayStation’s Parallel I/O Port

Sony entered the gaming war in a big way with the PlayStation. In fact, if you really think about it, it was one of the first, along with the Sega Saturn, that added extra features to the system as they both could play music CDs. However, it did seem like Sony had big plans for the original PlayStation but they never came to fruition. That’s because the system had a Parallel I/O Port in the back for future add-ons. While Sony did include this neat little expansion port, there were never any actual officially licensed products. Instead, it was used by third party manufacturers to plug in unlicensed devices like cheat devices, VCD player (which I owned and probably helped in overheating the CD laser assembly much faster than normal) and the like.

Sony eventually realized they weren’t going to be using the Parallel I/O port in any official capacity so they eventually removed it from later version of the PlayStation. In retrospect, this is quite understandable as it was just taking up space, adding to the cost of manufacturing and actually hurting their business model as the biggest use of the Port was to connect devices that allowed gamers to play bootleg games without having to modify the console in any way.

#3 PlayStation Vita’s Rear Touch Pad

While we’re talking about Sony, let’s go talk about the PlayStation Vita. Sony tried to make this portable system the Nintendo 3DS killer so they crammed as many features into it in order to, at the very least, give it a chance. They even tried to one-up Nintendo as, not only did the Vita have a touchscreen like the 3DS, it also had a Rear Touch Pad! Two touch pads for the price of one!

Unfortunately, the Vita’s Rear Touch Pad was hardly utilized for a lot of the games on the platform. Developers really never bothered to use the feature and, in retrospect, that was a good thing. The Rear Touch Pad itself wasn’t made with precision in mind as, well, you couldn’t really see where you’re fingers were touching as they were behind the entire system. It didn’t help that the thing was actually not all that responsive when touched.

#4 Xbox One’s Kinect Motion Controls

There was a time when, thanks to the Nintendo Wii, motion controls were all the rage. Sony came out with the PlayStation Move and Microsoft developed the Kinect. The original Kinect for the Xbox 360 was a pretty modest success but Microsoft, for some reason, thought everyone would want one. This is probably why they insisted that it was okay to bundle the Xbox One with the newest version of the Kinect. Sure, the “always online” aspect of the console was highly contested but forcing additional hardware onto gamers was also a bad idea.

Then it turned out that gamers didn’t really like getting off the couch and moving around to play their games, pretty much relegating the idea of motion controls as more of a fad. Microsoft soon realized a lot of people weren’t really buying the Xbox One because it came with a Kinect. They were buying it despite having to pay extra for a Kinect. Eventually, Microsoft ditched the Kinect and we’ve yet to see a successor to it today.

#5 Xbox’s “The Duke” and Controller S’s and PlayStation 2 and 3’s DualShock Pressure Sensitive Face Buttons

The most important part of every video game is not the graphics nor the sound quality but the gameplay. And in order to get good gameplay, you need a good way to control the game. Which is why during the 32-bit era, analog controls became a big thing. Analog joysticks made having to precisely move your character as fast or as slow as you want in the direction you want to go a breeze. So, it logically makes sense to make every button on your controller analog, right? This is what the folks over at Sony and Microsoft probably were thinking when they made pretty much every button, even the face buttons, have some pressure sensitive context to them.

That’s sounded good on paper but it failed to work in the real world. The problem with pressure sensitive face buttons is that they were, well, too sensitive. It was pretty difficult to find the right amount of pressure to push on the buttons for the “light” version to register as the face buttons didn’t have that much give. Unlike the triggers, which had a lot of give to them, pushing just light enough on either the Xbox or Sony controllers was hardly precise.

BONUS: Sega’s 32X

Did you own a Sega 32X? If you do, well, I’m so happy for the seven of you that do. Seriously though, the 32X was a huge flop and probably started Sega’s fall from making gaming consoles. It’s a glorified add-on for the Sega Genesis but, at the same time, it was also it’s own console.

Either way you think of it, no one wanted it. It was rendered almost immediately obsolete as Sega also came out with the Saturn at around that time period. So, yeah. It’s not exactly a feature but I had to include it because this hunk of hardware wasn’t used even during its heyday!

What other video game console hardware features can you think of which were underutilized? Let me know in the comments section below!