View-Master Interactive Vision

The View-Master Interactive Vision is a video game console released in North America in 1989 with no information regarding its discontinuation.

Why It Flopped

 * 1) Poor marketing: As far as we can tell, very little marketing material was created to promote the console. Not a single commercial for the console has resurfaced on the internet as of now.
 * 2) The format the console used were VHS cassette tapes with a genlock overlay to display graphics. If the tapes were damaged, the genlock would fail.
 * 3) The 8-bit genlock graphics were only slightly better than the ones used on the ColecoVision.
 * 4) Most of the gameplay experiences were extremely basic. Disney's Cartoon Arcade was a selection of rather mediocre, basic arcade-style mini games. Sesame Street: Let's Learn to Play Together is basically a tutorial for the console, and the 2 Muppet games were mostly choose-your-own-adventure games save for small sections with actual gameplay.
 * 5) 4 out of the 7 games released for the console were Sesame Street based games, and 2 were based on the Muppets. That means all but one game featured some sort of Muppet characters.
 * 6) To use the console you needed to plug it into both your RF and composite inputs on your TV, which means the console will not work on modern day TVs with no composite input.
 * 7) Capturing high-quality gameplay footage is difficult as most capture devices get thrown off by the extra amount of signal required by the alternate audio track and genlock graphics.
 * 8) The controller's buttons and joystick were oddly positioned and the design looked clunky compared to other controllers, such as the one used for the NES.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Its technology was advanced for its time.
 * 2) The Sesame Street games could be entertaining for young children and preschoolers.

Trivia

 * This was one of the first VHS based game consoles.