Supporting 'underdog' Systems

[Sky10w10w]

Have you ever purchased a video game console despite having a sense that it was unlikely to 'win' or even tie among its competitors?

During the 16 bit wars, the SNES and Genesis were on equal footing. If you owned either system, you knew you were going to enjoy great games until the end of the 16 bit wars, and that you wouldn't miss out on too many 3rd party games (i.e. the Mortal Kombat series, the NBA Jam games, etc). Unless you count the Turbografx-16, the 16-bit era was not a time when there was an apparent underdog.

But what about other times during gaming history? Did you invest in a Sega Master System despite the fact that Nintendo had a virtual monopoly over gaming in most of the world during the 8-bit era?

Personally, I invested in a Sega Dreamcast despite predictions that most gamers were holding out on it in favour of supporting the PS2 once it came out. In fact, I even bought my Dreamcast AFTER Sega announced that it was going to get out of the hardware business. I don't regret my decision one bit. I enjoyed my Dreamcast much more than my PS2, and given the time of my purchase, I got my Dreamcast pretty cheap!

[triverse]

I bought whatever system had games I wanted to play (I got a TG-16 as soon as Splatterhouse was released).  Picked up an SNES when Final Fight was made available in my area, grabbed a Genesis for Strider, 3DO for Star Fighter and Killing Time and even Way of the Warrior.

Kept going with that mentality, I figure, if there is one game that I want to play bad enough to buy the system then I am sure there will be others too (some systems obviously had more games to play than others that were my cup of tea).