- Flop redirects here. For the poker term, see flop (poker). For the computing term "floating point operations per second", see flops.
The former article "List of major flops" has been split. This article covers commercial failures only:
A commercial failure is a product that doesn't reach expectations of success, failing to come even close. A major flop goes one step further and is recognized for its almost complete lack of success.
Most of the items listed below are ones that had high expectations, large amounts of money or widespread publicity, but fell far short of success. Obviously, due to the subjective nature of "success" and "meeting expectations," there can be disagreement about what constitutes a "major flop."
One major business flop was the failed merger of the New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad to become the Penn Central Railroad in 1968, only to be bankrupt in 1970 and merged to become Conrail on April 1, 1976.
Commercial failures in aviation
These are aircraft which failed in the marketplace, but may have been technically sound. For aircraft which failed to work at all, see 'List of famous failures in science and engineering'.
- Early zeppelins (airships), of the hydrogen-filled variety. Although initially a commercial success, the explosion of the Hindenburg killed the market.
- The Douglas Super DC-3 was a attempt to improve the famous Douglas DC-3. However, only three were sold as large numbers of war surplus C-47s were available for about $8,000 each. The Super DC-3 cost $200,000.
- The Bristol Brabazon - this giant airliner was simply too expensive, too large for the time, and carried too few passengers in great luxury rather than many passengers in less space.
- The Convair CV-880 and CV-990 - these aircraft were commercial disasters as they only offered five-abreast seating, and were easily out-competed on price by the Boeing 720 which was based on an existing aircraft type.
- The Hawker Siddeley Trident was built specifically to a British European Airways specification and was thus too small for the world market.
- Supersonic transports: Boeing 2707, Tupolev Tu-144, arguably Concorde
- The Dassault Aviation Mercure - this aircraft had extremely limited range and as a result only ten were put in service, by the French domestic airline Air Inter
- The VFW-614 was another small, short-range jet, notable for its unique over-wing engine installation. Only 16 were built.
- The Northrop F-20 Tigershark - this fighter aircraft was designed as a private venture for export, but failed utterly as foreign air forces wanted the more prestigious F-16 Fighting Falcon used by the USAF, despite the F-20 having similar performance and lower cost.
Automotive flops
- Buckminster Fuller's 1933 Dymaxion car - Original and innovative, but a fatal crash and safety issues with rear-wheel steering aborted investor interest and further development. A total of three were built.
- Ford Motor Company's Edsel - One of the most successful new car line launches in history quickly became a legendary flop. Just over 100,000 were built in four years. In 1960, the Edsel's final model year, only a few thousand were built.
- De Lorean - Roughly 9,000 were built before John De Lorean's cocaine-smuggling arrest closed the factory two years after its launch.
- Sinclair C5 - a battery-assisted tricycle designed by Sir Clive Sinclair
- Bricklin SV-1 - The safety/sports car from Canada suffered from quality concerns. Just 2,857 were sold in 3 years.
- Cadillac V-8-6-4 variable cylinder engine - Poor reliability and dubious benefit doomed the variable displacement concept for a decade.
- Lincoln Blackwood luxury pickup truck - A velvet-lined bed, low towing capability, and a single exterior color led to the cancellation of this model after 15 months with 3,356 sold.
- Suzuki X-90 - This round 2-place sporty mini-SUV was not welcomed in the market. Just 7,205 sold in 3 years, making it among the slowest-selling full-production vehicles in history.
- Tucker '48 - Preston Tucker's streamlined automobile with a rear, aircooled engine and then-innovative safety features. Tucker's attempt to launch a major automobile company failed, due to conspiracy by the major manufacturers, shady financial maneuvers by Tucker or both. A total of 51 were built.
- Pontiac Aztek - Controversial styling resulted in just over 27,000 sales per year instead of an expected 50,000 to 70,000. Discontinued in 2005.
- Vauxhall Firenza HPF - just 204 built instead of the projected 30,000+. Killed by the fuel crisis, its rarity has at least assured it classic status in modern times.
- Toyota Echo - Sales of the US version of the Yaris subcompact car fell from 50,000 in 2000 to just 3400 in 2004.
- The American launches of import marques Merkur, Sterling, Daihatsu, Daewoo, and Yugo all failed in the extreme.
Computing flops
Hardware flops
- Amiga CDTV - This early multimedia computer was overpriced and suffered from using the obsolete AmigaOS 1.3, when version 2.0 was already available.
- The Apple III, Apple Lisa, and arguably the Apple Newton are notable flops from Apple. Many of the Lisa's features were later incorporated into the far more successful Apple Macintosh.
- The Atari Falcon030 came right at the time when the PC "Wintel" and the Macintosh computers had eluded the competition of smaller products, such as the Atari ST, the Amiga, or the Amstrad CPC. Virtually no software was written for the Falcon030.
- Bubble memory. Widely heralded as the next big thing, it was widely expected to all-but-replace every other form of storage. The technology and engineering were sound, and numerous products were actually brought to market, but it was never able to gain any significant cost edge over the rapidly-improving technologies it was supposed to displace.
- Coleco Adam - A home computer created by toy company Coleco that nearly bankrupted the company.
- The Commodore Amiga was a flop in the United States (but was successful in Europe).
- In the 1980s, Commodore International became the first company to sell a million home computers. Hoping to repeat the success of its multi-million-selling VIC-20 and C-64 computers, it released the Commodore Plus/4 in 1984. It flopped. Commodore tried--and mostly failed--for 10 years to duplicate the C-64's success, going bankrupt in 1994.
- The Convex C3 mini-supercomputer
- The Cray-3 gallium arsenide supercomputer.
- The :CueCat barcode scanner - designed to allow magazine readers to read magazines while seated at their computers, and navigate effortlessly to advertisers' websites by passing the CueCat over barcodes printed in ads that caught their fancy. Thousands were given away free at Radio Shack stores. What killed it was consumers' utter lack of interest in its functionality.
- Data Play CD replacement disk technology. Cited by Jim Louderback as one of the "eight biggest tech flops ever (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ttzd/20031223/tc_techtues_zd/115253&cid=1739&ncid=1729)".
- Enterprise 128, announced in September 1983, but failed to be produced until May 1985 when its features were not so impressive anymore. It also suffered several name changes: First it was called Enterprise Elan, then Flan, then Samurai and finally just Enterprise.
- Go (pen computing corporation), cited by Jim Louderback as one of the "eight biggest tech flops ever".
- IBM's first attempt at building a supercomputer, IBM 7030, also known as Stretch. Its actual performance was less than one third of its original specification. This resulted in IBM drastically dropping the price and losing money on every machine sold.
- The IBM PS/2 and the IBM PCjr.
- IBM's 4" diameter floppy disk drive, introduced at about the same time as Seagate's 3" floppy, Hitachi's 3.25" floppy, and Sony's 3.5" floppy. (All but Sony's floppy flopped).
- The IBM 2.88Mb floppy disk. Supported by IBM and nobody else; appeared just before the huge explosion in hard disk sizes which effectively rendered floppy disks redundant.
- IBM's Micro Channel Architecture PC bus (MCA), which solved the problems IBM had itself created with its predecessor, the PC-AT bus. IBM and many industry analysts assumed that the need to be "IBM-compatible" would force other vendors to adopt the MCA, for which IBM charged high licensing fees. In fact customers did not care, and the industry largely ignored the bus. This flop was significant because it was widely interpreted as indicating that IBM no longer controlled the PC architecture and had lost its leadership position.
- The ILLIAC IV array processor supercomputer.
- In 1982, Intel introduced the iAPX 432 microprocessor as the next great computer architecture after their x86 line. Considered one of the most complicated microprocessors ever built, it delivered low performance and went nowhere in the market.
- Intel expected the Itanium processor (referred to by detractors as "the Itanic") to revolutionize the microprocessor industry, but after 7 years of development and billions of dollars spent, the first Itanium chip proved an utter technical and commercial failure. However, the project still goes on, and Itanium 2 is an improvement. (Furthermore, the Itanium had the valuable [to Intel] side effect of killing competition; its development caused several competing chips, such as the Alpha and advanced version of the SPARC, to be abandoned by timid management).
- The INMOS Transputer, a brave attempt at a different way of computing - but now largely forgotten.
- Iomega Clik! drive. Cited by Jim Louderback as one of the "eight biggest tech flops ever".
- Next Computer was founded by Steve Jobs after his 1985 ouster from Apple Computer. The product and company were media darlings, but sold in small numbers.
- Rambus's RDRAM can arguably be considered a flop. Competitors feared that Intel was trying to control the memory market through Rambus, so they joined together to develop DDR SDRAM. DDR SDRAM offers comparable performance to RDRAM, yet is much less expensive. This forced Intel to abandon exclusive support for RDRAM. Intel has essentially abandoned RDRAM entirely as of 2004, with all new products using DDR SDRAM or DDR-II SDRAM.
- The Sinclair QL a somewhat unsuccessful attempt by Sinclair Research to make a 16 bit computer in the mid 1980s
- The Sony HiFD, intended to replace the 3.5 inch floppy drive, but was prevented from doing so due to an early recall, compatibility problems, and the rise of cheap recordable CDs.
- WebTV (now MSN TV). Internet delivery via television set and set-top box. Cited by Jim Louderback as one of the "eight biggest tech flops ever".
Software flops
- Adobe LiveMotion - Adobe's failed animated vector graphics program to compete with Macromedia's Flash
- The Clippit and his infernal associates. From Office 97, Microsoft introduced an animated personality to 'Help' users with Microsoft Office. The most notorious and irritating feature in the software. Microsoft's marketing strategy for later Office versions prominetely featured news that the Clippit was, by default, disabled.
- IBM's OS/2 was originally developed as a replacement for DOS, in partnership with Microsoft. Consistently mismanaged by IBM, who failed to market it properly in the mid- 1990s against the Microsoft Windows juggernaut, it nevertheless still retains a small number of loyal users.
- Magic Cap, an early PDA OS which failed to take off, and was eventually made irrelevant by the success of the Palm Pilot.
- Microsoft Bob was one of the biggest flops to ever come out of Microsoft.
- Taligent - IBM and Apple Computer collaboration in the 1990s to build a next generation object-oriented operating system.
- Winamp3 - an unstable, resource-hungry version of Nullsoft's media player. Winamp3 has been replaced by Winamp 5, which uses Winamp 2's code with the features of Winamp3.
Video game flops
- The Atari 2600 E.T. game, which was rushed to the market for the 1982 holiday season and suffered from severe gameplay problems. Unsold excess cartridges had to be buried in the desert.
- Sega has had numerous flops in North America, such as the Saturn, the Nomad, the Master System II and III, and the 32X (the Master System was successful in Europe and Brazil, and the Saturn was successful in Japan). The Megadrive was not well received in Japan. After the Dreamcast was discontinued, Sega abandoned hardware production altogether. Many believe Sega's poor track record led to a lack of confidence in the Saturn and Dreamcast, the latter receiving cult status and a respectable worldwide fanbase nonetheless.
- NEC's Turbo series of consoles led them to pull out of the North American market by 1994. Like Sega, they released numerous peripherals, which did even worse than their Sega counterparts. Furthermore, critically acclaimed Japanese games were not released in America, in favor of licenses like Darkwing Duck. The Japanese version of the console, the PC Engine, was relatively successful.
- The Neo Geo Pocket and Neo Geo Pocket Color handhelds.
- Nintendo's most notable flop is the much-maligned Nintendo Virtual Boy, which caused effects similar to drunkenness.
- Nintendo also has a history of introducing novel controllers that are utilized by only a handful of games, such as the Power Glove (produced by Mattel), Power Pad, SNES mouse, and the SNES Super Scope light gun. One of Nintendo's most notorious peripheral flops was 1987's R.O.B., which could do several tasks and play 2 games. It was largely created to be a marketing gimmick to convince investors that the NES was different than Atari's consoles of the past. One of its more recent flops was the E-Reader which was used by several games, and then left by Nintendo to rot.
- The Game.com handheld
- The Atari Jaguar console and the Atari Lynx handheld.
- Daikatana, the hyped and massively delayed video game from John Romero.
- The Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man
- The Amiga CD-32
- The CD-i player, a "multimedia machine" jointly developed by Philips and Sony. It was considered overpriced and underpowered.
- The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, a "multimedia machine" (it was marketed as a family entertainment device and not just a video game console) designed by R.J. Mical and the team behind the Amiga and marketed by Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts. It was introduced at $699, twice the price of most game consoles.
- The Apple Pippin, a games console based on Mac OS and the PowerPC - was abandoned before production, clearly was unlikely to have succeeded.
- Game Boy Advance connectivity was going to revolutionize the gaming industry, according to Nintendo. The concept was meant to replace online multiplayer gaming, and it was meet with extreme critisism. The project was basically a commercial and personal failure.
- The Nokia N-Gage - many video gamers simply mocked the system because of its clumsy design and this led to poor sales.
- - expected to revive the long-stagnant Tomb Raider series, it was repeatedly delayed; when it finally shipped, it was almost unplayable due to multiple bugs.
Internet Dot-Com flops
There are thousands of failed companies from the dot-com tech bubble of the late 1990s. Here are a few of the largest and most famous.
- Webvan - A grocery delivery service that spent far too much on infrastucture before it had even turned a profit.
- Kozmo.com - bike messenger delivery service for individuals
- Pets.com - An online pet food store that focused more on its brand name than profitability.
- CMGI - internet incubator company
- Internet Capital Group - internet incubator company
- Exodus Communications - off-site computer server hosting
- Boo.com - Sold clothing and accessories. After blowing through hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital on a poorly-planned business model, it became the poster-child for mismanaged dot-coms.
- Flooz.com - online currency and gift certificates; endorsed by Whoopi Goldberg
- Piiq.com - online buy-all site that advertised on television as well as through internet ads
- Kibu.com - girl site in the vein of chickclick and gURL, staffed by people who didn't understand their target market
Retail flops
- The Prada inspired gray range in the late 1990s that made Marks & Spencer from darling of the British retail scene to an embarrassment.
- Marks & Spencer's per due range for 18 to 30 year-olds and the Lifestore concept to improve sales.
- Iceland's attempt to go up-market by stocking only organic own-labels, it backfired after its core market of low-incomers couldn't afford it.
Other commercial flops
- The 1976 Summer Olympics, which left the host city of Montreal in debts that it spent years paying off
- The Betamax VCR system - after some initial success it was soundly beaten in the marketplace by VHS. Betamax failed in part because it was not an open standard.
- The Digital Compact Cassette - a format introduced by Philips, which lost out to Minidisc and CD-R
- DIVX (not DivX, the video codec), a take-off on DVD that required users to pay per viewing. DIVX backer Circuit City, a retail electronics giant, lost about $200m over the fiasco.
- eBook devices. Between 1999 and 2002, a number of companies, notably Gemstar, jockeyed for control of this supposedly vast, lucrative market, believing that consumers would pay hardcover prices for a severely limited number of book titles in DRM-encrypted formats that tied each electronic copy to a unique serialized hardware device. In 2002 the "eBooks are dead" meme became widespread. In 2003, Gemstar pulled the plug on its servers and Barnes and Noble ceased offering eBook content of any kind.
- The Elcaset audio format - an attempt at a higher-quality replacement for the compact cassette by Sony.
- Flexplay and ez-D "self-destructing" DVD-compatible discs, which turn black and become unplayable 48 hours after the package's seal is broken. Disney's Buena Vista anounced the product in 2003 with much ballyhoo and test-marketed it in Texas. But even top-tier Disney titles such as "Pirates of the Caribbean" "didn't turn out to be an item that our customers were looking for," according to an Austin, Texas chain of groceries that dropped the product shortly after introduction. Priced at about $7, the value proposition, compared to a DVD—0.01% of the lifetime at 50% of the cost—was apparently not compelling to consumers.
- Kodak disc cameras (1982-1990). Although advanced in technology and automated-processing-friendly, its aspheric lenses could not overcome the limitations of the tiny 8x10mm negative, smaller even than the Minox. It was introduced at the same time as easy-to-use, inexpensive 35mm cameras were becoming available. People liked the cameras but hated the pictures, whose graininess was obvious.
- Lymeswold cheese (UK)
- The Millennium Dome - a commercial and public relations disaster, it now lies empty in Greenwich, England.
- New Coke, introduced April 23rd 1985. The Coca-Cola company changed the formula and taste of its flagship product, a universally successful drink whose name was almost synonymous with soft drinks. It was a marketing and public relations debacle, and the company had to backtrack and return to the older formula. However, when they went back to the original formula, demand for the classic taste grew to a greater extent than before New Coke, propelling Coca-Cola to a market lead over rival Pepsi - making the situation an unintentional success for Coca-Cola.
- OK Soda, another soft drink manufactured and marketed by The Coca-Cola Company. Specifically targeted at Generation X, they attempted to use subtle and ironic advertising messages. The product was only released in select test markets, where it did not do well.
- The Arch Deluxe was McDonalds' attempt to market burgers to the adult fast-food consumer. Consumers were turned off by the unconventional ads and the high price; consumer groups were put off by the higher caloric content of the new burger.
- McDonalds' 1989 and 1994 attempts to serve pizza
- The Tanganyika groundnut scheme, a plan by Clement Attlee's British government, financed by British tax-payers, to cultivate tracts of what is now Tanzania with peanuts.
- Dasani, Coca-Cola's brand of bottled water, was a flop in the UK after it emerged. It was essentially just Sidcup tap water, treated to make it more pure but in fact containing high levels of bromate.
- Crystal Pepsi was Pepsi's answer to New Coke
- Pepsi Blue, low sales in spite of heavy advertising
- 7-Up Gold, test marketed but never a wide success
- Miller Beer, "in the Red Label," which was to be sold alongside sister beers Miller Lite and Miller Genuine Draft. (Introduced circa 1996)
- Iridium was a system of 66 satellites set up for global mobile phones. The service proved to be too expensive for wide use.
- Teledesic was a proposed system of hundreds of satellites to provide internet access. Bill Gates was a major investor.
- The Segway scooter was released among unprecendented hype as being a product that would revolutionize transportation. Investors expected hundreds of thousands of units to be sold, generating billions of dollars in sales in the first year. In reality, the Segway sold around only 10,000 units in its first few years and is still trying to overcome an identity crisis.
- MTV and most major record labels hailed a genre they called Electronica as being the "next big thing", similar to the scale and scope of the previous grunge trend. This did not take off (rave culture and music did increase markedly, but this was primarily music from independent labels).
- Persil Power clothes washing powder, which was intended to help remove tough stains from clothes, but proved to have corrosive effects which rendered clothes unwearable after a few washes.
See also
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