Early video game crashes can be attributed to obsolete consoles, flood of consoles, a glut of low-quality video games, hyping of poorly received games and the growing number of home computer users. Many video game companies had to sell their systems at a loss or filed for bankruptcy. Others chose to move into other industries and totally abandoned their game consoles.

The major players at present such as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have been performing quite well in terms of avoiding any more crashes. They are all quite active in reinventing their respective products to be responsive to consumer demands. Someone has even thought of the aspect of backwards compatibility both physical and virtual to the delight of those who want to hang on to their existing consoles a little longer.