Dynasties were created and destroyed in the last 10 years. Empires thought unbreakable crumbled to the might of progress and along the way, mistakes were made. Mistakes companies are still recovering from. As we wrap up 2009, let's remember five of the biggest blunders since 2000. There are plenty others, but these still cause me to slap my head and wonder what the hell they were thinking.

First up...

Daikatana

When a game advertises that its creator is going to make you his bitch, you better have a damn good game to back it up. Daikatana was not that game, which proved unfortunate for all parties involved -- the disgraced John Romero (who hasn't done much since), the destroyed Ion Storm (at least we got Deus Ex out of the wild experiment) and the wasted dollars of some unfortunate gamers (remember the N64 version?!) Daikatana was a game developed with a blank check, riding the coattails of Romero's previous works. Even though nothing could live up to the hype Daikatana manufactured for itself, the final product was so terrifyingly average it was almost heartbreaking. When do we get a remake?

Konami Letting Guitar Hero Take Over

Konami should be in Activision's position right now. Even though Harmonix is credited (and largely rightly so) with birthing the modern music game genre, Konami laid the foundation for Harmonix's success with Dance Dance Revolution, Drummania, Guitar Freaks and other early music games. Konami failed to captialize on the Japanese phenomenon outside of its native country, however, allowing other companies to pick up the baton. Thus, Guitar Hero (and eventually Rock Band) was born. Even when Guitar Hero was taking off, Konami put only a half-hearted effort to compete, releasing the middling Rock Revolution and using the Karaoke Revolution license as a crutch. Someone's head should have rolled over that missed opportunity, a ghost that still haunts Konami to this day.

Red Ring Of Death

By far, the biggest story I worked on while reporting for 1UP.com was about a kid who'd burned through more than ten different Xbox 360s, all of them a victim of the infamous "red ring of death." The phrase was coined after the literal red ring error that occurred when your Xbox 360 hardware failed, something just about all of us have experienced at least once, a reminder of not-quite-finished hardware shipped to consumers. It's a testament to Microsoft's ability to drive a zealous loyalty to the Xbox 360 brand that gamers didn't drop the system entirely and move over to the competition. The far more expensive PlayStation 3 and entirely different experience on Wii only helped Microsoft on that front. The whole experience cost them hundreds of millions of dollars but gamers came back again and again.

PlayStation 3's $599 Price Tag

The dominant success of the PlayStation brand created an arrogant Sony. Former leader Ken Kutaragi was a known technophile, obsessed with bundling the latest, greatest and most expensive bits and pieces into his work. PlayStation 3 was no exception, breaking from the pact with a next-generation media format, Blu-ray, a format that was facing stiff competition from HD-DVD at the time. But Sony was convinced gamers would come out in droves and -- straight-faced -- announced a price tag of $599 back at E3 2006. It's possible PlayStation 3 was responsible for the standardization of Blu-ray, but the price tag cost them untold millions to Microsoft and Nintendo in the gaming market.

Microsoft Dropped Psychonauts, Kept Voodoo Vince

Come on. Do I even have to explain this one?

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