Considering they never actually exchanged money a single Q (the people who pre-ordered them wound up getting them free, as did I/O 2012 attendees), it doesn't seem to be so much of a failure as it was just market research on how to do it the next time.

Notwithstanding the built-in amp, the Chromecast is a pretty narrow superset of the Q at least in terms of features.

  Considering they never actually exchanged money a single Q

Seems like quite a failure for a business.

Experiments don't always pan out and they avoided the PR hit of releasing a turd. If the Nexus Q was more than couch-cushion money I'd be surprised.

I actually, non-ironically like having a Nexus Q, if only as a conversation piece. The thing looks really cool.

I dunno, the Q was pretty brilliant as a piece of performance art.