The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

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knightintosh
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The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

Post by knightintosh » Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:50 pm

Ok, so I'm going to be finally getting back into 3DO in a couple of months & I turn to you all for some advice. I've already asked elsewhere what's the best way to connect a 3DO to a HDTV which doesn't have S:Video (my bad, never thought about it when I bought it) in the How Do You 3DO thread. But now I'm curious about which system to go for: NTSC or PAL?

I live in the UK so getting a PAL one would be easier, but I'm concerned about getting inferior games. I've been reading the old 3DO Magazines and they state more & more games were going to be properly converted from the American format to the European one, but reading the forum here it appears that never really occurred much.

Basically, what would you do in my position & why? When I had a machine back in the day or just a year or so ago it was PAL & I didn't mind the borders because I was used to it, but I want the best collection possible.

I should mention that over the next few years I do intend to buy as many of the machines as I can, which not only includes the different manufacturers but I'll chose one model to get a PAL & NTSC version of, so I'll end up with both eventually.

So what do I go for first? It'll be the FZ-1 by the way. & if I do go PAL how can I find out which games were converted properly?

Cheers everyone in advance if anyone can help!
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Re: The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

Post by 3DOKid » Tue Aug 13, 2013 9:56 pm

Get an NTSC one if you can. No borders, Samurai Shodown runs at the right speed and, well, that's it.

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Re: The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

Post by Retrofanatic83 » Wed Aug 14, 2013 11:51 pm

I would say NTSC as well
Recently got a Japanese one and its cool 8)

Pal doom and total eclipse play on it fine. Alone in the dark does not run at all as it has been optimised for the pal version to run full screen and speed so on the already 60hz machine it won't boot. There are apparently few games that won't run, Wolfy and soccer kid are two I can think of. Can get very good condition Japanese ones online with a little effort and I guess getting a USA machine over here wouldn't be that hard either. Sure pal would be ok but ability to play pal games on a superior USA or Japanese one means its sensible really with this machine more than most.

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Re: The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

Post by knightintosh » Fri Aug 16, 2013 10:05 am

If I end up with a PAL machine I'll eventually get a NTSC one as well. Been checking eBay and American ones seem like gold dust, but it's going to be a couple of months yet so I'll keep an eye out.

What will I need then for this? Power-wise, how much are the step-down converters?

And will I need any special leads for my TV, or am I living in the past when it comes to that? Got a modern LG HDTV, but no S:Video. It's got the five coloured ports, RF, 2 HDMI and a SCART RGB. But it does say on the back of the TV it's only 50hz :S
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Re: The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

Post by Retrofanatic83 » Sat Aug 17, 2013 12:16 pm

I plan to get an s video cable for mine and just use headphones for the audio as I have stuff plugged into everything else so that's plan for now
Is it an old tv? If not pretty sure it would run NTSC
I paid like forty quid for a very nice condition fz1 with two pads and the composite lead waited a long time for it but well worth it have gex and road rash and a few others on the way. You can rgb mod the console if you are interested but I would say its acceptable to play using the standard cable

Power wise I use a jap to uk step down transformer I had for my gamecube. Also Japanese. I do use same step down for my USA snes with no issues so far but some do warn against this but can get them on eBay for reasonable money

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Re: The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

Post by knightintosh » Sat Aug 17, 2013 2:23 pm

Well I'd be getting an American console so would I not need an American stepdown? Or would you recommend the Japanese converter?

Yeah it's a new TV, only had it since Christmas, but annoyingly it doesn't have S:Video so I'm hoping the original three-colour lead will suffice, because with my older TV the S:Video on my previous PAL 3DO was superb. But it does say on the back it's only a 50Hz TV...

Gotta ask, what's with the "evilbay" autocorrect? Sorry for my ignorance. I know there's a lot of clowns out there on it, but I buy and sell all the time on it and have to confess I do love it. :)
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Re: The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

Post by Retrofanatic83 » Sat Aug 17, 2013 3:08 pm

Guess the powers that be are not fans! Lol
Yeah well I think there's a slight difference in the voltages in USA and Japan so if buying one specifically for a USA machine I would get a USA to uk step down I just assumed they were the same years ago and plugged the American snes in and it worked. I have heard folk saying is not cool to do it but I e bit had any issues.
I am almost certain the tv will run it even though it says fifty on back. I have an lg and a Samsung and I'm sure the lg Doesent have an s video input but it does play NTSC stuff no problem can't see a recent tv not displaying NTSC its standard! But then I would have thought same of s video and was shocked when trying to connect a dreamcast to it that there was none....

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Re: The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

Post by mattyg » Mon Aug 19, 2013 12:24 am

The best, and among the hardest to get hold of are Australian released Goldstars - 240v and NTSC. Best of both worlds!
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3DO is dead , long live 3DO
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Re: The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

Post by Austin » Tue Aug 20, 2013 6:20 am

Matty, are those even rare for you? I can understand for those outside of Australia, but I am curious if they are tough to get even in your own territory. I know that some things us Americans find rare and obscure (for example, certain Japanese games) are actually pretty easy to get in their territory of origin.

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Re: The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

Post by mattyg » Tue Aug 20, 2013 11:05 pm

Sadly they're hard to find here too. Goldstar was the only company to officially launch the 3do here and totally ballsed it up. Still a fledgling brand they had few distributors , and the few major department stores they were in wouldn't take the consoles , primarily because few Australians had NTSC compatible televisions (we're PAL) , and partly due to pressure from Sega (who were king here). Besides a turnout at an electronics show in Sydney there was next to no advertising. Many early adopters had just been burned by the Amiga's collapse and were wary. The reason we had such an unusual unit was due to them being redirected from the Hong Kong market which was 240v PAL but most residents had NTSC capable tv's due to their proximity to Japan.
So no advertising , limited compatibility , poor distribution , reliability issues , high price , and even worse no games imported killed it here. Pity , because the 240v/NTSC combo was awesome.
"purge with fire Bretheren"

3DO is dead , long live 3DO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K2kuP_anAc

"The greatest games in the world take seconds to learn but months to master. The worst take months to learn and minutes to finish."...MattyG

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Re: The big questions to help me buy the best 3DO

Post by knightintosh » Sun Sep 01, 2013 9:32 pm

Almost finished selling off all my C64 stuff so will hopefully by the end of this month I'll be 3DO shopping, but NTSC American models seem few and far between. May have to go PAL, but I am intending to collect all four main models so eventually the Sanyo should be good enough.

Quick question: I love the American boxes, do these games run just as well as any other PAL game on a PAL system? Or am I better off sticking with PAL versions?

I know there's some which are converted properly to PAL too, anyone got a list of them too? Maybe here on the forum somewhere?
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