What did the 3DO need?

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What did the 3DO need?

Post by Vance » Sat May 28, 2011 8:56 am

Okay, obviously the 3DO fell like a meteorite with an inexplicable anchor. Time for wild speculation as to how it might have lived. Add/debate as you see fit!

1. PC ports. The design made this inevitable, but did 3DO even TRY to court devs into bringing quality games? I saw one dev chat shut down hastily when people were less interested in the subject (Shockwave 2) and more in bitching about all the stinker ports.

And honestly? Dragon Lore on 3DO or X-Com on PS1? I was getting lefty cramps on that awful

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Post by Vance » Sat May 28, 2011 9:04 am

d-pad until the Dual Shock came out.

2. Early tech adoption. Can't be helped. It's always more expensive to go first, but that's not the only reason the price sucked. I have a friend who worked at 3DO post-console who explained that no first party console turns a profit, being sold near cost. That's true, I won't even sellthe DS anymore because I lose money when people use credit cards.

The 3DO was built by outside companies that didn't see the licencing fees that make up for the loss on hardware, though

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Post by Vance » Sat May 28, 2011 9:14 am

and thus had to make a profit on consoles. I don't think the real production costs were ever made public.

An amusing note: The Saturn was built to beat the 3DO in the early design stages with a completed 2D board when the PS1 specs were released. The solution? Create a second 3D board to work with the 2D one in about a third of the time usually needed. Sega liked to brag about the Saturn's numerous high power processors, even claiming on their hotline that the Saturn was "the true 256MB console" by adding

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Post by Vance » Sat May 28, 2011 9:25 am

them all together. Including the sound chips. Anyway, most of that power was used keeping these two boards working together and made the system notoriously hard to program for at no extra payoff.

3. "Multimedia entertainment wankfest of next week". Notice how consoles are replacing the rest of the entertainment center at their own speed? 3DO and even Sony tried to force it and it didn't work. Did you ever use the Photo CD option? You had to go to a Kodak store and pay a fortune for transfer services.

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Post by Vance » Sat May 28, 2011 9:30 am

I use the hell out of my PS3's photo album feature, mostly for... wait, meandering. The point is, it was an idea before its time that added to the final cost. I loved the idea, but it needed more storage and both feet in the digital age.

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Post by knightintosh » Sat May 28, 2011 9:39 am

Personally I think there were two reasons behind this. With this "new standard" thing, we had consumer electronics companies now in charge of hardware and while this was a bold move and a very exciting one(!), it's only with hindsight that I think maybe they could've handled it better. Hindsight's a wonderful gift isn't it?

Don't get me wrong, I think they all did a wonderful job and at the time I couldn't understand why 3DO didn't pan out to be the wonderful success it deserved to be. But looking back the initial price tags were way too high. But that's the norm for consumer electronics, and it still is! Look at DVD players, Blu-Ray, Widescreen TVs, HDTVs etc when they all first appeared. They were extortionate! But as a year passed the prices came down a lot, give it another year and they came down again, we all know the process and we've all seen it happen. Could Panasonic, Goldstar etc, having invested in this bold new format that had so much potential, have thought the same pricing strategy would pay off in the same way as everything else they've ever produced?

And then there's marketing. Back then videogames weren't really heavily marketed as such. We're all used to it these days, they're everywhere, but back in the mid-90s we'd have the occassional Nintendo or Sega advert, but usually within the confines of childrens' TV and that was it. Panasonic did the right thing in getting a lot of media coverage in the videogame press, after all the machine would have to prove itself as a games machine first before conquering other entertainment areas. But they didn't really promote it outside of there. I never saw a TV advert but did read at the time that they were produced, just not shown much. With time and word of mouth 3DO could still have made it, but within a year Sony had appeared in this market and made the bold decision of marketing their new console heavily, all across all media outlets. This caught everyone's attention and all-of-a-sudden the Playstation was a hit and videogames were mainstream.

Heavy marketing and lower initial prices and we could have had a very different launch.... maybe, I'm no expert lol!

But like I said, don't get me wrong, I love 3DO and I'm looking forward to getting stuck back into it again, only this time as an adult with some disposable income! So I'm gonna enjoy it as if it was the success I wanted it to be :) after all even with a short lifespan there's hundreds of titles to collect! And I think Panasonic and Goldstar etc did a fantastic job of what they did. It's just unfortunate we can't send a little of this hindsight back in time to them...

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Post by knightintosh » Sat May 28, 2011 9:42 am

Vance wrote:I use the hell out of my PS3's photo album feature, mostly for... wait, meandering. The point is, it was an idea before its time that added to the final cost. I loved the idea, but it needed more storage and both feet in the digital age.
I used it once and it was cool, so "new"! But you're right, it was too soon.. But kudos to them for trying, and the on-screen graphics while playing music CDs was always a hit at parties :) I really liked that!

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Post by Vance » Sat May 28, 2011 9:58 am

Television ads weren't as important back then, but you make a good point in that 3DO barely advertised anywhere.

By comparison, Sony parlayed experience in related fields and sent free promo materials to every store they could find, no matter how small. Go into our old Gameworld and you'd be assaulted by hanging posters, standees, demo units blaring Toshinden and MK Trilogy...

Nintendo started to emulate this marketing style and soon you'd have two reps at your store trying to give you all this stuff.

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Post by 3DOKid » Sat May 28, 2011 10:08 am

Sure the PhotoCD was rubbish, but it was probably an interesting sales pitch. The idea was probably better than the execution. In fairness the technology wasn't ready (No Digital Camera's or even memory cards people could afford)

However, I do know this: if it's cheapish to implement, helps demonstrate vision (for the investors) and then it can be a useful platform to beta test ideas on the buying public. Rate their reaction to new features The result, I imagine, was people liked the idea but...

There is every suggestion that 3DO courted the likes of Namco, Capcom, EA, et cetera, but the whole 1993 to 1996 era was very much 'wait and see' for the public and developers alike from what I could see and remember. They dabbled. I believe 3DO got a lot of cheap rubbish because the dev kit was cheap, the licenses were cheap and unrestricted. (Unlike Sega and Nintendo who seemed to be throttling developers.)

One reason 3DO failed a little was because Panasonic, LG, Sanyo were big enough to suck it and see. A nice none-committal place to be.

3DO was weird. Think anbout Macintosh, PC, Google, PLaystation, Wii. Mac, Wii, PS are appliances, where as Google Android and the good old PC and even Linux, well these are platforms. For example: People compare the iPhone to Android, but they are very different business models. Iphone is an object (like the Wii and PSX) and they sell mostly on consumer desirability. On the other hand, Android is a platform, to be built on, like a PC or Linux - and they tend to be more about 'possibilities'. (this isn't hard and fast rules btw)

Typically, games consoles follow the Macintosh model. Appliance based games console: 'A Sony Console made by Sony, proprietary to Sony' Nintendo, Sega, MS do the same.

However, 3DO Licensed hardware and was, in part, a platform, but kept itself proprietary, like an appliance. Handing out training and dev kits like other, proprietary systems, licenses, et cetera but it was a bit of mess? Was it to be desired or built on?

To win, 3DO Should have made the OS open-source, easy to say today, but... A $700 console was hard to swallow, a $700 top end open platform system would have been easier...? Maybe if you can have ace looking games and a raft of freeware apps and tools and hardware. 3DO can still make money from the hardware license -- right? And from games? It wasn't and isn't however in any companies nature to handover the inner-workings of their OS or hardware unfortunately...

If 3DO had embraced open source in 1993, with that architecture, it would have had PC beating Doom clone at least, a free one, it would have had modems, online capabilities, News readers, email clients, the lot. A box that can do all that, and look good next to the TV? In '93? Winner surely.

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Post by knightintosh » Sat May 28, 2011 10:27 am

3DOKid wrote:3DO was weird. Think anbout Macintosh, PC, Google, PLaystation, Wii. Mac, Wii, PS are appliances, where as Google Android and the good old PC and even Linux, well these are platforms. For example: People compare the iPhone to Android, but they are very different business models. Iphone is an object (like the Wii and PSX) and they sell mostly on consumer desirability. On the other hand, Android is a platform, to be built on, like a PC or Linux - and they tend to be more about 'possibilities'. (this isn't hard and fast rules btw)

Typically, games consoles follow the Macintosh model. Appliance based games console: 'A Sony Console made by Sony, proprietary to Sony' Nintendo, Sega, MS do the same.
You know I've never thought of it that way! Even with iPhone and the Android phones!

However, I do believe 3DO was being built up and pushed as a format, a platform, after all they banged on about it being this new standard a la VHS, CD etc. It just wasn't pushed enough, you're right.

The problem is, I don't think the main manufacturers pushed hard enough to make this obvious to Joe Bloggs on the street. I agree it looked very much like an appliance, a Panasonic games console or a Goldstar games console rather than simply two of the same machine. Maybe if we'd seen some more manufacturers come on board, or adverts by the 3DO Company themselves instead of just Panasonic... imagine going into a shop back in the mid-90's and seeing Panasonic's mashine alongside Goldstar's (I never saw GS's on the shelves anywhere here in Northern Ireland!), Sanyo's beautiful little machine and Samsung's.

You're right, more of a push needed to be made to relay the message home that this was something truly different, truly new and exciting!

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Post by Trev » Sat May 28, 2011 2:16 pm

Early lack of advertisement certainly didn't do them any favors, but even what little there was focused more in edutainment titles and less on actual games. Remember those early big full color adds where the graphics jumped off the tv into your living room. I think there were only 3, and one of them was for ... Oceans below. I actually like the title, but still! I saw another older 3DO add talking about (paraphrased) all the stuff you could do w/3DO ... the first things mentioned were learning the fundamentals of football & baseball (In reference to the ESPN info discs) Games were mentioned eventually ... dead last.

I'm not sure what model they were trying to emulate ... CD-i? CDTV? A host of other early 90's jack of all trade set top boxes that tried to ba all things to all people when really 95% just wanted to play games. Of course by the time 3DO did try to turn up the advertisement the other next gen systems were looming ... and they pissed off loyal developers like Crystal w/higher fees in the process.
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Post by NikeX » Sat May 28, 2011 5:49 pm

No interactive movies - dying genre, fake gameplay

Not "interactive" or "multiplayer" in it's brand name - because this is it's function. Look at the others: Genesis, SNES, PlayStation - there is no "console" or "interactive" or "plays cd" in their name.

Too many brand names: "Sanyo" "Panasonic" "3DO" etc... Too much.

Many console designs, but all the same. Imagine this happen with your console. How would you feel? "Is this a new one? Nah, still the same. Maybe this one... Is mine old now?"

More sport titles. For the masses.

Good jump'n runs. Good racing games and adventures. More ego shooter games.

MK should have come out. Instead the 3DO got games like these:
http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_198_ ... es_p19/#19

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Post by knightintosh » Sat May 28, 2011 7:39 pm

NikeX wrote:No interactive movies - dying genre, fake gameplay

Not "interactive" or "multiplayer" in it's brand name - because this is it's function. Look at the others: Genesis, SNES, PlayStation - there is no "console" or "interactive" or "plays cd" in their name.

Too many brand names: "Sanyo" "Panasonic" "3DO" etc... Too much.

Many console designs, but all the same. Imagine this happen with your console. How would you feel? "Is this a new one? Nah, still the same. Maybe this one... Is mine old now?"

More sport titles. For the masses.

Good jump'n runs. Good racing games and adventures. More ego shooter games.

MK should have come out. Instead the 3DO got games like these:
http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_198_ ... es_p19/#19
I think you've missed the point with 3DO if you're bring serious here ;) 3DO wasn't a console as stated above, it was a standard, like VHS etc. The whole "interactive multiplayer" was a cool name :D as it really encapsulated the whole format for me :) and as the games developed more we had a lot more in-depth gameplay for those games that also included FMV. Can't wait to get stuck into those games again!
Last edited by knightintosh on Sat May 28, 2011 7:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by knightintosh » Sat May 28, 2011 7:46 pm

Trev wrote:Early lack of advertisement certainly didn't do them any favors, but even what little there was focused more in edutainment titles and less on actual games. Remember those early big full color adds where the graphics jumped off the tv into your living room. I think there were only 3, and one of them was for ... Oceans below. I actually like the title, but still! I saw another older 3DO add talking about (paraphrased) all the stuff you could do w/3DO ... the first things mentioned were learning the fundamentals of football & baseball (In reference to the ESPN info discs) Games were mentioned eventually ... dead last.

I'm not sure what model they were trying to emulate ... CD-i? CDTV? A host of other early 90's jack of all trade set top boxes that tried to ba all things to all people when really 95% just wanted to play games. Of course by the time 3DO did try to turn up the advertisement the other next gen systems were looming ... and they pissed off loyal developers like Crystal w/higher fees in the process.
I did notice a real shift in Panasonic's adverts in the gaming magazines as they shifted towards pushing it as an advanced games machine first and foremost. Maybe if they'd done this at the start, but I think all the big manufacturers wanted all of its functions to take off at once. A lovely dream and with hindsight we can see that that was never gonna happen, but back then I was swept up in the whole thing of "look what it can do" too. Well, the whole "look at what the games can do, and I'll tell you what else it'll do in the future..." ;)

I know we had things like the awful Commodore CDTV before this, and CD-i... did it come out before 3DO was announced? Or did Philips jump on the bandwagon but get to market first? I think the theory behind 3DO was a real trailblazing approach, and was sound. But the problem when you're experimenting with something so completely brand new is that if you make any mistakes you'd better hope there's not a competitior taking notes on what-not-to-do :( Oh well...

Do you mean 3DO pissed off the developers with higher fees? Or the other consoles? Sony and Nintendo were reknowned for it back then!

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Post by Austin » Sat May 28, 2011 8:51 pm

3DwhO wrote:I know we had things like the awful Commodore CDTV before this, and CD-i... did it come out before 3DO was announced? Or did Philips jump on the bandwagon but get to market first? I think the theory behind 3DO was a real trailblazing approach, and was sound. But the problem when you're experimenting with something so completely brand new is that if you make any mistakes you'd better hope there's not a competitior taking notes on what-not-to-do :( Oh well...
The CD-i was at least a year or two before the 3DO, but like the 3DO, they marketed it as a multimedia platform initially. Sort of similar cases, but the 3DO at least had the hardware to be an impressive gaming machine when it came out, not to mention it actually had some good games when it came out.. Like you guys have already stated, it's too bad they didn't initially market it as one.

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Post by NikeX » Sat May 28, 2011 9:55 pm

We've had a similiar discussion :
http://3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/viewtopi ... ght=#13340
I was ironic by writing ego shooter and sport titles, but I think the name and the various console types killed it. Even Daddy Trip admitted that the
concept failed.

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Post by Trev » Sat May 28, 2011 9:55 pm

Do you mean 3DO pissed off the developers with higher fees? Or the other consoles? Sony and Nintendo were reknowned for it back then![/quote]

3DO added on a developer fee later in the consoles life in order to increase their advertising budget. W/their lower rayalties, they actually were still quite fair when compared to the competition, but it didn't sit well especially given their market share at the time. It drove away Crystal for sure, and likely contributed to hurting other projects.
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Post by Vance » Sat May 28, 2011 10:53 pm

Actually, Sony was pretty cheap on licencing at launch, but got more expensive later. They also came close to emulating 3DO's anything goes on content approach, but that REALLY changed.

Nintendo was the worst monster we've had, historically. Insane fees, penalties for multi-platform releases, extra cartridge fees, claiming that selling used games was piracy. If Eno thought Sony screwed him, I'd have loved to see him on Nintendo's wringer.

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Post by knightintosh » Sat May 28, 2011 11:20 pm

NikeX wrote:We've had a similiar discussion :
http://3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/viewtopi ... ght=#13340
I was ironic by writing ego shooter and sport titles, but I think the name and the various console types killed it. Even Daddy Trip admitted that the
concept failed.
While I do disagree (because it was for these reasons that 3DO got its funding and even existed, it was different and new and a brand new form of consumer electronics) I respect that we all have different views on what made it ultimately fail. :)

I'm just glad it was created at all! :D

But yeah ultimately the concept did fail, but I don't personally believe that was because of the concept itself, rather I believe it was down to the manufacturers treating it like previous consumer electronics in pricing structure and marketing. Sony then came along with their device and actually did do everything right in those departments (never bought one myself, at the time I blamed them for 3DO failing lol! ;) )

At the end of the day, I've just bought myself 2 3DOs and can start playing it again for the first time in about 15 years! :D And while it may only have lasted a few years, there's a huge variety of games and software out there for me to discover, so as far as I'm concerned I've turned back the clock ;)

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Post by knightintosh » Sat May 28, 2011 11:24 pm

Vance wrote:Nintendo was the worst monster we've had, historically. Insane fees, penalties for multi-platform releases, extra cartridge fees, claiming that selling used games was piracy. If Eno thought Sony screwed him, I'd have loved to see him on Nintendo's wringer.
How true! Since Iwata-san took over the helm though the company has changed, especially in the last five-to-six years. But before that, when the previous guy was in charge they were notorious weren't they?! They basically got too big for their boots (as the saying goes) and paid the price in the end when the Gamecube, while still very profitable for them, wasn't anywhere near as successful as they'd hoped. It all came back to bite them on the ass.

But look at them now! I know a lot of people think the Wii is for kids and families but dig deep and there's plenty of fantastically deep games in there. Business-wise alone, they did brilliantly to regroup after the GCN!

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Post by Vance » Sun May 29, 2011 5:07 am

NikeX (and the discussion, ideally) is focusing on why the system flopped, consumers and investors being wildly different beasts here.

But to address that, the 3DO was not some wildly new kind of device. It took a bunch of pre-existing functions and put them together, rather than inventing a single new aspect. It's like a toaster oven: did the combination prove useful? That's up to your opinion. Besides playing CDs, I felt the extras could go hang.

The game aspect was solid, a standard workhorse engine

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Post by Vance » Sun May 29, 2011 5:16 am

that needed more time for devs to learn (the best of them need time. Look at early PS2 games next to Jak 3 or God Hand. That's what's sad about DirectX, you've seen 98% of the potential on day 3 because it's so unambitious.)

Look, I loved WC3, but the game parts were pretty weak next to the 3DO titles that squeezed the system's power. Too bad there wasn't enough time to prove that further.

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Post by knightintosh » Sun May 29, 2011 8:37 am

Vance wrote:NikeX (and the discussion, ideally) is focusing on why the system flopped, consumers and investors being wildly different beasts here.

But to address that, the 3DO was not some wildly new kind of device. It took a bunch of pre-existing functions and put them together, rather than inventing a single new aspect. It's like a toaster oven: did the combination prove useful? That's up to your opinion. Besides playing CDs, I felt the extras could go hang.

The game aspect was solid, a standard workhorse engine
Sorry if I came across differently-reading yours and NikeX's posts I think we're all coming at the same conclusion, but from different directions :)

At the time I think 3DO appealed to two groups of people, one group who wanted the coolest videogaming system, and those that wanted this new system that would eventually do loads of stuff as well as cool games. I was in the latter group, sucked in by the "new standard in interactive entertainment" - d'oh! Oh well, we live and learn ;) so in that regard I also loved the "Interactive Multiplayer" name as I thought it summed up the potential brilliantly. Obviously that potential didn't materialise :S

So I do think there were those who knew what the deal was with different machines available from different companies that did the same thing (I loved the idea) , but looking at it when I take a step back from my own experiences with 3DO, I can understand how it would've confused people at the time, so yeah I agree.

Thing is, without this new-fangled idea of Trip's to create this new standard, I don't think the big manufacturers would've got behind it. So maybe the concept can be thanked for the birth of 3DO, but also blamed for its premature death :( because the manufacturers just didn't know that the games should play such a big role and that it would need marketed in a different way etc.

I agree it's basically an amalgamation of different ideas, and things like the CD-i and CDTV had tried similar things before, but this was the first that was also a proper games console (so why they didn't market it as one from the start I don't know!) and had such major backing. The idea of making it a standard for set-top entertainment boxes was new, but yeah I know what you mean. But sometimes it takes a visionary to see what's out there and create something brilliant from it :)

Okay, so got a coupla questions for you 3DO veterans :)

If they'd done a proper job of marketing not just the videogame side of things, but also the whole "new standard" approach so that consumers had a better understanding of what it was, do you think it would've taken off?

And, looking at today's videogame market I no longer believe a standard would be the best thing for the industry, as competition has seen videogames evolve greatly since then. Without such competition, if the "standard platform" idea had taken off, do you think videogames would've evolved differently? Do you think they would've become a bit stagnant without hardware makers pushing themselves to create something original?

While the standard never took off and the idea wasn't pushed properly so people got confused, I'm still glad it was created that way so that we got 3DO at all! Without it we wouldn't be able to be here, fans of that little anomaly in videogame history ;)

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Post by Vance » Sun May 29, 2011 9:01 am

To your question I say no, pushing a game console as anything but is like taking a long time to burn your money. The average consumer is there for the games, which I believe the 3DO lived and died on. A few gems, but not worth it for all the crap to sift through. Of the AAA titles I owned, I saw each one in a store ONCE and had to jump on it. You can't sell a console when finding good games is a potluck.

Anybody who bought the Goldstar movie CD add-on? Worse than VHS. That ain't the new frontier.

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Post by knightintosh » Sun May 29, 2011 9:11 am

Wasted opportunity really to concentrate on new and innovative games the system's capabilities could've brought to the table, but I still loved the 3DO and I'm guessing everyone here did too, or else we wouldn't all be here :) Spending my forthcoming holiday with my new machines and can't wait!

If it had been sucessful as a gaming standard then, and only then, could they have maybe expanded what they released for it and made it more of the "multiplayer". But this was the mid-90s, it had to do eeevvveeerrryyyttthhhiinnggg #cue evil laugh# ahem.

I do think there's many more quality games out there for it than it's given credit for though, even Retro Gamer admitted that. Must have a look at the edition of that I have at home when I finish work today (sshhh... they don't know I'm on here!) and see what they say are the Top Ten.

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Post by 3DOKid » Sun May 29, 2011 9:12 am

3DwhO wrote: If they'd done a proper job of marketing not just the videogame side of things, but also the whole "new standard" approach so that consumers had a better understanding of what it was, do you think it would've taken off?

And, looking at today's videogame market I no longer believe a standard would be the best thing for the industry, as competition has seen videogames evolve greatly since then. Without such competition, if the "standard platform" idea had taken off, do you think videogames would've evolved differently? Do you think they would've become a bit stagnant without hardware makers pushing themselves to create something original?

While the standard never took off and the idea wasn't pushed properly so people got confused, I'm still glad it was created that way so that we got 3DO at all! Without it we wouldn't be able to be here, fans of that little anomaly in videogame history ;)
I think they pushed the standard thing as hard as they could. You can't have a single dominant platform though, it's not healthy or normal. The problem with the standard is that everyone could see how it benefited 3DO (pretty easily) but it was unclear how it would benefit anyone else.

Have games consoles evolved that much? The PS3/360 are still selling the 3DO dream in many respects, while Wii/iPhone/Android/Web have made simple games popular again. BUt regression can't be the future surely? I hope not, because if that keeps up, at some point Namco are going to force me to go outside and kick a real football. [shudder]

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Post by knightintosh » Sun May 29, 2011 10:13 am

3DOKid wrote:
3DwhO wrote: I think they pushed the standard thing as hard as they could. You can't have a single dominant platform though, it's not healthy or normal. The problem with the standard is that everyone could see how it benefited 3DO (pretty easily) but it was unclear how it would benefit anyone else.

Have games consoles evolved that much? The PS3/360 are still selling the 3DO dream in many respects, while Wii/iPhone/Android/Web have made simple games popular again. BUt regression can't be the future surely? I hope not, because if that keeps up, at some point Namco are going to force me to go outside and kick a real football. [shudder]
I really should be doing work shouldn't I..... nah!

Back in the day I was excited about being an early adoptor of a new standard like VHS etc. Looking back, if it had taken off the benefits might've come from lower priced models as manufacturers brought out revisions, developers really getting their teeth into a standard format to work on etc,. but it's all guesswork now and I could be so, so wrong. As videogames have evolved it would probably not have benefitted us in the long run though. But it's still nice to have been part of a unique experiement, even if it failed. And it means we've got some great games to play today.

Speaking of which, a lot of these older games, the ones that really took advantage of the 3DO are a lot deeper than most of the stuff churned out today. I do have about a dozen Wii games that I adore, big, deep and involving games that have loads of content and use the unique Wii features in involving ways (ie. not just "shake the remote"), that the other consoles don't do as well, but in general I think most of the games released across all formats these days seem to be focussing on simple pick-up-and-play games. While that's good to bring people into the gaming fold, we need more depth and uniqueness.

Nintendo are launching the run up to their next home console next week at E3. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have up their sleeves. Early indications are good. But sometimes I crave for another independent like 3DO to appear to really stir things up... but we'll see.

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Post by Vance » Sun May 29, 2011 10:31 am

Oh right... I forgot to register my staff for E3...

The problem with the Wii, from a retail POV, is that it's backslid to the hardcore Nintendo faithful and those precious "casual gamers" that make up the bulk. Problem: The casuals are still all playing Wii Sports with a side of having forgotten their Fit. These people are only customers once or twice. The hardware numbers are amazing, but they mean nothing.

Back to subject, do define the 3DO's AAA titles for me. The irrefutably quality titles.

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Post by knightintosh » Sun May 29, 2011 10:46 am

Vance wrote:Oh right... I forgot to register my staff for E3...

The problem with the Wii, from a retail POV, is that it's backslid to the hardcore Nintendo faithful and those precious "casual gamers" that make up the bulk. Problem: The casuals are still all playing Wii Sports with a side of having forgotten their Fit. These people are only customers once or twice. The hardware numbers are amazing, but they mean nothing.

Back to subject, do define the 3DO's AAA titles for me. The irrefutably quality titles.
Exactly, so will be interesting to see what they come out with next to see if their next console can stop that from happening.

Surely since you're here and have posted so much you're a 3DO fan...? I'm only just new back into the fold, but I do know I had a really enjoyable few years with my machine back in the day. So right now I can only go on my memories of back then and, I know you've stated otherwise for WCIII, but I'd regard it as a defining game for the system alongside (for me anyway) Bladeforce, Killing Time, John Madden 3DO, Need For Speed, Road Rash, Return Fire, Space Hulk and.... well, mind's gone now - getting old lol. I have the 3DO Magazine Gold in front of me here and have every intention of starting my new collection with the 5-star games. ;)

Of course the games I listed above need to be placed within their mid-90s context. I have a C64 as well, and its AAA titles obviously don't stack up to the AAA titles of today, but that doesn't make them any less brilliant in their own right to me :)

But at the end of the day it's each-to-their-own as they say. It all boils down to individual opinion. The Top Ten in Retro Gamer may not gel with everyone here, neither may 3DO Magazine's list, or indeed our own lists.

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Post by Dr.Enceladus » Sun May 29, 2011 12:00 pm

Our 3DO console needed a bigger HDD for save games or better access to those mysterious memory cards i have only ever seen pictures of on google and apparently only ever released by TDK in Japan. :?:

My three 3DO's have various save games on each one from my humble collection of titles. I tryed to explain this dilema of mine to an Australian TDK rep in the east coast one day in 1999 as i recall, though i am sure this poor guy only thought i was an alien from pluto or something.... :lol:
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