292: My Favorite Mistake

[Susan Arendt]

Hilarious article, Susan. I was in college at the time of the 3DO, and working at an EB. That was the Year of the Failed Consoles - Atari Jaguar, Philips... what was it called? CDS? 3DI?

My personal 3DO memory is of the day I was minding my business at work an an enraged mother came in to complain about Night Trap. As if I'd made the game. I think she honestly believed that the people who worked retail software made games.

Do you still have your 3DO? You should hook that bad boy up and kill some ducks.

Alas, no, I had to abandon it when I moved to North Carolina. I wouldn't mind picking one up, along with Twisted, Gex (loved that game), Killing Time, and The Horde.

I think the real question is, did you ever get to play The 11th Hour after all that? I know it was eventually released on Mac.

Edit: fixing italics tags

You know, I think I did, but it kept crashing so I just finally gave up.

By the way, for those who are curious, way back when, if you worked in publishing, you worked on a Mac, period, the end. PCs were simply unheard of in that industry. Photoshop, Quark, Pagemaker, everything you needed to put a publication together was originally designed for Macs. Of course, this is also back in the days of Jazz drives and actual paste-up, too. It was a technological marvel when we could start backing up issues by burning CDs.

 

[SaintWaldo]

Susan, at least you didn't buy a 3DO dev kit. I didn't either, but a co-worker and good friend of mine at the time did.

It was the most expensive PC I will probably ever see, and all it ever really did was play Super Wing Commander. SO not worth ~$3000 1993 dollars.

(Here's what a Mac-hosted 3DO dev kit looked like: http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-PANASONIC-APPLE-3DO-M2-DEVELOPMENT-FZ-DR21-SYSTEM-/220575901246?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item335b59263e)

 

[Mumorpuger]

Killing Time was amazing!

I was always creeped out by the "Here Boy" shouted out but the hunters, signaling that soon you were about to be attacked by dogs-from-nowhere.

Also, no matter how many times I heard it, I always think the apparitions say "shoot me," despite EVERYONE telling me they say "help me."

Thanks for the trip down nostalgia lane.

 

[Jazoni89]

Susan, at least you didn't buy a 3DO dev kit. I didn't either, but a co-worker and good friend of mine at the time did.

It was the most expensive PC I will probably ever see, and all it ever really did was play Super Wing Commander. SO not worth ~$3000 1993 dollars.

(Here's what a Mac-hosted 3DO dev kit looked like: http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-PANASONIC-APPLE-3DO-M2-DEVELOPMENT-FZ-DR21-SYSTEM-/220575901246?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item335b59263e)

that's not a 3DO dev kit by the way, that's even more valuable.

Its a dev kit for a panasonic M2 which is the successor to the 3DO, which sadly got cancelled at the last minute (M2 prototypes do actually work, and you can go on the menu screen and everything).

Here's a video of some guy who put a m2 prototype card into his mac, and was able to emulate it.


Dev kits and M2 prototype consoles now fetch for crazy prices, even despite of no actual physical games available for it.

Some people have got their hands on some early Tech demo's which work for the debug system, but alas nothing really noteworthy.

Also the game D2, was planned to be released on the M2, but the game shifted development to the Dreamcast when the console was canned.



Don't ask me why i know all this, i just research video games far too much.

 

[olfelix]

Great article, reminds me of all my gaming mistakes... like talking my dad into getting us a Uforce.

 

[Sartan0]

The early '90s was a great time for computer games. My focus was strongly there so sadly I missed most of the 'failed' systems. I did have a Super Nintendo that I bought with my own money but I am glad we had that 486. So much good stuff.

I feel like I did miss something with the 3DO but I got tons of games instead.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Launched in 1993 for the sky-high price of $699, the "Interactive Multiplayer" was meant to revolutionize your living room by letting you play games, listen to CDs, view photo CDs, and - maybe some day - let you watch movies all from one console,

So that's where Sony got their pricing and marketing strategy for this generation.

Also, saying that I knew about the 3DO from it's time makes me feel like some sort of historian with glasses and a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. Maybe if I get a satchel I can be like that other type of history expert.

The similarities are a bit uncanny, yes. Of course, the PS3 went on to be a success whereas the 3DO most certainly didn't, but the similarities are definitely there.

IDK.
The way you feel about your 3DO, I often feel the same way about my ps3: like it's a big shiny expensive box full of potential that will never be met.
It may not be a complete failure, but I'm certainly disappointed in the support it gets.

 

[bolastristes]

I'd kind of like to think of myself as at least slightly knowledgeable on failed gaming systems of the early to mid 1990's.

The Jaguar, the 3DO, the Virtual Boy, and the Saturn.

Now that I look at the list, I realize that only one of those companies still makes gaming hardware.

How can you compare the Saturn with that terrible trio?. There´s a big difference between obscure and bad.
It´s like saying that the NEOGEO or the DUO were failed gaming systems.

 

[bolastristes]

I bought a 3DO just to play SSF2 turbo and Samurai Shodown. After that, I played some great fighter gems (key on sarcasm here) such as Sailor moon and Yu Yu hakusho... but I also played a strange title called Strahl...anyway, a couple of years later, I traded my 3DO for a bunch of N64 games, to this day, I´m still missing that big black piece of crap.

 

[Jazoni89]

I personally would kill for a 3DO or a jaguar, but getting those two in the wild would be a huge stroke of luck, it's even hard just to find a Dreamcast and Saturn in the wild let alone that.

 

[SaintWaldo]

snip

that's not a 3DO dev kit by the way, that's even more valuable.

Yeah, I know, but it's the closest thing I could find. The actual dev box was a full tower AT case with 3 or 4 huge (and obviously awesome) 3-pole chrome toggles on the front. That M2 is also awesome because it's in a Quadra.

Thanks for the backgrounder, though. I truly enjoyed being fully corrected here. That stuff takes me back to the go-go CD-ROM Nineties so hard.

 

[Ghengis John]

It was big, ugly, and not nearly as amazing as I thought

I've been described the same way.

But seriously, I find it funny we live in a time now where a good segment of the adult population won't know about things like the 3DO. It doesn't make me feel like a historian, it just makes me feel old. In any event it was a nice article. I never owned a 3DO but the local FEDCO was pretty lenient about letting me stand all day playing it. In retrospect maybe the system would have done that much better if people with money were allowed to play it but that didn't bother me at the time, I was only a kid of 12 or so and didn't think about such things. I never beat Killing Time, it scared the heck out of me, but I did manage to beat a lot of games from The Horde to Way of the Warrior. The Horde was my absolute favorite and I'm so happy you mentioned it. I seriously don't know why there's never been a re-release of that game or a spiritual sequel.

As another marker of my age, I now have a Sheryl Crow song stuck in my head.

Of course there's some differences with success levels. And even with the similarities I would never imply the Sony executives took all the upper managment of the 3DO team and cut their heads off, absorbing their knowledge and power and integrating it with their own in some weird synergy quickening.

I wouldn't imply it, but damn it's fun to think of.

High five for using the word "Quickening". Man I was actually looking forward to that Highlander game.

 

[iblis666]

ah yes reminds me of when i got my only failed system the Virtual Boy with its only good game Wario Land

god i love that system

 

[108Stitches]

I believe I still have my Saturn in a box in the attic. The wife always questions my packrat nature, but I never throw anything away related to gaming. It's in the same box with my Genesis / Sega CD / 32X (Doom anyone?). We had a Jaguar in our office and played the crap out of Alien v. Predator. Sad to see what Sony did to all those other companies.

Surprisingly enough, looking through all of my boxes of old hardware, I missed the 3D0 experience, but I think that is because my boss at the time had one.

 

[Snake Plissken]

Dammit! Why no love for Star Control 2?

 

[Covarr]

An entire 3DO article with no mention of Shockwave: Invasion Earth? What's wrong with you? Not only was that one of the best games on the system, it was one of the few games with live action cutscenes not to make me cringe at every corner.

P.S. Thanks

 

[morbidpixie]

Reading that article reminded me how much I loved my N-Gage... Yes. I loved that weird taco phone thing. I think I should get it out of the drawer and play some Tony Hawk.

 

[PorkChopXpress]

I always wanted a 3DO.

Unedited Psychic Detective, Supreme Warrior, Twisted the game show. I loved playing those at my local video/game store.

 

[frans909]

Hilarious article, Susan. I was in college at the time of the 3DO, and working at an EB. That was the Year of the Failed Consoles - Atari Jaguar, Philips... what was it called? CDS? 3DI?

Philips CD-I (CD Interactive). I immediately thought of that too, while reading this article. Fortunately, I never fell for such a trap. Great read though, Susan!

 

[tkioz]

Its sad, I've still got my 3D0 and it's games laying around somewhere, it was IMO vastly superior to the PS1 which I also got after games for the 3D0 stopped coming out, hell it had inbuilt storage for save games without the need of a money grabbing save card.

I remember fondly sitting down the Christmas I got the game and exploring the demo disc that came with it, with game demos, animated shorts (Batman TAS, some Dogs cartoons) with glee, then playing Shockwave and it's expansion, then a year later the squeal (a series that was seriously awesome and I wish had been continued), hell my first taste of Earthworm Jim was on the 3D0...

The idea of a console that anyone could make rather then one company was great, but unfortunately the price and sony killed it.

RIP 3D0