Jakandsig Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 Sooo much BS about the 3DO constantly regarded as fact that just amazes me because some of it can be looked up with 3 words on google to see it's not true. It's amazing. I mean the 3DO company having it as one of the largest commercial failures? The 3DO company was profitable (due to their ethically questionable royalty and marketing tactics) Lack of third-party support? THAT'S ALL IT HAD ALMOST. It sold 5+ (no concrete numbers) world wide for goodness sake! 80% of the library was FMV? I guess if you include the VCD ADD-ON as GAME SUPPORT that may make sense (it wouldn't.) 3DO was barely more powerful than the Super Nintendo? Are you serious? LIMITED LIBRARY Of TITLES? It's amazing how all these "historical video game" videos posted by GT, IGN, Spike, etc. etc. and Wikipedia is spreading the lies of BS so rapidly that 30 years from now the revised truth will be 100% true. Almost like the current Nintendo situation but back to the point. BTW, does anybody know if they found concrete WW sales numbers for the 3DO yet? I am also going to attempt to tackle and fix the 3DO wikipedia page and would like it if anybody would help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 I couldn't buy it when it was new. When I could there was only one game that interested me (AD&D Slayer). Your reasons for its failure or success may vary. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
108 Stars Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 It was a failure because it did not achieve its goal: Creating a standard for video game consoles. With that goal to be a success would have meant to have a dominant role in the market. The cancellation of the M2 is also a good indication that 3DO was regarded as a failure from by the involved parties. The entire licensing model, making it necessary for hardware manufacturers to sell consoles with a profit just proved bad in a competetive enviroment. All in all it did not fail like the Jaguar did; but one must take into account what the ambition was. With a lofty goal like creating a console standard for the industry even a console selling 5 million units is a failure. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 Because it was. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godslabrat Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 3do totally succeeded, that's why everyone had one, it made tons of cash for its publishers, and I'm getting my wife a 6do for Christmas. (Shhhh...) 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LS650 Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 Well, it out-sold the Jaguar. That's something, I guess. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 Hype.. It was on the cover of Time magazine... It was over hyped... That and, it had a real shot at being THE system for it's generation. Yes, the Playstation was coming; but the 3DO was out first, and Sony lost a lot of money for a long time before they finally made it... It showed it could do any genre (Gex- Platformer, Need for Speed - Racing, SSF2 Turbo - Fighting, Madden - Sports, Killing Time - FPS, AD&D Slayer - RPG.. and more games in each genre and more genres...). It didn't just have A killer app.. So, it's not that it failed totally. It sold a decent amount and had some great games.. But it's the "what could have been" factor, and it wasn't awkward hardware/development, a terrible controller or a market crash that killed it.. It had it all and the market was ready.. But the business model killed it... It's when you measure success not based on numbers compared to other consoles, but based on what it should have sold.. I mean, I love my Vectrex, and the market crash crippled it... But realistically, there was never going to be a Vectrex in every gamer household. That could have been the 3DO... As it is tho, I'm glad I have one now.. desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhomaios Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 To put it into perspective, it only sold 1.3 mil more than the 7800, and the Saturn doubled its numbers. It's not a raging success by any stretch of the imagination, especially when consoles that came before as well as during and after its lifespan sold exponentially better. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory DG Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 If there was no successor, it was a failure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 Why do you keep asking silly questions? The machine cost seven hundred dollars. Nobody could afford it at that price... well, nobody sane, anyway. The price didn't drop quickly enough for mass adoption, and it was instantly antiquated by the Saturn and Playstation when those systems were released two years later. In short, it was an unsustainable product, and that was what made it a failure. Look, I had high hopes for the 3DO when it was first announced. I thought the licensing system that allowed more companies than just Panasonic to manufacture it was brilliant; reminiscent of what made the VCR a smash success. I also was impressed with the hardware (at the time) and still feel that its games were better than what was offered on the Jaguar or CD-i. However, the fact remains is that the system came at the wrong time, and was sold for the wrong price. Gamers weren't ready to upgrade yet, and by the time they were, much cheaper and more capable game systems were waiting for them. It's commendable that 3DO was able to sell as many systems as they did for the price they were asking, but the system was never going to find mainstream acceptance with all that it had going against it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 The 3DO company was profitable (due to their ethically questionable royalty and marketing tactics) The 3DO company was licensing the games and system, not MAKING the R.E.AL. consoles. Panasonic and Goldstar on the other hand probably didn't get it that easy. Lack of third-party support? THAT'S ALL IT HAD ALMOST. I think this critic is aimed to the lack of BIG 3rd party support. I mean, yeah, there was EA, but they were publishing their games on every support. I mean, where was Capcom, Konami, Interplay, GT Interactive, etc...? It sold 5+ (no concrete numbers) world wide for goodness sake! 5+? The most common figure I see is 2 millions. This is not bad, but that's far away from a success. Even pre crash made better figures for the most part. 80% of the library was FMV? I guess if you include the VCD ADD-ON as GAME SUPPORT that may make sense (it wouldn't.) Most FMV games doesn't need the VCD add-on; and it was a big gimmick at the time. There is a big share of FMV titles on the 3DO, much like there is a lot of them on the Mega CD and the Philips CD-i. Yeah, they aren't the biggest part of it, but they were heavily featured. And looking back at the time, the 3DO was offering the best FMV games quality wise with the Philips CD-i. Except that the 3DO offered more variety of games and a better controller. 3DO was barely more powerful than the Super Nintendo? Are you serious? Probably people are confused by the Jaguar (in the same way that people tag the Jaguar for being expensive as hell, when it was dirt cheap, probably mistaking both systems), and also by some crappy games. Also, bare numbers tell you that the 3DO got a 12.5Mhtz processor. It's faster than the SNES, but not that much more than the Megadrive. Difference is, it's 32 bits and there is one coprocessor, plus two GPU. LIMITED LIBRARY Of TITLES? If you want good titles that are ONLY on the 3DO, well yeah, you're stuck with not a lot of games. Let's face it; the licensing 3DO system allowed more shit to come on the system than on any other system ever (except computers but that's a whole different story). A lot of games are plain bad. Most doesn't offer a decent approach of what the 3DO can do. And most were available on PC or Playstation. Let's face it; the 3DO was a failure. Not an epic failure like the Amstrad GX4000 or the Jaguar, but it couldn't compete with the Playstation, and not even with either the SNES or the Megadrive. Ironically it paved the way to the "next gen"; it was CD based, it had great 3D capability, it was heavily open to 3rd party games and way less strict in content checking than Nintendo or Sega. It's likely that Sony checked every mistake made by the 3DO and avoided them, but retained the good ideas. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8th lutz Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 To put it into perspective, it only sold 1.3 mil more than the 7800, and the Saturn doubled its numbers. It's not a raging success by any stretch of the imagination, especially when consoles that came before as well as during and after its lifespan sold exponentially better. We really don't know the 3DO sold 1.3 mile more than the 7800. The fact is the units sold for the Atari 7800 stated was only for North America. Curt Vendel made it known it the time he was giving out the sale figures. The Atari 7800 was released in Europe, New Zealand, and Australia for sure besides North America. I don't know about South America if the Atari 7800 was released there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osgeld Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 I think this critic is aimed to the lack of BIG 3rd party support. I mean, yeah, there was EA, but they were publishing their games on every support. only reason EA was in on it was becuse it was Trip Hawkins project, who founded both 3d0 and EA ... sooo is EA really even 3rd party? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Technically, yes. Yeah in fine, EA was a bit "forced" to port their games to the 3DO... and it wasn't like it was bothering them. But overall, I don't feel like the 3DO got so much famous EA games anyway. And there is not a single EA 3DO exclusive game so it's not that important anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg2600 Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Big time failure first of all. The MSRP at release was insane. Secondly, within a couple years all the decent EA titles were on PS1 and PC anyway. Sort of like the Dreamcast, you can mostly experience its games without even having one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 (edited) First of all, the internet needs to stop throwing around the word "epic."Second, the 3DO, like it or not, was a failure. It's a pretty nice system that had a lot of things going for it, but at the end of the day, for one reason or another, it was never a contender. It couldn't compete with the Genesis or SNES, which were both firmly entrenched and much more accessible, and it couldn't compete against the PlayStation, which outclassed it in just about every way.Speaking from personal experience, the 3DO was always on the periphery; we 16-bit kids were vaguely aware of it, but we never saw much of it. Compared to our SNES and Genesis systems, it was expensive and exotic and powerful, the Ferrari Testarossa of game consoles. But the status-symbol appeal is pretty much where the interest ended. Software Etc. was the only store in town that I can remember carrying 3DO, and people would ooooh and aaaaah at Supreme Warrior running on a demo unit, try it out for a few minutes, and then buy Mortal Kombat II for their 16-bit system of choice. Gex was no substitute for Mario or Sonic. Doom and MegaRace were better on PC. I only ever knew one kid at school who had a 3DO, but he also had a Genesis and preferred that instead. By the time PS1 and N64 hit, we'd forgotten all about it. (For my part, I was a freak for all things Street Fighter II in the early '90s, so I coveted a 3DO for its exclusive port of Super Street Fighter II Turbo.)Anyway, I think it's just in vogue to make fun of the $700 price tag. Edited December 10, 2013 by BassGuitari 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Why do you keep asking silly questions? Probably because given the accounts join date and topic history, it's one of several trolls that's appeared lately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godslabrat Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Probably because given the accounts join date and topic history, it's one of several trolls that's appeared lately. So he's a nice version of Protoplasm/Underball? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 (edited) First of all, the internet needs to stop throwing around the word "epic."Finally, someone who is sick of the hyperbole thrown around! Thank you! It couldn't compete with the Genesis or SNES, which were both firmly entrenched and much more accessible, and it couldn't compete against the PlayStation, which outclassed it in just about every way.Oh.. er.. Never mind about the hyperbole comment above then... Of course it could compete.. It did compete and lost.. And I think it holds it's own really well against the Playstation, especially considering how much sooner it was released than the Playstation. There are still several games I prefer on the 3DO over their Playstation versions. Not saying the Playstation couldn't do better, but that the 3DO did that well with them.. Gex was no substitute for Mario or Sonic.Actually, I prefer Gex to either of those. While I won't say it's better (that's all preference), it easily holds its own. It's a great platformer. Considering when it was released, if it would have been price competitive, I honestly think it could have held off the Playstation. A lot of people seem to remember the Playstation as a huge success from day 1, but it took Sony a LONG time to make their money. If they would have had to fight off an already entrenched and successful 3DO, I'm not sure they would have.... Of course, it's all "what if's" at this stage... desiv Edited December 10, 2013 by desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaximRecoil Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Speaking from personal experience, the 3DO was always on the periphery; we 16-bit kids were vaguely aware of it, but we never saw much of it. Compared to our SNES and Genesis systems, it was expensive and exotic and powerful, the Ferrari Testarossa of game consoles. In my case, I wasn't even vaguely aware of it, and the Neo Geo AES was the Ferrari F40 of video game consoles in my mind. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Oh.. er.. Never mind about the hyperbole comment above then... Of course it could compete.. It did compete and lost.. How about semantics, then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Anyone who knows anything about the era in which 3DO existed will tell you the main issues were cost and too much FMV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osgeld Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 (edited) bout the time it came out my summer job was enough to get me a crappy 486SX cyrix computer and a single speed cd-rom, all the FMV I could handle and still cost less than the 3d0 (resuing a lot of parts I already had and sofware I already had) Edited December 10, 2013 by Osgeld Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhomaios Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 We really don't know the 3DO sold 1.3 mile more than the 7800. The fact is the units sold for the Atari 7800 stated was only for North America. Curt Vendel made it known it the time he was giving out the sale figures. The Atari 7800 was released in Europe, New Zealand, and Australia for sure besides North America. I don't know about South America if the Atari 7800 was released there. That's even worse! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Anyone who knows anything about the era in which 3DO existed will tell you the main issues were cost and too much FMV.So, that wasn't you then, :-)Cost? Yes FMV? No way. Anyone who was around back then will remind you that FMV (particularly good FMV) was a buzz word and a selling point. Now, FMV wouldn't make a system, but it was considered a positive back then. desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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