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Atari Jaguar vs 3do


JazGaming

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Comes to think of it (back to 3DO), what were the good 3DO 2D games?

The Jag does have nice 2D games here and there and compared to the small library it is actually a favorable situation.

 

I recognize that for the 3DO the likes of Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Samurai Shodown, Gex, Return Fire, Casper, Fifa Soccer and John Madden were good showcase games but what else?

 

I do not want to count FMVs here as the JagCD showed to some extent it could run them mostly fine (although I personally don't like the quality of its codec it's also not too bad for the likes of Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, BrainDead13 not sure about actual actor based movie content but if VidGrid is any indication it seems on par).

 

It seems that the 3DO library does not have many 2D games to begin with.

 

Here's a general list of 3DO 2D titles that I can think of when looking over a general list of releases:

 

Another World

Ballz

BattleChess

Bust a Move

Cannon Fodder

Captain Quazar

Casper

Crayon Shin Chan

Dino Park Tycoon

Eye of Typhoon

FIFA

Flashback

Gex

The Horde

Icebreaker

The Incredible Machine

Johnny Bazookatone

Lemmings

Lucienne's Quest

Panzer General

Phoenix 3

Primal Rage

Rise of the Robots (Ugh!)

Royal Pro Wrestling (!!!)

SailorMoon

Samurai Shodown

Shadow: War of Succession (Ugh!!)

Soccer Kid

Star Control 2

Striker

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo

Syndicate

Theme Park

Trip'D

Way of the Warrior (3D elements)

Yu Yu Hakusho

 

-

 

No doubt there's more, but this is a basic overview - regardless of a couple of them being stinkers (ROTR, Shadow)

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Mark Johnston (Argonaut's 3DO coder) reckoned the SNES pretty much wiped the floor with the 3DO in regard to 2D and there are 2D sections in Creature Shock to look out for.

 

Well, I implore you to directly compare Super Street Fighter 2 on SNES against Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo on 3DO.

 

Although the parallax is lost on 3DO, the rest of the game is, I'd say, Arcade Perfect. At the time, it was a MASSIVE leap in the quality of SF2 at home.

 

Having said that, the PCE port of SF2 CE was superior to the SNES/MD counterparts, but even so, SSF2T/X on 3DO was immense at the time. The animation and gameplay just destroyed the other versions. And I mean 'destroyed'.

 

It's not until you actually sit down and play the 16-bit ports that you realise how cut down they were. Of course, at the time, the ports were so amazing, you didn't really notice at that age (i.e. pre-high school age, personally).

 

Similarly, SShodown on 3DO killed the SNES port too. Even the MD port was better than the SNES, which was unusual.

 

Although not as good as Capcom's Street Fighter port, CD's port of SS1 for 3DO was still really good. Just not as good as the Neo Geo or CD versions overall, but the best available thereafter.

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Here's a general list of 3DO 2D titles that I can think of when looking over a general list of releases:

 

Another World

Ballz

BattleChess

Bust a Move

Cannon Fodder

Captain Quazar

Casper

Crayon Shin Chan

Dino Park Tycoon

Eye of Typhoon

FIFA

Flashback

Gex

The Horde

Icebreaker

The Incredible Machine

Johnny Bazookatone

Lemmings

Lucienne's Quest

Panzer General

Phoenix 3

Primal Rage

Rise of the Robots (Ugh!)

Royal Pro Wrestling (!!!)

SailorMoon

Samurai Shodown

Shadow: War of Succession (Ugh!!)

Soccer Kid

Star Control 2

Striker

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo

Syndicate

Theme Park

Trip'D

Way of the Warrior (3D elements)

Yu Yu Hakusho

 

-

 

No doubt there's more, but this is a basic overview - regardless of a couple of them being stinkers (ROTR, Shadow)

That's a lot more than I expected, I was going off of:

http://retro-sanctuary.com/TOP%2040%203do%20GAMES.html

and what I personally actually tried.

I wasn't impressed by Captain Quazar or Trip'd or many other you listed there, but I can see another handful that are actually not bad at all on 3DO, still it seems that the 3D games (or pseudo 3D a la Doom. Wolf etc..) fare better and understandably so as that's were the demand was.

 

I guess the 3DO was better balanced for the time it was built than the Jag (but way too expensive imho), it has all 3 genres represented as in 2D, textured 3D and FMV, while the Jag suffered too much in 3D.

It is entirely possible/likely that the Jag is actually a better 2D machine than the 3DO (or that the differential would not matter as much as we would think), it's unfortunate the 3D side was not developed further before launching it on the market.

Edited by phoenixdownita
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Speaking of better balanced, and because they're rarely mentioned, the 3DO actually had excellent original game show games that made excellent use of its high quality FMV capabilities. Twisted: The Game Show and Zhadnost: The People's Party, were stand-outs.

 

I really think the 3DO had the clearest path to success of all of that era's systems between the releases of the SNES and the PS1. Of all of the factors, I think its artificially high launch price was what probably did it in the most. By the time the price dropped to reasonable, it was too late to reach the critical mass it needed. It was oh-so-close though, which is why the M2 was all but ready to launch. With that said, even though the M2 had some impressive technology, considering how poorly the Saturn and Nintendo 64 did in relation to the PS1, it's unlikely it would have been competitive enough in that type of crowded field.

Edited by Bill Loguidice
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Speaking of better balanced, and because they're rarely mentioned, the 3DO actually had excellent original game show games that made excellent use of its high quality FMV capabilities. Twisted: The Game Show and Zhadnost: The People's Party, were stand-outs.

 

I really think the 3DO had the clearest path to success of all of that era's systems between the releases of the SNES and the PS1. Of all of the factors, I think its artificially high launch price was what probably did it in the most. By the time the price dropped to reasonable, it was too late to reach the critical mass it needed. It was oh-so-close though, which is why the M2 was all but ready to launch. With that said, even though the M2 had some impressive technology, considering how poorly the Saturn and Nintendo 64 did in relation to the PS1, it's unlikely it would have been competitive enough in that type of crowded field.

I dont remember very well, but i think 3DO was selling at the same price as the Playstation and Saturn when they launched, right?.

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I dont remember very well, but i think 3DO was selling at the same price as the Playstation and Saturn when they launched, right?.

 

I don't recall. All I remember are the steady price drops after launch and then the eventual price of $99 when it was on the way out. Anyway, the point is, we know they didn't have to release at $700 to be profitable. That was just an attempt to position it as a high end media component (which we know NEVER worked for anyone who has attempted it). I'd love to know what the lowest price they could have released at while still having a reasonable profit per machine, keeping in mind that this was not quite like the traditional console model where there was a single console manufacturer that could sell their console at a loss and make it up from percentages of software sales.

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I dont remember very well, but i think 3DO was selling at the same price as the Playstation and Saturn when they launched, right?.

I use this as a reference for price and count of "original" games (and screenshots of a few):

http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/

 

3DO 699US$ http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/pg90-3do.htm#page=reviews

Saturn 399US$ http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/pg90-saturn.htm#page=reviews

PS1 299US$ http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/pg90-playstation.htm#page=reviews

 

I am not sure all the prices are accurate as some of the "reviews" have mistakes here and there but overall it seems believable.

Also it basically lists every console ever made, I don't think I found any glaring omission, maybe Bill as custodian of over 500 vintage system can chime in on it.

Edited by phoenixdownita
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Speaking of better balanced, and because they're rarely mentioned, the 3DO actually had excellent original game show games that made excellent use of its high quality FMV capabilities. Twisted: The Game Show and Zhadnost: The People's Party, were stand-outs.

 

I really think the 3DO had the clearest path to success of all of that era's systems between the releases of the SNES and the PS1. Of all of the factors, I think its artificially high launch price was what probably did it in the most. By the time the price dropped to reasonable, it was too late to reach the critical mass it needed. It was oh-so-close though, which is why the M2 was all but ready to launch. With that said, even though the M2 had some impressive technology, considering how poorly the Saturn and Nintendo 64 did in relation to the PS1, it's unlikely it would have been competitive enough in that type of crowded field.

To be fair though even if the JagCD codec wasn't the best it seems like in the full FMV dept it could have held its ground, the 4 FMV games released are reasonably well done, likely a better codec could have emerged in time (as it happened with the Saturn in later years).

 

I can't say for sure if those 4 games for JagCD were 24fps or better or, given their cartoon nature, the movies got away with far less frames.

I'm not suggesting the JagCD was "better" at FMV than the 3DO as there's too little to compare, just that it seems there is enough power in the Jag to render FMV games within the expectations at least of that time.

 

Agreed that the M2 seemed to be very powerful, but I believe it would have costed a fortune:

http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/pg90-3do_m2.htm#page=games

Edited by phoenixdownita
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I use this as a reference for price and count of "original" games (and screenshots of a few):

http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/

 

3DO 699US$ http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/pg90-3do.htm#page=reviews

Saturn 399US$ http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/pg90-saturn.htm#page=reviews

PS1 299US$ http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/pg90-playstation.htm#page=reviews

 

I am not surely all the prices are accurate as some of the "reviews" have mistakes here and there but overall it seems believable.

Also it basically lists every console ever made, I don't think i find any missing ones.

Nice link, thanks. But what i meant, is that i seem to remember that the 3DO, at the time the Saturn and Playstation launched in Japan (late 1994), had about the same price tag, as the 2 new systems. Its a shame about the business model behind the 3DO, it would have been very interesting to see it compete under the same circumstances as the other consoles.

Edited by sd32
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Nice link, thanks. But what i meant, is that i seem to remember that the 3DO, at the time the Saturn and Playstation launched in Japan (late 1994), had about the same price tag, as the 2 new systems. Its a shame about the business model behind the 3DO, it would have been very interesting to see it compete under the same circumstances as the other consoles.

I see, still afaik dropping the price to match that of more advanced competitors hardly ever worked.

It was a necessary step but as Bill mentioned the mistake was to try to squeeze way too much upfront, kind of like the CDi (same exorbitant launch price) or even worse the CDTV (799US$).

Likely it was a mistake of product placement (on all 3 cases), all of them tried to cater to a high end multimedia market that never existed/materialized.

In recent times (Y2K to be precise) the Nuon http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/pg00-nuon.htm#page=reviews

(aka "Jag 3" with games like IS3 and T3K) repeated the same mistake but the price was much lower ... needless to say it still didn't end well.

 

<sarcasm>

In even more recent times the Jag Back-From-The-Grave Edition (aka RetroVGS) couldn't even get funded because of bad product placement and poor pricing.

</sarcasm>

Edited by phoenixdownita
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I dont remember very well, but i think 3DO was selling at the same price as the Playstation and Saturn when they launched, right?.

 

Yes. From what I understand, it wasn't at the $599 price very long, and it had pretty competitive price drops over the next two and three years until it was discontinued.

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Yes. From what I understand, it wasn't at the $599 price very long, and it had pretty competitive price drops over the next two and three years until it was discontinued.

Not sure how much it mattered. The 3DO was launched in Oct '93 while the Sat and PS1 by Nov '94 (at least in Jap).

As it stands it really only had 1Y to gain market share and at that price it was too hard.

 

As Bill put it though, between the time from SNES to the PS1 it likely was the best placed (price notwithstanding).

It's competitors were:

CDi, Commodore CDTV, SegaCD ,PCE Duo of '91

FM Towns Marty, Commodore CD32, Pioneer LaserActive and Jaguar of '93

NeoGeo CD, PC-FX and 32x of '94

 

32x was a stillborn in terms of support as it was known the Saturn was arriving soon.

It was the only other "console" with declared 3D capabilities (Jag as well).

[not sure if the 32x is better or on par with the Jag in the 3D dept, I surely liked VR on it].

 

So of all the consoles of that period the only one supporting fully textured 3D games was the 3DO, quite the foresight.

Edited by phoenixdownita
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I don't recall. All I remember are the steady price drops after launch and then the eventual price of $99 when it was on the way out. Anyway, the point is, we know they didn't have to release at $700 to be profitable. That was just an attempt to position it as a high end media component (which we know NEVER worked for anyone who has attempted it). I'd love to know what the lowest price they could have released at while still having a reasonable profit per machine, keeping in mind that this was not quite like the traditional console model where there was a single console manufacturer that could sell their console at a loss and make it up from percentages of software sales.

 

I have never read this about the 3DO's artificially high launch price. Was this part of Trip Hawkin's strategy or was it forced upon the platform by the manufacturers? It seems like a tremendous blunder.

 

The model was already a risky departure from tradition. Ignoring the countless historical lessons about how content is actually created for new technology platforms seems wrought with hubris.

 

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I have never read this about the 3DO's artificially high launch price. Was this part of Trip Hawkin's strategy or was it forced upon the platform by the manufacturers? It seems like a tremendous blunder.

 

The model was already a risky departure from tradition. Ignoring the countless historical lessons about how content is actually created for new technology platforms seems wrought with hubris.

 

I'm not sure what the proof is that the price was artificially high. Just because it got lowered later in an attempt to salvage some sales? Memory and CD drives became cheaper over the years as well.

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I'm not sure what the proof is that the price was artificially high. Just because it got lowered later in an attempt to salvage some sales? Memory and CD drives became cheaper over the years as well.

 

Trip Hawkins had stated it somewhere if I recall correctly. My apologies for not having interest in digging up the quote. And the price actually got lowered multiple times, including not too long after release. I worked at Electronics Boutique at the time and remember that period at retail quite well.

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People react to pricing in weird and paradoxical ways, so Hawkins might not have been completely nuts to aim high since there's some precedent for success via inflated pricing.

 

In particular, I remember hearing that BMW (I think it was them) massively increased their sales in the United States when they doubled their prices and repositioned themselves as a luxury brand, even though the car itself was the same.

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Trip Hawkins had stated it somewhere if I recall correctly. My apologies for not having interest in digging up the quote. And the price actually got lowered multiple times, including not too long after release. I worked at Electronics Boutique at the time and remember that period at retail quite well.

Interesting, I've never heard that before. If it's true, that's gotta be one of the biggest mistakes in video gaming history.

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Interesting, I've never heard that before. If it's true, that's gotta be one of the biggest mistakes in video gaming history.

 

 

People react to pricing in weird and paradoxical ways, so Hawkins might not have been completely nuts to aim high since there's some precedent for success via inflated pricing.

 

In particular, I remember hearing that BMW (I think it was them) massively increased their sales in the United States when they doubled their prices and repositioned themselves as a luxury brand, even though the car itself was the same.

 

Well, I'm with Madman here - if it's true, it's an unforgivable blunder. It's particularly shocking if it's coming from Hawkins' view. He was a veteran of the industry.

 

Bringing this back to the Jaguar and Atari Corp: I don't believe the comparison to BMW is apt. Building a platform is much different than manufacturing a car. Jack Tramiel gets a lot of heat from Atari users, but he built the brand's most successful platform outside of the 2600 - the Atari ST (with the Atari 400/800 seeing similar worldwide numbers). Before Atari, he also built a platform larger than most any in the software/hardware industry - the Commodore 64.

 

Building a platform requires a special sweet spot that attracts major software support. Trading off low software sales numbers in an attempt to corner a non-existent luxury market would be a surprising move by someone of Trip Hawkins' stature. For all of 3DO's flaws, its software success has to be largely attributed to Trip Hawkins' force in the industry. But that can only be sustained so long. Eventually you have to move volume to continue software support. That's a truism that was established well before the 1990s.

 

And Bill, I'm not doubting you. I've simply long-attributed 3DO's high price tag to to the necessity of their business model - not a grab at a market segment or a way to pump up profits early on.

 

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Hey, I'm not saying it was the right move (I don't think it was). I'm just saying that there are documented examples where consumers have actually responded better to higher prices, where nothing else has changed. I'm sure they're discussed in the kind of books that executives read to tell themselves how great and "disruptive" they are. :D

 

It's not as if Trip was a moron in a vacuum, in other words. He made a bet -- presumably that there was an untapped luxury market in the video gaming world, one which could then be re-integrated with the mainstream console market to successful effect -- and lost, badly.

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Hey, I'm not saying it was the right move (I don't think it was). I'm just saying that there are documented examples where consumers have actually responded better to higher prices, where nothing else has changed. I'm sure they're discussed in the kind of books that executives read to tell themselves how great and "disruptive" they are. :D

 

It's not as if Trip was a moron in a vacuum, in other words. He made a bet -- presumably that there was an untapped luxury market in the video gaming world, one which could then be re-integrated with the mainstream console market to successful effect -- and lost, badly.

 

It's always worked for Apple...

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It's always worked for Apple...

 

Of course, Apple struggled in the mid-to-late 80s with premium products - the Lisa and the Macintosh. The Macintosh didn't gain any traction until after Jobs was gone and the company released a more diverse product lineup with different price tiers.

 

Jobs' second tenure started to gain steam with the release of the iMac. It didn't turn around market share but it did stop the bleeding. You're right, the iMac did have a premium design flair to it, but $1299 (including monitor) was in the ballpark of your typical Best Buy PC. The machine had some great features, even if you had to buy a floppy drive separately.

 

3DO wasn't even in the ballpark. Neo Geo already demonstrated that video game luxury won't move a lot of units but I think their model was much different. If you want to build a software platform, the luxury proposition is a dicey one at best.

 

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People react to pricing in weird and paradoxical ways, so Hawkins might not have been completely nuts to aim high since there's some precedent for success via inflated pricing.

 

In particular, I remember hearing that BMW (I think it was them) massively increased their sales in the United States when they doubled their prices and repositioned themselves as a luxury brand, even though the car itself was the same.

 

On a side note, that's also why most of the multimedia systems (3DO, CD-i, VIS, etc.) got golf games very early on and golf-based video content (like instructional stuff). It was aimed at the supposed affluent audience who can afford to regularly golf.

 

I agree that the decision to price it that high might not have been completely nuts, but again, it NEVER worked from earlier examples (Halcyon, LaserActive, CDTV, etc.), so you would have thought they would have learned from those earlier mistakes. Even though the earlier CD-i gained shelf space outside the usual videogame shops, I don't recall the 3DO making much headway there. That means the intended audience would have had to have known to go to a videogame retailer to get a 3DO. That's not good business when you're trying to sell such an incredibly high price item.

 

I remember very distinctly at that time people being blown away by the 3DO demos. They were actually quite effective. There was no way these people were going to bite on the price, though. I don't recall more than a couple selling until it dropped to $499, and then with each additional drop selling more. I'd be curious to see the sales figures (not that I'm aware of them being available) at each price point it dropped to. It would be logical to assume that there was a particular price point that it sold the majority of its units (and again I'm speaking as a whole, as there were eventually three major models in the US, with two of them being from Panasonic (I'm not counting the interesting, but extremely niche PC add-on).

Edited by Bill Loguidice
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The truth about the 3DO technology and hardware was that it was rushed to

market by a team using old fashioned development techniques (the Atari
team) and there were some serious technical flaws. For instance, the
chipset design had some powerful 3D capabilities but it was architected in
such a way that it couldn't really be used due to a flaw in the bus
architecture design. It was a big disappointment that was kept private.
There was also the problem of the high cost of the CD drive and RAM prices
which were very high at the time the 3DO was launched.
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