D2 on the 3DO M2 - running on real hardware :)

[awbacon]

 

 

After ten years I finally found something. Not the full alpha, but what may be the last playable files known to exist for the M2 version of D2. 

 

Hope you enjoy!

[Schrodinger]

Very good looking game.

[masschamber]

man that is cool, I love the odd in between systems, this the jag 2, the panther, and all the other odd balls are so interesting.

[+chicgamer]

This is the first time I've seen this version. It's so different from what was released on the Dreamcast.

[Rick Dangerous]

Very cool; thanks for sharing!

[Bubsy]

Cool, I own the Dreamcast one and remember seeing screenshots for the M2 version in GameFan or EGM back in the day. Wonder what year this is from.

[Quetzalcoatl]

They didn't end up using anything from the 3DO M2 version of this in the released version of D2 for the Dreamcast. Very interesting to see some of this finally uncovered. It seems as though despite the advertising campaign "Don't play a dodo", the 3DO M2 was never actually going to be an add on. Perhaps in the planning stages back in 93 til 94 or so. But it's always the standalone units that turn up, never anything that would've connected to the original 3DO. It was probably realized that the 3DO would have actually bottlenecked any add on just like the Genesis bottlenecked the Sega CD capabilities. Certainly one of the most interesting lost consoles there is, since it would've outperformed the N64 and PS1 at the time of release.

[awbacon]

On 3/22/2021 at 5:11 AM, Quetzalcoatl said:

They didn't end up using anything from the 3DO M2 version of this in the released version of D2 for the Dreamcast. Very interesting to see some of this finally uncovered. It seems as though despite the advertising campaign "Don't play a dodo", the 3DO M2 was never actually going to be an add on. Perhaps in the planning stages back in 93 til 94 or so. But it's always the standalone units that turn up, never anything that would've connected to the original 3DO. It was probably realized that the 3DO would have actually bottlenecked any add on just like the Genesis bottlenecked the Sega CD capabilities. Certainly one of the most interesting lost consoles there is, since it would've outperformed the N64 and PS1 at the time of release.

it was planned as an ad on but abandoned pretty quickly once they learned the bus width on the OG 3DO would be way too much of a constraint for M2

[Quetzalcoatl]

On 3/31/2021 at 7:44 AM, awbacon said:

it was planned as an ad on but abandoned pretty quickly once they learned the bus width on the OG 3DO would be way too much of a constraint for M2

Yeah that's what I figured. Unless you fully swap out the chipset and such like on a PC, the add on will always be bottlenecked by the base system. Evidently Panasonic sold the M2 hardware to Matsushita, and I once read a rumor that the Japanese businessman who made that deal for Matsushita was given an assignment in Alaska as punishment lol.

[awbacon]

On 4/14/2021 at 11:04 PM, Quetzalcoatl said:

Yeah that's what I figured. Unless you fully swap out the chipset and such like on a PC, the add on will always be bottlenecked by the base system. Evidently Panasonic sold the M2 hardware to Matsushita, and I once read a rumor that the Japanese businessman who made that deal for Matsushita was given an assignment in Alaska as punishment lol.

lol I heard the same rumor. No idea if it's true

[MojoJoJo]

On 4/16/2021 at 9:23 AM, awbacon said:

lol I heard the same rumor. No idea if it's true

Panasonic and Matsushita are one and the same, Matsushita is the parent company. The 3DO company sold the intellectual property for the M2 to Matsushita. Remember, the 3DO company didn't make the systems, they just licensed the tech to other companies to make them.