IDE connectivity to 3DO.

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3DOKid
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IDE connectivity to 3DO.

Post by 3DOKid » Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:18 pm

The guys over at the Freedo reckon they have drawn up the blueprints for a device that will allow an Panasonic FZ-1 to connect to an IDE drive. However, they have a catch 22 situation.

The basic upshot is they need a lot of pre-orders and deposits to make the project viable. The more they sell, the lower the price. The fewer they sell the higher the price. I'm sure you can see the problem. The other problem is that they haven't promoted it a lot.

Any suggestions?

I've thought of setting up a pre-order deposit scheme. The target would be 100 per-orders. People would pay a deposit on the understanding that if, in 1 year, there are not 100 pre-orders they get their cash back, however, with a 100 preorders the price for the device can be guaranteed and it'll be lower than say if just 20 of us want to buy one.

It doesn't fall into the standard business model and it sort of means the buyers would also have to be the sellers. It would be a community model. Of cause the more people that think its a good idea - the more demand, the more the need for supply. And things get back to normal.

What is the demand?

One benefit would be rarity. A similar device for the Jaguar, known as Catnip, now commands silly prices on the open market. As does games like BattleSphere on the Jaguar. This homebrew hardware adds a collectors value to the device - which obviously has a plus side for owners and collectors of video game rarities.

Benefits of the device would be the problems of lens wear. The 3DOs CD lens does have a finite life span, as does the NVRAM. Now it is purely speculation on my part but the addition of a Harddisk could mean Linux on the machine, it could mean a whole load of homebrew utilities and a lot of possibilities after that. Remember, the MS Xbox owes more than just a thank you to the addition of standard IDE drive to the inside its casing - the 3DO Multiplayer could also benefit in a similar way.

...

it's a tricky problem. Any thoughts...?

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Post by Devin » Sun Jan 14, 2007 3:43 pm

It's a difficult one. A recent example that springs to mind for very different reasons was the release of Beggar Prince on the Genesis. They provided a pre-order scheme for two reasons. The first was financial, they simply needed the capitol to create all the cartridges, cases and manuals. The second was one of piracey, once they had enough pre-orders to break even all orders were fullfilled and everyone went away happy.

Really it's a matter of trust, as long as Freedo act responsibly then I see no problem with this type of pre-oder scheme.

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Post by Lemmi » Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:15 pm

hey i bought Beggar Prince :) and i didnt buy it untill i heard that the first run of 600 were down to 100 left then i took the plunge

i always stay away from computer components attached to a dedicated videogame system, probably because i really dont like computers for anything other then downloading stuff and surfing the net

i have never used a emulator on my computer but i have on my Dreamcast, i dont like messing with ROMS and junk

i have a Cuttle Cart 2 for the Atari 7800 that you load roms onto a MMC card and put the MMC into the cart and play all Atari 2600 and 7800 games off of one cart, needless to say its still in the original shipping box that i got from the maker and its still sealed, i had the Cuttle Cart 1 which was just for the atari 2600 and i traded that away for $100 and a Gamecube system + other stuff
Ex-3DO collector extraordinaire , but i still have my collection
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Post by 3DOKid » Tue Jan 16, 2007 11:55 pm

I do think it would be interesting. A HD, a keyboard and mouse, an operating system... no wait...

That aside, its pretty amazing what they do with the Atari Jaguar, no reason why they couldn't do the same with a 3DO.

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Post by Devin » Wed Jan 17, 2007 1:07 am

Lemmi wrote:hey i bought Beggar Prince :) and i didnt buy it untill i heard that the first run of 600 were down to 100 left then i took the plunge
I was along with Brandon [leader on the BP project] at the CGEXPO 2005 when my buds oldergames were going to publish the game. This was the first public preview of Beggar Prince. It was quite funny how it all went down. Brandon had to rush the Beggar Prince prototype from San Diego to San Francisco. THEN we had to track down an original Mark-1 Megadrive because that was the only system the prototype would work upon! All last minute stuff but it all came together in the end.

Remember seeing that Cuttle Cart as well, but that was at a previous CGEXPO... I think!

I think the 3DO Module can only be a good thing, another toy to play with anyway! :D

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Lemmi
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Post by Lemmi » Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:26 am

Devin wrote: I think the 3DO Module can only be a good thing, another toy to play with anyway! :D
thats true it might bring more light (and people) to the 3DO which is always a good thing

i almost took the plunge and bought a 3DO blaster (i could have got one complete boxed for $60) but i passed on it because i probably would never have used it, instead i told Zangardo about it and he bought it
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Post by Trev » Thu Jan 25, 2007 8:41 pm

If the results could be similar to what has happened w/the Atari Jaguar, than I think it would certainly be worth it

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Post by 3DOKid » Fri Jan 26, 2007 12:10 am

Lemmi wrote:
Devin wrote: I think the 3DO Module can only be a good thing, another toy to play with anyway! :D
thats true it might bring more light (and people) to the 3DO which is always a good thing

i almost took the plunge and bought a 3DO blaster (i could have got one complete boxed for $60) but i passed on it because i probably would never have used it, instead i told Zangardo about it and he bought it
Hello Mate! I'm back from foreign lands!

Anyway - I think the blaster will not work on many modern PC's and in 5 years of looking I've seen only 1 on eBay and I missed it by a country mile!

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