What Happen to 3DO?

[Sham66]

Hey,

This has probably been discussed already somewhere on here, but I couldn’t find it so here we go.

What happen to 3DO?

Back in 1994 my brother and I bought a Gold Star 3DO (I really enjoyed; and still enjoy it by the way). By 1996 the 3DO I just bought was taken off the market. After reading various magazine articles at the time: Gamepro, Electronic gaming monthly, PC Magazine, etc. They all said the same thing the 3DO was to expensive at launch, which resulted in it’s failure there on. Even the WikiPedi still states the main reason 3DO failed was because of the initial price tag.

At the time; that didn’t to much sense to me. Yeah, I remember 3DO being expensive when it first came out, but by 1994 you could buy one for $400 and it came with 2 games: FiFa soccer and Shockwave (2 great games by the way).
Sega Saturn came out way after 3DO; cost $400 and came with only one game Virtual Fighter (which was so bad by the way that Sega official apologized by sending every owner a redone Virtual fighter: Remix that took additional 6 months to get!! ).
Playstation came out in 1995 (almost 2 years after 3DO) was cheaper at launch only $300, but it came with no games. It also had a extremely small game library at the time.

By 1995 you could buy a 3DO for like $250 with at least 2 games included. Plus 200 or so games to pick from.

Also, many thing have been expensive at launch and did great:
CD players $1000 at launch in 1982 (sold great there on)
DVD players $1000 at launch in 1996-97 (had great sales there on)
Average Computers in 1993-94 were like $2000-$2500. Many people I know bought one just to play games like: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, 7th guest, Myst, etc. All of those games sold millions of copies back then regardless of a $2000+ price tag to play them.

And not to forget: Atari Jagular. A system which launched with a extremely low price tag of $250, but still sold poorly.

So, I would think price was never really a reason why 3DO did bad.

Next, most people on the internet say the 3DO failed, because of it’s “poor quality game library“.
This doesn’t make sense either. Back in 1993-94 I was so impressed by just seeing pictures or videos of 3DO’s games. Games like: Madden Football, FiFa Soccer, Slam in jam, Shockwave, Crash and Burn, Return Fire, Way of the Warrior, Need for speed, Road Rash, Samurai Showdown, Slayer, Gex, Total Eclipse, Alone in the Dark, Myst, Escape from monster manner, Wolfenstein, Star Fighter, Wing commander, and Killing Time. All of these games; plus others were really impressive back in 1993-94ish.

Anyone seeing them in action would laugh at there Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo games in comparison. That’s the reason why me and my brother bought a 3DO back then; it’s games were really impressive for it’s time.

Not to mention, that many of 3DO’s games were pc titles. Games that required a $2000-2500 computer to play. Even if you bought the 3DO at $700 it still was ¼ the price of a computer. I played many cool Pc games on my 3DO that would of cost me thousands of dollars to play on the PC. Some games were actual better on the 3DO then the computer.

Also, many of 3DO’s exclusive titles were ported over to the PC, Playstation, Saturn, and even the arcade.
Yep, that’s right “the arcade“. Way Of the Warrior was actual at some arcades back then. (http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detai ... e_id=10416). How could the 3DO have bad exclusive games when every other system wanted a port of them. It’s usual the other way around, consoles want ports of PC/arcade games; not vice versa.

Oh, by the way most of 3DO’s ports were no way near as good as the 3DO originals. ( have you ever seen Need for speed or Star fighter ports on Playstation or Saturn ; yikes)

Here’s a funny thing about 3DO and Playstation.

3DO has of total of about 200 games. I like about 40 games out of the 200.
So, lets say I enjoyed 20% of the 3DO’s library.

Playstation: according to the Wikipedia has 2,418 games!!! LOL I couldn’t believe that. I can only think of maybe 20-30 games that I enjoyed on the Playstation. I mean out of nearly 2,500 games and I only can remember 25 or so being good. That’s really sad. So let’s just say I liked less than 1% of the Playstation library. Seems like Playstation had way more garbage on it than 3DO did. Almost 15 times more.
Not to mention that many of Playstation’s early titles were just 3DO ports(ports that weren’t as good by the way).

So, I would think 3DO’s games weren’t an issue.

No, the main reason I would say the 3DO(and Jaguar) did poorly is: Advertising and Retail locations.
I don’t remember watching a 3DO commercial back then. The only reason I heard of 3DO back in 1993-94 was because of: Gamepro. Yep, that’s all. How can I system sell good if nobody know about it?

The other reason of 3DO’s Downfall was retail locations. It was actual hard to find a store that sold 3DOs back then. Our Bestbuy, Cirrcuit City, Sears, and even Toy’s R Us didn’t have them. We eventually found 3DO at Babbage’s Software in the local mall. Also, we had to order some of the games out of 3DO catalog, because the store didn’t sell every game. How can someone be interested in a Video game system when nobody sells them? Jaguar was the same way, very few stores carried them. Also, almost nobody rented games for 3DO or Jaguar. Having games and systems to rent at Blockbuster would have been a huge sales increase for both companies.

To prove these theories I’ve asked relatives, friends, and co-workers about 3DO and Jaguar.
Their responses include some the following:

“3...D…O…never heard of it”
“Atari Jaguar….Atari made a system in the 90’s? I had no idea”
“3DO….was that some kind of Laser disk player in the 1980’s?”
“3DO? Oh 3DO… didn’t they make that game called Army men for Sony Playstation?”

LoL, oh well…“3DO and even Jaguar may have been and still could be very cool video game systems if people actual knew about it back in the day“. We could have been playing 3DO version 3 right now.

[k1ngarth3r]

Fuck me that's a big post I'll read tomorrow when sober

[Austin]

I've said it before and I'll say it again--there was no way in hell my parents would have shelled out $700 (or even $400) for a 3DO back in the mid '90s.

[Martin III]

'Tis a big post, but I'll do my best to answer your questions.

At the time; that didn’t to much sense to me. Yeah, I remember 3DO being expensive when it first came out, but by 1994 you could buy one for $400 and it came with 2 games: FiFa soccer and Shockwave (2 great games by the way).

You said your 3DO was a Goldstar; I don't think the other 3DO models dropped their price that quickly. The problem there is, the Goldstar model would have to share shelf space with the far more expensive FZ-1. Moreover, the impression I get is that people tended to think of the 3DO as a Panasonic console, and thus the Goldstar might well have been looked upon as a cheap knockoff by the average consumer.

Also, many thing have been expensive at launch and did great:
CD players $1000 at launch in 1982 (sold great there on)
DVD players $1000 at launch in 1996-97 (had great sales there on)
Average Computers in 1993-94 were like $2000-$2500. Many people I know bought one just to play games like: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, 7th guest, Myst, etc. All of those games sold millions of copies back then regardless of a $2000+ price tag to play them.

First of all, CD players and DVD players are entirely different markets, so they don't provide decent analogies to the console gaming market. Second, you're looking at the combined sales of all models and brands of CD players and all models and brands of DVD players, which is similar to using the combined sales of every video game console available in 1994. As for Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, 7th Guest, and Myst, most of their sales were to people who already owned PCs, and were using them chiefly for non-gaming purposes. I don't believe for even a second that any adult shelled out a couple thousand dollars solely to play Wolfenstein 3D. A decision like that would be enough to have one institutionalized.

And not to forget: Atari Jagular. A system which launched with a extremely low price tag of $250, but still sold poorly.

Just because a low price tag doesn't guarantee good sales doesn't mean that price is completely irrelevant to a console's sales. And actually, $250 was a considerable sum back in 1993. There's an interview with Traimel where he admits that the Jaguar's launch price probably was too high for many potential buyers.

Next, most people on the internet say the 3DO failed, because of it’s “poor quality game library“.
This doesn’t make sense either. Back in 1993-94 I was so impressed by just seeing pictures or videos of 3DO’s games. Games like: Madden Football, FiFa Soccer, Slam in jam, Shockwave, Crash and Burn, Return Fire, Way of the Warrior, Need for speed, Road Rash, Samurai Showdown, Slayer, Gex, Total Eclipse, Alone in the Dark, Myst, Escape from monster manner, Wolfenstein, Star Fighter, Wing commander, and Killing Time. All of these games; plus others were really impressive back in 1993-94ish.

When people say "poor quality game library", they're usually not referring to a lack of good games, but an abundance of high profile bad games.

Not to mention, that many of 3DO’s games were pc titles. Games that required a $2000-2500 computer to play. Even if you bought the 3DO at $700 it still was ¼ the price of a computer. I played many cool Pc games on my 3DO that would of cost me thousands of dollars to play on the PC. Some games were actual better on the 3DO then the computer.

The majority of people who would even consider buying a gaming console already own a PC. So "Does it make more sense to buy a 3DO or a PC?" wasn't even a question for most people - either you already had a PC, or you couldn't afford either a 3DO or a PC. And even if the question came up, the PC's countless non-gaming applications means the 3DO wouldn't stand a chance. It'd be like buying surround sound speakers instead of a kitchen table.

Also, many of 3DO’s exclusive titles were ported over to the PC, Playstation, Saturn, and even the arcade.
Yep, that’s right “the arcade“. Way Of the Warrior was actual at some arcades back then. (http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detai ... e_id=10416). How could the 3DO have bad exclusive games when every other system wanted a port of them. It’s usual the other way around, consoles want ports of PC/arcade games; not vice versa.

The consoles don't decide which ports they get; the publishers of the games do. And whether or not the publisher ports the game is determined by one factor only: whether or not they think the port will sell. The quality of the game has nothing to do with it. After all, you wouldn't say that Corpse Killer or Courier Crisis are great games just because they got ported to so many systems, would you?

Playstation: according to the Wikipedia has 2,418 games!!! LOL I couldn’t believe that. I can only think of maybe 20-30 games that I enjoyed on the Playstation. I mean out of nearly 2,500 games and I only can remember 25 or so being good. That’s really sad.

Are you really saying that you've played all 2,418 PlayStation games? You must be the biggest Sony fanatic around.

The other reason of 3DO’s Downfall was retail locations. It was actual hard to find a store that sold 3DOs back then. Our Bestbuy, Cirrcuit City, Sears, and even Toy’s R Us didn’t have them. We eventually found 3DO at Babbage’s Software in the local mall. Also, we had to order some of the games out of 3DO catalog, because the store didn’t sell every game. How can someone be interested in a Video game system when nobody sells them? Jaguar was the same way, very few stores carried them. Also, almost nobody rented games for 3DO or Jaguar. Having games and systems to rent at Blockbuster would have been a huge sales increase for both companies.

Limited distribution and lack of consumer awareness is more of an effect than a cause, I believe. The 3DO was pretty well-hyped up until at least launch, but without good initial sales, one can't fund a broader advertising campaign. (Since you seem to accept anecdotal evidence, my brother remembers hearing about the 3DO even though he never had any interest in buying one.) This is the typical domino effect; pretty much every gaming console in history has, in each region that it was released in, sold either very well or very poorly. Few fall in between.

[Austin]

^ Well said, well said.

[ArfredHitchcacku]

Why the 3DO failed is a really good question, especially for anyone interested in the gaming market, how it's changed and how it differs from other media markets. Long story short, 3DO didn't really know their own system. It wasn't simply marketed as a video game system but as an Interactive Multimedia Player. Best case scenario, 3DO was hoping for more software along the lines of Woody the Woodpecker, 20th Century Video Almanac, and Kamachi's Museum...It never happened. But because of their stressing as the 3DO as a Multimedia device, in many ways the internal business structure was different: You see, most video game systems kind of give the system out as a freebie, usually around 250 bucks at launch, where the makers of the system don't profit much from the system itself but rather royalty rates game developers need to pay in order to make a game for the platform: should the game sell well, it's a win-win situation. However, since the 3DO was expected to have an enormous software library with great games and Multimedia CDs, it was sold more like a VHS or Laserdisc player of the time: That is to say, the makers of the hardware would profit from the hardware itself, thus the initial 700 dollar pricetag. This is also why Laserdisc Players and VHS Players sold better: Even though in some cases were they more expensive people knew the library they were getting: a seemingly endless supply of movies to watch at home. At the time it wasn't clear if the 3DO would have the same entertainment value in terms of non or barely interactive media, and as it turns out the best games are the standard interactive ones you'd expect from a 32-Bit game.

But of course while the 3DO even for the time had a pretty nice game library most logically didn't see it worth the 700 dollar pricetag especially since anyone interested in a fancy new game system probably was loaded with at least a Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis to begin with, and as much as I love the thing I don't see its failure as a tragedy. By the time the price was reasonable the Playstation and Sega Saturn were on their way/out to the market for the same price and a more promising library given the already great reputation of those companies.

Maybe a lot of things here I have said can be debated, but the point of this post is to give a basic idea for the 3DO's failure.

[3DOKid]

I think the main issue with 3DO's failure was that people didn't understand what it was.

3DO was supposed to be a standard, not an appliance. Essentially, you would have Panasonic, LG, AT&T and Toshiba 3DO's all complying with the 3DO Standard, LICENSING the hardware from 3DO and then in opposition 'Sony' Playstation and 'Sega' saturn, appliances. Matsushita (the umbrella group that included Panasonic at the time) could have eaten Sony and Sega for lunch, they were twice the size of Sony for instance, but because 3DO wasn't their idea as such, and it was a new market for Panasonic, they didn't attack the market with all barrels.

Also, the 3DOs 'standard' approach meant you weren't, as a company, master of your own destiny. Panasonic for instance, had a softly-softly approach to marketing and support for 3DO, 3DO on the other sort of assumed, i believe, Panasonic (Matsushita at the time) would run head long into the 3DO dream. They didn't.

3DO kind of expected everyone (panasonic, LG, etc) to make money from selling games, and 3DO would make money from hardware licenses. But it ended up a chicken and egg scenario where 3DO waited for Panasonic to make games, and Pansonic waited for 3DO to sell loads of hardware. one doesn't happen without the other.

I think 3DO recognised it wasn't working in lots of ways, but by then it was too late. 3DO started churning out some cracking titles for 3DO under the 3DO Studio Banner, but it was too late. The PlayStation, Dolphin and Saturn juggernauts marketing whisper campaigns were in full effect, and 3DO was doomed.

As for the Playstation? The PS1 was a phenomenal machine in many respects. Every mistake 3DO made, Sony made note of and learned. 20 years ago, PS1 did to the market, what the Wii did 7 years ago. I can certainly rack up a list of 100 PS1 titles that are worth hunting down. These systems are 20 years old. Let's not let Internet Fanboi-ism lose track of history

[Sham66]

" Are you really saying that you've played all 2,418 PlayStation games? You must be the biggest Sony fanatic around."

LOL...no course not. It's just if someone asked me "How many games do you think Playstation had?" "How many games do you think 3DO had?"

I think my response would be: "Well considering the ones I'd played and the ones I remember being advertised or seeing at the store; etc maybe 100 for 3DO and 500 for Playstation."

3DO has like 200. Okay... that seems about right.
Playstation has like 2500. ????????

What are these other 2000 Playstation games? It's liked they never existed. Did they make 20 versions of each game or something?

[Austin]

That's most likely 2,000 across all of the regions it was available. So split that three ways or so if you want to account for the games released in your region. Still, that's a great chunk of titles as it is.

[k1ngarth3r]

When first read about the 3DO pre-launch I was still using a snes and to see games like Mad Dog McCree being advertised made it a must have system for me.

Unfortunately the price of the system was to much and I wasnt allowed one.

When the price finally came down to a realistic price the Sony Playstation was out and that simply did a whole lot more with games like Ridge Racer and so on.

[bitrate]

3DO has like 200. Okay... that seems about right.

Not to nitpick, but 3DO has over 360 released/licensed titles.

[Martin III]

Long story short, 3DO didn't really know their own system. It wasn't simply marketed as a video game system but as an Interactive Multimedia Player. Best case scenario, 3DO was hoping for more software along the lines of Woody the Woodpecker, 20th Century Video Almanac, and Kamachi's Museum...It never happened. But because of their stressing as the 3DO as a Multimedia device, in many ways the internal business structure was different: You see, most video game systems kind of give the system out as a freebie, usually around 250 bucks at launch, where the makers of the system don't profit much from the system itself but rather royalty rates game developers need to pay in order to make a game for the platform: should the game sell well, it's a win-win situation. However, since the 3DO was expected to have an enormous software library with great games and Multimedia CDs, it was sold more like a VHS or Laserdisc player of the time: That is to say, the makers of the hardware would profit from the hardware itself, thus the initial 700 dollar pricetag. This is also why Laserdisc Players and VHS Players sold better: Even though in some cases were they more expensive people knew the library they were getting: a seemingly endless supply of movies to watch at home. At the time it wasn't clear if the 3DO would have the same entertainment value in terms of non or barely interactive media, and as it turns out the best games are the standard interactive ones you'd expect from a 32-Bit game.

This is a far more comprehensive and well-worded summary of the problem with the 3DO being handled as a multimedia system than I could have come up with. Nice explanation.

I think another major reason for the 3DO's commercial failure is that it came in that awkward time between console generations. It's the time when most gamers bought their old generation consoles too recently to give them up for a new generation console, and when more advanced new generation consoles are due to arrive in a year or two. The Jaguar and Dreamcast suffered the same problem.

Not to nitpick, but 3DO has over 360 released/licensed titles.

You know, I think this is the first time I've seen an actual figure for the 3DO's library of titles. Amazing to think that it has nearly 100 more titles than the Saturn (my fave console) has Western releases, even if it makes perfect sense in light of 3DO's liberal licensing policy.

[3DO Experience]

Not counting Samplers, alternates & the Guru I have 173 individual USA titles alone. Plus there are tons of Japanese ones many I'll never even own. And the elusive Korean only games, of which I've been able to get three out of four with one alternate. Bitrate is still managing to get titles that weren't even sure to exist (ie. Ekiden) so if anyone has an idea of the full number of titles out there it would be him.

[ArfredHitchcacku]

You know, I think this is the first time I've seen an actual figure for the 3DO's library of titles. Amazing to think that it has nearly 100 more titles than the Saturn (my fave console) has Western releases, even if it makes perfect sense in light of 3DO's liberal licensing policy.

Thanks. You know, that's the very reason I went and bought a Japanese Sega Saturn off of eBay instead of an American one: Action Replay 4-in 1s can run about 50 bucks and honestly what good American exclusives are there? The only one I can think off hand his Duke Nukem 3D and maybe some American games are more common on eBay but comparing the Japanese Sega Saturn library to the American is like comparing the Atari 2600's library to the Magnavox Odyssey 2's...The Sega Saturn may the greatest game system of all time but I'm not sure I would say that looking at the American library alone!

[Austin]

There are a lot of great games in the US Saturn library.

And for a lot of ones that were also released in Japan, um.. They come in a language most here can actually understand.

[JohnnyDude]

I'd finished testing the remainder of the untested games for 4DO's compatibility list (http://wiki.fourdo.com/index.php?title= ... ility_List), so I got a pretty good taste of the game variety for 3DO. By the way, if someone wants to test the adult games for me, I'd appreciate it.

Some would say that FMV were the death of the console. Honestly, I thought the FMV games weren't the worst part. A lot of them were pretty darned inventive. I liked them at the time and even today I don't seem jaded by ones I'd never played before. Well, except Wacky Races; good god what a bad game.

Frankly, in my testing spree, it was the sports games that drove me mad. They're all the same, dammit. I really started to hate the routine: Start game. Choose exhibition. Choose team. Fumble with the controls to find the 2 buttons that matter. Play with anxious desire for the clock to hurry up and end the game. Anyway, dull cookie-cutter sports games didn't kill 3DO either. Those games only attracted the vapid casual gamers of the past that have evolved into the halo and call of duty gerbils of today (I now call these the "tailgater gamers" just because I judgmentally imagine these people raving about going tailgating and/or gettin' hammered).

I really doubt the game quality killed it. Like others pointed out a lot of consoles have awful amounts of cruft in their library, and 3DO is not notably worse. I would have to agree that it was a market folley that killed 3DO. Even so, it lasted longer than a lot of flops out there, so it wasn't really a failure. Just more a B-list console.

[ArfredHitchcacku]

I'd finished testing the remainder of the untested games for 4DO's compatibility list (http://wiki.fourdo.com/index.php?title= ... ility_List), so I got a pretty good taste of the game variety for 3DO. By the way, if someone wants to test the adult games for me, I'd appreciate it.

Some would say that FMV were the death of the console. Honestly, I thought the FMV games weren't the worst part. A lot of them were pretty darned inventive. I liked them at the time and even today I don't seem jaded by ones I'd never played before. Well, except Wacky Races; good god what a bad game.

Frankly, in my testing spree, it was the sports games that drove me mad. They're all the same, dammit. I really started to hate the routine: Start game. Choose exhibition. Choose team. Fumble with the controls to find the 2 buttons that matter. Play with anxious desire for the clock to hurry up and end the game. Anyway, dull cookie-cutter sports games didn't kill 3DO either. Those games only attracted the vapid casual gamers of the past that have evolved into the halo and call of duty gerbils of today (I now call these the "tailgater gamers" just because I judgmentally imagine these people raving about going tailgating and/or gettin' hammered).

I really doubt the game quality killed it. Like others pointed out a lot of consoles have awful amounts of cruft in their library, and 3DO is not notably worse. I would have to agree that it was a market folley that killed 3DO. Even so, it lasted longer than a lot of flops out there, so it wasn't really a failure. Just more a B-list console.

OK we're getting off-topic now, but I've noticed that a disc image of Furopon the Space Mutant can't be found online (I've searched for a while) so recently I've dug up a copy on evilbay for myself, do you want me to test it or send you an image of it?

[Martin III]

Some would say that FMV were the death of the console. Honestly, I thought the FMV games weren't the worst part. A lot of them were pretty darned inventive. I liked them at the time and even today I don't seem jaded by ones I'd never played before. Well, except Wacky Races; good god what a bad game.

I dunno, I get the sense that the most high profile FMV games on the 3DO, like Mad Dog McCree and The Daedalus Encounter, weren't well-received. Personally I think Encounter looks pretty cool and am looking forward to getting it, but the impression I get is that typical gamers don't like it.

There are a lot of great games in the US Saturn library.

And for a lot of ones that were also released in Japan, um.. They come in a language most here can actually understand.

Yeah, and even ignoring language, in some cases the USA version is better than the Japanese version. Astal is a good example: The Japanese version gives you a whopping five health points! This pretty much removes any challenge from the game besides jumping over pits, which is no doubt why the localization team dropped it to three points. Admittedly there are very few USA exclusives on the Saturn, and the only good one I know of is World Series Baseball '98, but there's still an outstanding Saturn library available to those who don't import.

By the way, Arfred, Duke Nukem 3D actually isn't a USA-exclusive. It got a PAL release: http://www.segasaturn.co.uk/games/sega_saturn_pal.html

[JohnnyDude]

OK we're getting off-topic now, but I've noticed that a disc image of Furopon the Space Mutant can't be found online (I've searched for a while) so recently I've dug up a copy on evilbay for myself, do you want me to test it or send you an image of it?

Actually I think I have an image. I skipped over a lot of the Japanese ones, so that list is not ENTIRELY complete. Is it "Furopon World"?

[JohnnyDude]

Some would say that FMV were the death of the console. Honestly, I thought the FMV games weren't the worst part. A lot of them were pretty darned inventive. I liked them at the time and even today I don't seem jaded by ones I'd never played before. Well, except Wacky Races; good god what a bad game.

I dunno, I get the sense that the most high profile FMV games on the 3DO, like Mad Dog McCree and The Daedalus Encounter, weren't well-received. Personally I think Encounter looks pretty cool and am looking forward to getting it, but the impression I get is that typical gamers don't like it.

Oh heck yeah, Daedalus Encounter is good stuff. It's not terribly action packed, but it's smooth sailing (except for the maze part).

[Trev]

Oh heck yeah, Daedalus Encounter is good stuff. It's not terribly action packed, but it's smooth sailing (except for the maze part).

Indeed, I hated the maze!

[Martin III]

Hmm... I love mazes. Maybe Deadalus Encounter really is the 3DO game for me!

[3DO Experience]

Blow your brains out.... err... I mean knock your self out. Not that this part of the game would make you want to kill yourself, no no, even with a cheat guide. Fraking mazes are hopeless.

[spiffyone]

You said your 3DO was a Goldstar; I don't think the other 3DO models dropped their price that quickly.

Actually, they did:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/3DO+INTER ... a014828332

The Panasonic model hit $499 around the time, or slightly before, the Goldstar model was launched.

I forget when both the Panasonic and Goldstar models hit $399, but it must've been either late '94 or early '95, because I do know that by late summer/Fall '95, during the first E3, prices for 3DO dropped to $299 or so with a few games. The $399 price point also came with some games.

Moreover, the impression I get is that people tended to think of the 3DO as a Panasonic console, and thus the Goldstar might well have been looked upon as a cheap knockoff by the average consumer.

Yep. Even now most people think of the 3DO system as a Panasonic made system rather than a system designed by The 3DO Company (well, technically Needle and Mical at NTG, who then partnered/were bought into The 3DO Company).

And that's just a sign of the market model/business strategy issue with the system. As others have stated, and I agree with, the business strategy used was one that was likely to fail. When the manufacturers don't get a cut of software royalties and have to pay a licensing fee to even manufacture the hardware, they're going to want to make money off of the sales of that hardware. That led to the early $699 price point on the Panasonic FZ-1 at launch, and that sunk the console's hopes. You only get to make one first impression, and the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer created the impression of being a "rich man's system", and it never shook that impression even after the price drops.

Just because a low price tag doesn't guarantee good sales doesn't mean that price is completely irrelevant to a console's sales. And actually, $250 was a considerable sum back in 1993. There's an interview with Traimel where he admits that the Jaguar's launch price probably was too high for many potential buyers.

Apparently they wanted to launch at $199, but Atari was so strapped for cash they simply couldn't take that much of a loss. They were apparently selling the hardware for profit from the get go, hence the $250 price.

The majority of people who would even consider buying a gaming console already own a PC.

Nowadays this is true. Back then, however, it most certainly was not.

Remember that part of the consumer market for home game consoles is on the lower end of the economic spectrum, and those consumers, in '93, were unlikely to own a PC in their homes (if they did have a home computer, it most likely was an older one). In addition, '93 in particular was actually pre-internet explosion, pre-Windows '95, when PCs went from that thing one uses at work, to something of a home appliance (an idea that Apple has taken to the nth degree) for even the common man.

Remember that prices kept PCs for a long while out of the hands of the mass market, middle class (and by that I mean folks in the mid level and lower middle class). Consoles appealed and were purchased by those sectors.

either you already had a PC, or you couldn't afford either a 3DO or a PC.

And that was the issue with 3DO.

It wasn't like NES or SMS or Genesis or SNES that all aunched at or around $199. The strategy/business model used was different, and it was that strategy that sunk it.

Had The 3DO Company done with the 3DO Multiplayer chipset what Hudson Soft did with the TG16/PC Engine chipset and simply sold it to a large manufacturer alongside their support, we likely would be playing 3DO MZ or something right now. In Hudson Soft's case they sold to NEC, and in 3DO's case I think the best bet would've been to have sold the rights to the tech outright to Matsushita/Panasonic alongside their software and software support services (for a fee, of course). The 3DO Company would've gotten money, Panasonic would've been getting software royalties from the jump (and maybe, if they were smart, The 3DO Company could've gotten a small cut of those royalties alongside their software support fee, as well as a waiver on paying Panasonic any fees on their own software).

But, of course, that wasn't the model used. The 3DO Company wanted to make the tech as ubiquitous as VHS...but it was never going to work.

Limited distribution and lack of consumer awareness is more of an effect than a cause, I believe. The 3DO was pretty well-hyped up until at least launch, but without good initial sales, one can't fund a broader advertising campaign.

And that was also an issue of the model used.

The 3DO Company, in order to get the manufacturers to lower price, had to offer stock in the company to those manufacturers, as well as a cut on royalties on software. That meant raising the fee that 3rd party software developers would have to pay (which they weren't happy about, especially the way Trip handled things via a fax). And in order to make things work, they had to get folks more interested in the hardware at those newer price points, which meant more advertising, which was an express part of the reason for the higher software royalty fees.

Basically, The 3DO Company was trying to stem the flow of blood from a self inflicted wound that was their initial market plan. As long as they tried to follow that plan, they weren't going to make.

It was a flawed business model, not a flawed system, or even that much of a flawed time to bring out the system per se, because in '94 Saturn and PS1 launched, and that would've been too late unless they redesigned the system to be more competitive with those products. Had that system been released at the same time but under the standard business model used in the console industry, at a price point of $299 or so (Matsushita could've been aggressive on price if they had been making money off of software), 3DO might've been PS1 before PS1 was even released.[/url]