The 3DO is a console that will go down in gaming history as a blueprint for what not to do, but to the people who actually bought it will be remembered as a fun toy that they probably loved. The 3DO was originally thought up by Trip Hawkins the founder of EA. He wanted to make a console that could be made by a manufacture threw a licensing agreement and there forth have no designated model that must be followed when I comes to actual console shape design. Allowing multiple models would supposedly give the consumer more choices, but most peoples ended up getting the one that came with the game they thought would be the best. The ideas behind the 3DO where sound make a console that could be easily manufactured, be a CD player, a home entertainment system and a PC all in one and allow third party developers to push new technology like wireless controllers and DVD remote style controllers, but the execution was a true failure.
The three versions of 3DO launched on September 15 1993 for $699.95 making it way more expensive then either the SNES or the Sega Genesis witch were $199.99 and $149.99 respectively. Each console version looked different, but cost the same and came with two controllers the only real difference between the three version was the bundled in games the Panasonic version came with Dragons Lair a VMV game that was nothing but hitting the right buttons at the right time to make sure that the on screen animated hero didn't die the game was extremely hard because it was a direct port of the arcade version witch was designed to milk you for all the quarters you had. The Sanyo version came with Myst a game that would later go down in history as one of the greatest games ever, but at the time was not well know causing no impact in sales. The Goldstar version came packed in with what was arguably the best game of the bunch Crash n Burn a violent racing game that really showed off the 3DOs 3D and cinematic graphical abilities compared to the other consoles that where out at the time.
The fact that the 3DO launched with 15 other launch titles may look good, but of all the non-bundle games that launched with it Space Harrier was the only one that actually looked like it had to be on the 3DO. All the other games looked like they could have being done on the SNES or Genesis and in fact some of them were actually nothing but ports with some minor changes. Games like Sewer Shark, Corpse killer, Ground Zero: Texas and Jurassic park had all being done before (and arguably better) on the Sega CD. At launch the next batch of games were still a month away and they didn't look any better then what they already had 12 games that were all either ports or 2D games that really didn't look like they were made for a system with this king of processing power (the processors were actually a powerful and expensive mix of ARM and Intel Processors). The one surprisingly esculent game to come out of this mix was Gex a 2D side scrolling game that was made with the same technology used to make Donkey Kong Country's amazing 3D look.
Eventually the 3DO did get some very good games that actually worked with the consoles processing power instead of treating it like it was just another 16-bit console. We got games like Total Eclipse, Killing Time, Road Rash, Samurai Showdown and unarguably best version of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo.
In the end the 3DO was a failed concept that was destroyed by mainstream consoles like the N64, Sega Saturn and Playstation, If anyone who reads this actually bought or still owns a 3DO good for you, as for me its still one of my favorite consoles.
