Ever see this game system?  

Wasnt the 3D0 released around the same time as the Saturn and ps1?

For $699 you could own a 3DO in 1993. The motorcycle game is probably Road Rage, that for its day was nothing short of amazing.

http://www.classicgaming.com/museum/3do/

I bought a 3D0 back in 1994. Ancient. I believe it was one of the first 32bit systems released. At the time it looks decent, but it failed quickly. I played the original Need for Speed on the 3D0. It was awesome.

One of my housemates had a 3D0 back in the mid 90's. Expensive and ahead of its time, but a fun system. One of the few I DON'T have myself.

Ah, yes...the 3DO, home to the greatest "game" of all time, Plumbers Don't Wear Ties! Play it, if you dare... ;)

3DO probably my favorite system of them all. I picked it up after the price dropped to $399. The thing was awesome. Madden, Need for SPeed, Total Eclipse, Crash n Burn and of course Road Rash just to name a few of my favorites!!!!!!

"Road Rash" was the one game I could get my non-gamer buddies to play, and they haven't liked anything else ( as much ) since. None of the subsequent "Road Rash" games were nearly as good as the original.

3DO was made by either Panasonic or goldstar. I had the Panasonic one, you guys forgot about the greatest 3do game ever return fire!! man i bet i put straight weeks on that game with friends, road rash was also good and it had music videos on it if you left it alone for 10 min or so so very trippy videos hahaha.

What made the 3DO unique was that panasonic wanted to liscence the system so other companies would also make it and it would become the standard. While it was a solid piece of hardware the high price is ultimately what killed it.

I loved my 3DO. I bought it in '94 or '95 over a Sony Playstation on the premise that Matsushita (Panasonic) had just spent something like $22 million on the 64 bit technology that would be in the new 3DO's, as well as offered as an upgrade on existing machines. Pretty amazing for 1994-95 ish. As I understand it, the 3DO company started getting a little too greedy and Panasonic and Goldstar dropped the whole system. What a shame.

LMFAO you said return fire....man dude I can still hear that music in my head to this day......

Star Control II man, its a must play. Ah what fond memeories. Yeah its old as dirt, but several of its games where better than when same games came out on the PS1. Gex,Need For Speed,wing commander, Space Hulk(er least i think thats what it was called), all where 10 times better on the 3DO than the PS1.

3DO was actually co-developed by the founder of Electronic Arts. He actually LEFT electronic arts to make the system. Bet he regrets that now.

I guess at one time, EA considered building there own console, when the company as a whole decided not to, the founder left to do it while the company focused on other things (namely yearly updates to football games)

Trip Hawkins.......and 3DO was a viable company up until a few years ago I think....they were responsible for all of those ARMY MEN guys, with the little green soldiers. Terrible games for themost part but I think they sold well enough to keep cranking them out.

The 3D0 wasn't really in the era of the Playstation.....what made the 3DO so special was that it came out when the SNES and GENESIS were waging war, and of course it just was in a league above both of them. Technically it was competing with Jaguar, since everyone already had a Genesis, SNES or TurboGrafX system at that point.

I also remember Phillips trying to do something with that CD32 system at the same time (An Amiga computer in Home Console form)......but that never took off here in the States....

If you don't count the SegaCD add on for Genesis, the 3DO has the distinction of being the first CD ROM media based video game system on the mass market.

I bought the Panasonic 3DO around 1993-1994. I sold it a few years later. I wish I hadn't...

...And I thought *everyone* reading the gaming forum would know the History of Home Videogaming ;) :

From the Book Of Videogaming (sega) Genesis:

Pong begat the Fairchild Channel F begat Atari VCS/2600 begat Intellivision begat Colecovision/Atari 5200 begat NES/SMS/Atari 7800 begat SNES/Genesis/Turbografix begat SegaCD/3DO/CDI begat PS1/N64/Sega Saturn begat Sega Dreamcast begat Xbox/Ps2.

.....hmmmm......I think the phillips CD=I was the first system to be soley based on CD-ROM, but you could certainly say that 3DO was the first system to really push the technology forward on a mass scale, since I think only 3 guys bought the CD-I :)

The story on the Amiga CD-32 is a very interesting one, I just looked it up myself! How the system was going to have a decent future but the US Government stopped allowing its import due to the parent company owing $$$ for a previous patent violation and such...........

Count me as one of the 3 buyers! Thanks for reminding me. I wish I still had my Philips CDI and Panasonic 3DO- two collectible pieces of video gaming history.

This thread is reminding me of the Home Videogaming Renaissance that occurred between the Age of Genesis/SNES and the Age of PS1, circa 1993-1995.

It was an interesting time, with ground breaking experiments like the CDi, 3DO, and SegaCD. I even had the MPEG1 cartridge for the CDi machine, enabling playback of VideoCD movies, which were sold during that time at Best Buy! These were the first digital optical video movies on the market, predating DVDs by several years. Yes, they were only MPEG1 352x240 resolution, but coupled with the MPEG digital sound on a 27" TV, they looked and sounded great for the day, better than VHS and better than many LaserDiscs. I had Top Gun on commercial VideoCD. I watched and demoed it a lot on the CDi machine around 1994-1995.

I even had the ultimate Uber-Geek item- the 3DO-on-a-card from Creative Labs, introduced around the time of the stand alone system.

This 3DO expansion card was an ISA card with a complete hardware 3DO system on board. It had its own controller ports, but used the PC's CD ROM drive to load the 3DO game discs. Another unusual piece of video gaming history I wish I'd kept.

See it
http://www.heimcomputer.de/english/k.../3doblast.html

The independance and creativity of the games on the CDi and 3DO have been lost in the big business, factory assembly-line like production of games development today, which emphasizes flashy licenses like "NFL" and simple stats/celebrity updates year over year rather than better, original gameplay or improved game physics or strategy.

I think the Turbo Grafx 16 CD was the frist cd system. And it did push the limits of the times. I still remember saying that maybe one day games would look like the cut-scenes in Y's book I and II. I didn't think they would ever look much better than that. Boy was I wrong. Thank GOD.

hmmm....wasn't the TurboGrafx 16 CD an add on? Cuz the TurboGrafx 16 system that hit around the same time as SNES and Genesis used cards for its games (I owned one for awhile, I remember being amazed at the time how small the system actually was...m.ost of the case was simply an add-on "wire management" shell that snapped on the back of it.

I still have my original 3DO. I remember playing the games felt like glimpsing into the future (which in a way, it was). The original Need for Speed was my favorite - amazing game for the time.

It's crazy thinking back on it: I paid $500 for the system and the games were $70 a pop!

It was always a niche gaming platform, and when Playstation 1 came out, 3DO stuff disappeared almost immediately.

If you're thinking about picking one up instead of buying a modern console, I wouldn't recommend it. I hooked up my old 3DO a few months ago and checked out Need for Speed. You've got no analog control, 15 fps frame rate, sub-PS1 visuals, and gameplay that has been surpassed for a very long time. The system was way ahead of its time, but we've come a LONG way since then.

It was what $799 or something new when it first came out. That $500 is after a serious price drop. Which now is plain funny. Can you imagine...well some of us clearly dont have to imagine we rememeber breaking our wallets to get one.

I paid $299 or 399 for my Goldstar 3do. Fifa soccer is also a very good game. But Return Fire and Road Rash are the best.

Turbo Grafx 16 CD was an add-on. But the Turbo DUO was a one piece unit with both CD and card. Not sure which came out first, DUO or 3DO. Either way, it was still a cd system.

One of the sad things about being into home game consoles today is that, for the most part, the "magic" is gone in the industry.

I mean, not for little kids for whom every new thing looks better than before,
but in alot of ways the games we are playing today are just going to be incrementally better than they were before. Games like Gran Tourismo 4 are showing us graphics that are pretty jaw-dropping......they'll get better, sure, but I'm not so sure the future wow-factor will quite be there......more cars, more objects onscreen, better shading and shadowing and such..all very important yes, but......leaps and bounds better? Hmm...I dunno...

Still, It sure is a long way from playing those old Atari black and white racing games.....Atari Sprint rules!!!

Everyone forgot the Neo Geo! Now that was a piece of hardware and the games were the size of your 16-bit console.

The Neo Geo, where even today a 10+ year old cartridge will cost you hundreds. Better to get a GunCon and just plug an actual JAMMA board into your TV........

Cartridges the size of VHS tapes ;)

I remember seeing the Neo Geo at Electronics Boutique back in like 1989 or so, and the price on their "clone" of Hang On was like $300 bucks for the cartridge alone. Back then $300 bucks may as well have been $3 Million to me.

Today? Thank God For MAME :)

The Neo Geo is one of the best 2D systems of all time. I own a Japanese AES system and American NGCD system. BTW, I lucked into my 3DO for CHEAP! $15 for the system with two controllers and 15 games