The Panasonic 3DO

Our gaming hobby might be movie like in this day and age, but it is because of consoles pushing the limits by outclassing each other with each new generation that this industry evolves so quickly. Some of you have been with us since the Atari 2600 days in the 70’s and some might have only joined recently without any knowledge of where it all started. Come back every week, as we will be looking at each console and what exactly it did that made us buy into it and how it helped the industry to become the monster we know and enjoy today.

Panasonic 3DO

Intro:

The 32bit systems were just about to launch but Panasonic had other plans. In 1993, just before the end of the 16bit era, Panasonic announced the first true 32bit system. This console would run off the CD format and would have lifelike graphics with crystal clear sound. With Nintendo and SEGA all securing some great first party titles, the 3DO really had to come up with their own ideas. With the founder of the 3DO being Trip Hawkins (Founder of EA Games we know today) it was obvious that this console would host all EA published games, making it essentially an EA console with several PC ports.

Look and Design:

This was probably the first console to look decent when sitting next to your television and amplifier. It was relatively large, but had some style attached to it, and instead of cartridges we now had CD’s which meant a CD tray would be in place with a power and eject button being the only buttons needed. Later on another version was released to save costs (now including Goldstar and Sanyo as well) with a flip lid (like that of the PlayStation 1) and losing some of its stellar looks. Something that looked a bit weird on the console would be that it hosted only one controller port!

The controller looked very similar to the design of the SEGA MegaDrive controller but had two shoulder buttons like that of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System controller and was in fact one of the best controllers designed to this day. It had, what is probably still second to none, the best D-Pad and the buttons were very soft when pressed. Everything on this controller just felt so right. However, we are still sitting with the “one controller port” problem.

Remember, this was 1993 and multitaps had not yet become a standard (even though the SEGA MegaDrive was the first to test it out). Panasonic came up with an amazing plan – why not just make a controller port on each controller, which would plug into one another and therefore only have one controller port on the system itself. Great idea, but try to play with three other friends twisting their hands while playing a racing game and pulling yours out of your hand at the same time. It was a great idea, but when put into practice really did not work.

The Games:

The 3DO will most probably be remembered for dodgy PC ports: Alone in the Dark, Myst and Star Control to name but a few. But given that each console normally produces some great titles, there were at least some that ended up great and one specific game that was so popular that it is still one of the biggest selling franchises today.

Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Gex and Road Rash were all some of the best titles on any platform with Street Fighter 2 Turbo being most probably the best conversion of that game to date.

But there is one title that stood head and shoulders above the rest as it made its debut on this console – Need for Speed. In 1994 there was nothing that even came close to the realism of this racing game that had you race some of the world’s most envied super cars. It was truly the first racing game in households to look anything like the racers in arcades, and as we know now the Need for Speed franchise is still going very, very strong.

Add Ons:

Like most of the consoles there was a lightgun eventually released which played with a few games. However, it was nothing worth getting excited about as Nintendo had already made the most of it with the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Overall:

From launch day it has been a very tough time for the 3DO indeed. With a price point of $699 at launch ($100 more than the cost of the PS3 at launch) it was given a blow right out of the gates and only sold to a mere two million people worldwide, making it a very rare console in modern times. With the might of the big guns with SEGA and Nintendo’s next generation consoles it was also putting loads of pressure on this project and with the release of the PS1 it was pretty much the end to all really.

If you missed the first five weeks of the series, check out the Atari 2600, NES, Sega Master System, SEGA Mega Drive and SNES.