The Story of 3DO -- The PLAYSTATION Before the PlayStation
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- Embark on a journey through the history of the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, a groundbreaking gaming console that promised to redefine multimedia entertainment in the early 1990s. Developed by The 3DO Company and led by visionary entrepreneur Trip Hawkins, the 3DO aimed to revolutionize home gaming with its 32-bit architecture, innovative hardware features, and a licensing model intended to attract game developers. From its ambitious $699 launch price to its multimedia capabilities and a library of titles like "Road Rash", "Need for Speed", and "Wing Commander III", the 3DO made a bold attempt to compete against industry giants like Nintendo and Sega.
Despite its advanced technology and initial hype, the 3DO faced challenges such as a crowded market, limited game availability at launch, and a business model that proved unsustainable. This documentary explores the rise and fall of this ambitious console, the creative games it brought to life, and its influence on gaming history. Whether you're a retro gaming enthusiast or curious about the evolution of video game consoles, this deep dive into the 3DO era offers fascinating insights into one of the gaming industry's most daring endeavors.
Thank you @liquidsnk ( / @liquidsnk ) for 3DO footage.
#3DO #EAgames #GamingHistory #VideoGames #RetroTech #90sNostalgia #retroconsole #retrogaming #retrogames #consolegaming #consolegameplay #homebrew
You seem to add that little bit of extra history on all your videos, that so many other creators lack. Keep it up.
AI comment bot meets AI content creator
3DO is a POWER HOUSE no need to compare PlayStation & SATURN
Bought one a week ago, from Japan. It arrived today. I recapped it, replaced the battery, and installed an ODE. I've got a retro-GEM kit pre-ordered and will install that once it arrives.
I can still remember drooling over pictures of M2 software in an EGM magazine. Thanks for the upload.!
Same. I probably still have that issue.
@@zigzagtoes I have a giant box of EGM’s. I’m sure I have it too. Haha!
I attended a special presentation at my local Virgin Megastore where they just played the tech demos on a big screen. It was exciting times. Those early M2 demos remind me how the N64 and Dreamcast turned out. My 3DO ended up having problems reading discs. I was about 13 at the time, and sold my Amiga & Monitor to buy it. I loved all-nighters with friends, Return Fire, Samurai Showdown, NFS, Road Rash...
Still have mine from late 1993. Just broke up with my gf at the time. As a broke 23 year old I didn’t have the money for it so I put the $699 on the credit card. Loved every minute of playing it since then though.
I was one of those 100K that bought the 3DO in it's first year in the U.S. I loved it until the cheaper versions were released. It taught me to stop being one of the first in line to buy electronics. It has served me well too and saved me thousands. The 3DO had the best looking version of Madden until NFL2K was released on the Dreamcast which was the last console I bought at launch. I loved Need for speed and Road Rash on the 3DO. There were a lot of games I loved from the 3DO. It was just ahead of it's time like the Dreamcast was. The Dreamcast is my favorite console of all time but the 3DO is a close second.
It was interesting to learn about the history of this system. I was lucky enough to receive a 3DO FZ-1 for Christmas in 1994 when I was 12. I was ecstatic! I enjoyed it for many years. Some of my favorite games included The Need for Speed, Road Rash, Alone in the Dark, The Life Stage, and Return Fire. I was well into my teens when the 3DO was discontinued, but I recall feeling heartbroken, like an era was coming to an end, along with my childhood. It was still my favorite console. I didn't move on from it until around 1999 when I bought a Playstation One when they were priced under $200. The games were objectively better, but they just didn't have the same appeal for me that the 3DO had. Then in the early 2000s, missing my 3DO, I bought a used one off of eBay. Unfortunately, that unit only lasted about 1 year before it intermittently stopped reading CDs like my first system. Somewhere around 2005, I sold my half-working console and all of my games, along with a gaming magazine that I bought in 1994 featuring an article about the 3DO and Trip Hawkins. I still have good memories of playing Alone in the Dark with my older sister who has since passed away.
I only had a 3do because my older sisters boyfriend left it at our place when he went to usmc boot camp. This console deserved a bigger following. Decent number of good games and then it also had a great trippy eyecandy function when you played music cds through it. I still have it though I don’t have a tv to play it on.
Pro tip, this existed before anti copy features so you can just download and burn all the games for it on a regular cdr disk
My cousin collected consoles when I was a small child. I remember playing Road Rash on the 3DO and the SOUNDTRACK WAS SO 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Hearing music like that in a video game at that point was a surreal experience. For those that don’t know the RR soundtrack had bands like Soundgarden and Bush.
I felt so cool playing his 3DO 😅
I was just singing that Soundgarden song in my head before I saw your comment. You were able to play just the sound track on 3D0 so my brother and I would play it all the time. We also had Batman: the animated series episodes on 3DO and that sound track also set a eerie mood. We would do our homework to the music and felt like scientist or something.
Years later the OG Xbox came and we could listen to any album while playing Tony Hawk, but this is still a cool fact you posted. I may purchase one of these to add to my collection. I also want to get into Neo Geo collecting.
@@MisterUrbanWorld Dang, memory unlocked. I forgot about that on Xbox. How did we get the music on the Xbox? Did we rip it from CDs? I remember there was a system we would take the disc out and play our own cd as sound track while playing the game. Good times
@keithgreene79 Yeah, I'm big into retro gaming in general. You had to insert the cd, and rip directly from it in order to store music on the Xbox console.
I legit bought one of these two days ago because I felt like there wasn’t a more modern take on what the 3DO is. Not just “it’s a failure”
Setting up to hopefully record every game for preservation purposes this year
Good luck. Let us know how it goes if possible.
You're lucky man. I begged my mom for one and got a used one around 95. Unfortunately It was stolen when I was living with my dad around 1997. I had some good games, had a lot of bad games but it was unique and I couldn't play the games on any other platform
@@orlandoalessandrini2505 came in the mail recently and I recorded terrible capture of autobahn Tokyo lol
Turns out my av to hdmi scaler is garbage. Next thing to fix but should be able to start by end of next month
I still remember how's the impact that playing 3D polygon graphic games at home on 3DO. It is totally next generation feeling.
Even the coming SS/PS1 cannot give me that impact.
The next impact is from VR gaming.
I remember playing GEX and Super Street Fighter turbo at my friends house on his 3DO. We were tying to unlock Akuma.
I managed to get him to turn up about once by hitting all of the attacks at once on the selection screen. I had no idea that he existed, so I was a bit confused by the fact that he didn't have a super meter and half of my attempts to mash out specials led to the the dodge move that looks like a super but isn't.
Since I had a standard controller and light punch was on the tiny little play/pause button and I also needed to hit the two shoulder buttons it basically never happened again 😂
It was a really excellent version of the game, but I'd never want to go back to that button layout haha
@ I 100 % agree 😂 Fighting Akuma was ridiculous enough and like you said the buttons made it worst.
I traded my neighbor an electric piano for his 3DO in the 90s. My brother and I had so much fun playing that bad boy. We only had 3 games but we played them everyday. I still hear that Soundgarden track on Road Rash in my head. We played a ton of playstation 1 but that 3do felt special
I had one of these. My dad ended up trading it when I told him I wanted an N64 like a year later for Christmas. Hindsight being 20/20 should have kept the 3DO for my collection. Very few perfectly working and complete examples out there these days and the games are even harder to come by naturally.
Your videos are so well done. Please keep it up with all of the systems. Just the right mix of being fun to watch and informative.
Everyone wanted the best which was hard to tell which new expensive console was best to get 3d0, neo geo, 32x, jaguar, turbo grafx, amiga cd, etc, etc so why not fall back on what everyone else already has, the genesis or snes, less expensive and a huge existing library to consume and swap/borrow with friends. Thats how I remember the thinking at the time.
Says featuring actors like Mark Hamill, shows Malcom McDowell
“What you got back home, little sister, to play your fuzzy warbles on? I bet you got little save pitiful, portable picnic players. Come with uncle and hear all proper! Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are invited”
-Luke Skywalker
"Game designers are artists... NOT programmers." If only Warner Brothers embraced that philosophy when the acquired Atari. They would've prevented the deluge of 3rd-party game titles that nearly led to the death of electronic & video gaming as a whole...!😕
1:32 Dude if Steve Jobs thinks you’re a square? You’re a square 😂
Since when is doing LSD being square? lol
Great video! This brought back memories of my time with the 3DO. I had the Goldstar version. I only owned it for a couple of years but I had amassed a good collection of games for it. I was the only one out of all my friends to have one so everyone wanted to come over to my house to play it. The Need for Speed was probably the game we played the most because I had the steering wheel accessory. Some of my other favorites were Gex, Alone in the Dark, Off World Interceptor, Escape from Monster Manor and D. When my favorite arcade game at the time, MK3, released on the PlayStation I had to have it. So I sold my 3DO and games to buy a PSX and a copy of MK3.
I loved my 3DO. I bought it brand new for 100$ in 1996. We were too poor to ever have a computer, and the 3DO ported a bunch of great PC games. Monkey Island, 7th Guest, Wolfenstein, Alone in the Dark 1&2, Myst, etc. They also had a port of D. And my favorite game was Killing Time. It was so groundbreaking at that time. Sort of an open world first person shooter with dozens of enemy types.
At the time I bought it, not only was the system cheap, but the games were all selling brand new for like 15$ each. Their Wolfenstein port was completely new, so it wasnt even really a port but a brand new version specifically for the 3DO. And I was a huge fan of road rash on my sega genesis, and the 3DO version was the best version ever.
The 3DO was my main gaming system for my entire high school years. Then I finally bought an N64 in 1999 and barely played it outside of Goldeneye. So I mostly stuck to the 3DO until Vice City came out, which got me to buy a playstation 2. Years later i tried to dig out my old 3DO, but it was gone, because i think my younger brother pawned it or something. Recently, i bought the Killing Time: Resurrected version on Steam, which combined both the 3DO and PC versions, bringing back those FMV enemy types, which I still think is the greatest gimmick ever.
Content is great, but that AI voice needs to go! Around the 10 minute mark, it sounds like it needs to take a poop.
I'm at 56 seconds and decided I couldn't watch any more...sounds like the AI needs an oxygen machine for life support.
you poor bbs 😢
Yeah, I stopped at 1:30. It’s supposed to be enjoyable not annoying.
I got all the way to the 4min mark. Can’t take it
YALL watch for a voice or listen for knowledge
I used to see screenshots of them in magazines back in the 90s, I thought the graphics were insane looking.
I love gaming history so much, now I want a 3do console man.
I bought into this at the time. And for about a year I loved it. It felt truly next gen and did things none of my friends consoles could manage. I believed it was the future. Shame it didn't last.
I remember when these came out. For the price I didnt think they looked any better than Sega or NES. Nice to learn the full history. Thanks for sharing
Nice - I saw Star Control II in the start there - best game hands down. I played it for the PC in 1996 for the first time - such a great game.
Came out of nowhere with these vids. Subbed. Great work.
You’d think the 3DO would’ve done better in Japan, especially since ppl watched porn on it. Kinda like how VHS and DVDs became industry standard bcuz of adult entertainment
Probably the reasons why are 1) the cost, especially in the early 90s when the yen was weak against the dollar; 2) the other affordability of other media made the idea of watching things on CD less common. I also doubt most studios had the capability to do releases on here.
I only remember the system because of need for speed. That game was so good.
Audio jack in the controllers -genius
Another banger. Keep them coming. 100K subs will be easy. Please do the SNES.
Thanks so much!
Rebecca Heineman achieved something impossible with her port of Doom. It was a technical milestone
It's not a technical milestone, but it is incredible that she even managed to get it in a vaguely playable state under the circumstances.
If she'd been given enough time to actually finish the game and wasn't employed by an incompetent idiot who thought you could just add new sprites to the original DOS executable and run it on a games console it would probably have been incredible because she was legitimately talented enough to do something great.
The Horde, Immercenary and Star Control 2 were some of the best games. Star Control 2 in particular is such a full game with a huge galaxy to explore. My friend and I looked up all the locations of the different aliens. If it’s still online there was a fan edit for this that let people add content
Very innovative way to approach hardware.
Have a happy new year Pixel Playback
They should have went all in on what they wanted to be, the Amiga done right. They should have had launched it with a new version of DPaint, an Octamed-like tracker, a morphing program, some kind of transition generator... Possibly a video capture device or way to transfer files for processing. People were spending thousands on the Video Toaster, the Amiga barely kept afloat by people justifying its high cost with the "serious" things it could do. The 3DO should have been the box that ran the cable company feed, that people made their rock videos and commercials on. Then played games on in their downtime never regretting how much they'd paid for it.
Awesome video.
I want an Amiga CDTV and Amiga CD32 story.
I remember when 3do came out . Looked cool , but most games looked rough and not goot frame rates . As megadrive owner i saw nothing to jump to 3do for in any way
Great video. Thanks.
So expensive that you're better off just buying a PC.....$1500 after inflation
Very nice video. One thing, Street Fighter, was definitely not arcade perfect for the 3DO. It was as close as you could get in 1994, but it didn't quite get there. Also, the control options were absolutely abysmal, as was that strange SF controller. Why the hell couldn't we just get a normal 6-button pad. I also question why Tripp and company thought a 5-button controller was adequate for a console release in 1993.
The market in 1993 was definitely driven by 1-on-1 fighting games and was building towards FPS dominance.
The controls for this game were horrible.
It was a great port but yes. No parallax scrolling no SSF2 characters
Awesome video without trying to romanticise the 3DO straight to the heart !
Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo was a great conversation, but it was not arcade perfect. Backgrounds had no parallax scrolling.
im glad i held out and waited for the sony PlayStation , I was a computer gaming guy and the console had to be better than what I could do on my PC and the PlayStation for a few years did that.
Its interesting how many of the games crashed onto win 95
i remember being blown away by the M2 car demo. but that was it for 3DO i guess.
The console had no games and what you did get was all visual no play. But back then I was astounded to watch the visuals. Faded away. Got a play station
I had the FZ-1 when it first came out. I had it on lay away while i was working my summer job. It was a good system, it played games and my music cds. I was a bit pissed because shortly after when electronics boutique sold the games.
My fave games were, samurai showdown, hell: a cyberpunk thriller, killing time. Capitan quazar. Mad dog McGee. Gex.
I'd love to see what a present day modder could do with Doom on the 3DO. I bet it wouldn't take them 6 days to get it running perfectly.
One of the "luxury consoles" of the period! Like the CD-I and Neo Geo and maybe the Atari Jaguar. I think the fourth gen was the only gen to have luxury consoles that were significantly above and beyond the main consoles (SNES/GEN/TG-16)
Great video. Here’s some suggestions for future videos; Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast , the NEO GEO Pocket Color and for a way more modern system the Wii U 🙂
Proud fz1 owner here.
Damn that Panasonic G1 looked so good.
more gaming history video please 😊
I got my FZ-10 about 4 years ago on eBay for like 150. Fun fact: you can usually burn your own games to CD -r
I was given 2 show units by Panasonic when I worked for HMV... I took them both to a game shop in South London and sold them for £400 each... thanks Panasonic :)
Still the best looking console design IMO
Good video, is this really your voice?
It seemed like a neat system, but launched too early compared to the competition. Like the Dreamcast, it came between generations and was a little too weak compared to the upcoming competition.
Also, didnt the M2 eventually release as an arcade board?
Bruh a suggestion. 4:3 content is trendy right now, if most of your source material is in that aspect ratio, why not embrace it instead of cropping?
Sony know what they where doing, clearly already ahead in development versus 3DO probably why Trip's offer was declined, not to mention didnt rush the tech out, and took there time to make sure it came out at the right time at the right price.
Discuss more consoles guys 😊
$700 then is north of $2000 today. There were people that were prepared to pay that kind of money, but these were mostly hardware enthusiast, and they wanted a computer (typically PC), not "dumb" console just for gaming. Situation was further exacerbated because hardware at that time could not realistically utilize full CD, except in a form of some kind of interactive movies. 3DO was not realistically 3D console, and for 2D games there were much cheaper alternatives.
Dang, can you imagine how abused gamers would be had that thing been successful? Basically EA hardware and software, microtransactions for everything, turning on the hardware, pressing a button on the controller, changing cds, every game would just be a blank disc for $69 and to get the data for the game it would be a $59 dlc.
You said it had no exclusive titles, then said collectors like it's exclusive titles 😂
Video was great, but why use the 16bit version of Fifa footage instead of the 3do version?
I've never heard anything good about the 3DO. I wonder if opinions would've been different had the price not been astronomically ridiculous?
Interesting video though 👍
14:22 Okay I’m definitely looking up gameplay for this 😂
The 3DO was LATE. In 1993, the leading gaming platform was already the ... PC ! It started with Wolfenstein 3D in 1992. But till mid 1993, the leading gaming platforms were Genesis/Megadrive, SNES and the Amiga 500. But at the summer of 93, the technically most advanced games were only available on PC. For example: Doom, X-Wing, Ultima Underworld, etc. And ALL the other ones ran MUCH faster on PC than on any other platform. For example: Dune 2, all the point and click adventure games, etc. The 3DO's development started in 1989. If the developers had sold it for example to Commodore or Atari or even to Sega or Nintendo, the 3DO could have released in 1991 or early 1992. Even BEFORE the PC became the leading gaming platform. All the mentioned PC games would have been ported to the 3DO, and coz of the price of a 486DX PC, the 3DO would have won the war easily. But no, in 1993 the 3DO came too late. Just a year later, PSX was released and it killed all the other consoles, excluding the N64 (which is barely survived). Just for the context: at the summer of 1993, my 486DX50 PC (4MB ram, 170MB HDD, Cirrus Logic VLB and a GUS) with a 14" analog monitor costed half as much as my 9 year old (1984) Toyota Supra! PCs were VERY expensive to buy just for gaming! All my friends had only 286 or 386 PCs.
Hey Trip you be trippin' selling a console more expensive than a Neo Geo🤣
muchas gracias por esta historia :D
Would like to see a video about Amiga 1000
M2 would have been gnarly
I do wonder in some alternate universe if the 3DO was successful would we have a 3DO 5 now? & no PlayStation 5? Man that would be interesting
They were expensive then and they are expensive now
3DO was not a failure because of its gaming library it had some of the best titles at the time road rash with Soundgarden soundtrack, full motion video games that were only possible on PC ported PC games for the first time, Wing Commander3 with Mark Hamill live action, even The horde with Kirk Cameron was hysterical and innovational at the time. Way of the warrior was cheesy as hell but it blasted White zombie and was just overall badass. So many games like crash and burn, gex, D, need for speed, super street fighter 2 turbo , FMV light gun titles, twisted which was a game show that you could play for hours and was absolutely just the best game I think I've ever played. And let's not forget the ports from night trap and even porn games coming to a console for the first time ever. It was just the sheer cost of the item and it was obscure I mean you would walk into a PC Richards or a Comp USA these things were not in a EB games or in Toys r Us this was something that was almost $700 and most parents were not going to spend that on kids gaming and at the time the average gamer was in their teens whereas now the average gamer is in their forties. All in all it was an incredible experience and I am so thankful I got to own one
Was there in the 90s…
Feel like this is the console that got away…
It was FAR superior to Genesis and SN…
But that price tag 🥵🥵🥵🥵
My uncle and grandpa bought one...gramps had the fz1 uncle had the fz10...uncle ended up selling his to my parents and after a year they let me put it in my room....nes collected dust..but 3d0 and nes were played almost daily....sold the 3d0 to a pawn shop for like $50 with 15+ games to fund a ps2 slim....worst mistake ever....i even had the box and everything...boxes for games etc....would cost me over $1200 to replace
Their base price was too high. If they came out of the gate with a lower price, it would’ve gone a different way.
Overpriced shit, only roadrash and need for speed was worth it
And crash n burn at the time
“Ho, ho, ho! Well, if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly thou!”
- Luke Skywalker
You missed the redesigned 3DO console at a cheaper price.
I thought this console was a fever dream i had my friends brother had one i would play the shot out of it
it actually had at least 20 very good to very playable games. but it was so expensive it never had a chance. And meaybe for the better. Imagine they'd invested even more and then the PS hits.
Lol never had a 3do but do remember those annoying commercials but it never inspired me to put my toys aways, it made me want to bring them out 😂
Great job! I was hoping to binge more of your videos but realized you only have 4 total. Keep them coming!
People didn't want to spend 700 dollars for a machine that played crappy FMV games. Shocked pikachu face.
I think they released too early.
If only they could wait couple of years, to use the improve hardware
Do dream cast man I love the console
Bought one to play John Madden football
I watched this documentary with my mouth on the floor. I had no idea what an absolutely stupid idea this was from day one. And 699.00… in 1993? Unbelievable this got past the first stage.
The console cost was why this failed. The controller was also really bad. Panasonic controller was best of them all and it was still terrible.
1:36 just want to make it clear using psychedelics is a much more serious thing than most people make it out to be in the modern age. Be very careful doing that and imho don't do it because anything it can "open you up to" you already have inside.
calm down, you boob
The ubiquitous nature of the 3DO was actually a great idea
William Salvador Heineman
I returned my system soon after I got it. I only had Jurassic Park and it sucked. Thinking back now, I wish I would have kept it, but it was just too damn expensive to keep considering how crappy the game was.
Playstation is synonymous with success, so this is definitely not the Playstation before the Playstation.
It was from the perspective of the relationship with developers. 3DO was very attractive because of the good support and low licensing and Sony picked up on that principle. Also, many of the most unique games on PlayStation would never have been greenlit if they weren't originally intended to release on 3DO, the PS1 versions being the result of a pivot to the next cheapest platform after the 3DO failed to meet sales expectations.
Most multiplatform games are noticeably superior on the 3DO version, such as Space Hulk, Battlesport, and Starfighter, which all had very noticeable visual deficiencies, so it's not completely off base.
@@casanovafunkenstein50903do also had the definitive and only version of super Street fighter 2 turbo.
Yo! You used my video without mention me.....
Sorry! I’ll ask my editor about this. Will put a link in the description
In Summary : 3DO, CRASH N' (sadly), BURN
Two days ago, some Sony dude claimed PS1 were the first huge leap over SNES. I told him,PS1 didn't exist when the huge leap happened as 3DO were the first one. He then said. "To him 3DO were irrelevant as it sold far less than PS1, making PS1 the first huge leap".
Well. Huge leaps in hardware isn't measured in sales numbers...
well it was A leap...but not as huge as the all round performance of the PS1
3DO? I still can't get past the ridiculously underwhelming name lol