Honestly the failures of the 3DO and CD-i really make the success of the Playstation seem impressive, especially considering Sony had no experience in video games before
Agreed. The PS1 could have easily been just another next gen failure. The key to ANY gaming console is the games. Get really good games made for it, people will buy it.
i think nintendos draconia practices where the real cause (thoe when you look at the state of steam and most digital game shops makes you kinda miss that) sure there was sega but they had already started putting there pants on head first
CD-ROM FMV seemed to really enthrall the industry for a couple of years, moreso than gamers it seems. I remember at the time you'd ooh and aah for a minute but quickly cast aside when there wasn't anything more. Sony definitely made the right bet focusing on pushing polygons.
The secret ingredient is spite. Nintendo screwed Sony out of the Snes CD add on, so Sony decided to dominate the console landscape for a few decades as revenge
In germany there was still Software made for the 3DO deep into the 2000's for driving schools. They were basically just FMV's of people driving into certain situations you'd encounter in normal day to day traffic with multiple choice questions on how to handle it.
Failure as it was, there are some highlights and longlasting legacies from the 3DO. Insomniac and Naughty Dog both cut their teeth in the industry developing games on the 3DO. Insomniac first developed Disruptor on 3DO dev kits before switching to the Playstation - doing well enough with that game to make Spyro the Dragon a few years later. Naughty Dog wasn't a big name until they impressed the right people at Universal with Way of the Warrior to get signed to multigame contract - which led directly to Crash Bandicoot. Crystal Dynamics were the first first-party developer for the system - the same conpany responsible for Soul Reaver and the post Core Design Tomb Raider games also made Total Eclipse and Off-World Interceptor. Even Konami trusted the 3DO enough with a port of Policenauts that they were seriously considering making a 3D Metal Gear game on it, too. Imagine that: Metal Gear Solid on the 3DO!
@@devonwilliams5738 Insomniac never released a game for the 3DO, but Disruptor was largely coded and programmed on 3DO SDKs before work was moved to the PS1 when the platform began to fade from the public's eye.
13:30 There was exactly one good thing about the DOOM port for the 3DO. The music was done by the guy who ported it, along with his garage band, and they made some of the best versions of the venerable DOOM soundtrack to date.
It's really interesting to see something on "Wha' Happun?" that didn't fail on account of any kind of cynicism but rather because there were simply too many mistakes made in it's creation and marketing. Also nice to see that Trip Hawkins has moved on to things that are wholesome and straight up making the world better.
It's good that Trip went on to do better things, but I'm a little bummed Matt didn't go into Trip sending a threatening email to a magazine that gave _Portal Runner_ a bad review. I get the hunch he was under stress at that time.
To put it into perspective $700 in 1993 is the purchasing power of about $1,260 today. You can build a good gaming PC or buy two PS5/Xbox series X or four Xbox series S/Switches for that kind of money.
@@JewTube001 I remember going into Circuit city when Donkey Kong Country was about to launch, and they had a demo of Jurassic Park on the 3do running next to DKC. The poor sales guy was trying so hard to hype up the game saying it had something like 30 man years of development time (Man years was briefly a buzz word for software dev) whereas most SNES games were done by smaller teams in far less time, implying that bigger budgets made better games. All that didn't matter because DKC was just immediately fun to play, and the jurassic park 3do demo was this super janky driving stage where you have to out run a t-rex in a jeep. It wasn't much fun the first time, and once you won, you just started over. Meanwhile the kid playing the super nintendo just got to the water level of donkey kong country, and the level looks beautiful and the music is just lovely. That's why the 3do failed; it just wasn't fun most of the time.
@@shannonhill3356 It wasn't bad, it just wasn't worth the price. I bought mine when they were lowered to $300 because I wanted to play Street Fighter 2 and it had the best version. When it came out it was really cool. It just didn't have the game support.
John Doe I never had any trouble finding games, but the vid is right, a lot of them were garbage. I remember going to Best Buy when they were blowing out games for dirt cheap, I bought Mahjong, Soccer Kid, Alone InThe Dark 1+2, a couple of D&D games, a whole bunch of games but only a handful were worth playing. My favorites were Star Control and SF2.
At the end, when there are only black holes left and then protons decay and the universe is so empty and big. This would still not be the right time to release the 3DO.
Megaman Legends 3 has got an insane story of what happened in its development. Honestly even after 15 or so years after what Capcom did they still owe the fans an appology
4 ปีที่แล้ว +12
Yeah, there really needs to be a wha happun on Megaman Legends 3, it seems like they were asking fans to do the work for them. 😂
Keep in mind Capcom also swapped business models due to Konami. Konami kept making *Dynamite* games but they always drooled at the arcade market. They looked at the sales for DK, Asteroids and other stand-up arcade cabinets; and wanted to get in there "because others proved you can do this." So they tried a ton of cabinets with *many unique parts for one cabinet.* Which made Konami hard-to-maintain, but could rake in good cash. Then Konami got a Pachiinko business liscense. And now they only make Pachiinko machines. Capcom did something similar, "Konami mixed nee stuff" and they went for gambling machines too. I blame *lootboxes* and *Japanese Culture* for this. Their culture has little to look for in the future, so they gamble their money because the risk is "worth the reward" to them. It spread to china as well from what I hear and see.
I feel like the PSP would be a decent one, as Sony still succeeded in Japan with the PS3 over the Xbox 360. A console that was meant to take down the juggernaut that was Nintendo's unwavering dominance in the portable game's market, with the lessons available from all of Gameboy's previous competitors, and really only finding modest success despite every attempt possible to corner the market.
I do have a soft spot for the 3DO. There actually are some pretty good games on it. The Wolfenstein 3D port is one of the best versions of the game out there. I also like Road Rash, Killing Time, Need for Speed, Return Fire, Battlesport, and Escape from Monster Manor. I prefer it over the Jaguar for the aforementioned reasons. I would put this system as an interesting failure.
The Atari 7800 is a system that would make a great episode of this show. If it had come out in late 1983/ early 1984 like it was supposed to it would have dominated but for a whole host of What Happened type reasons it didn't come out until three years later and got slaughtered.
A great video on a platform that I have strange fondness for. Just a slight correction on something you said though... The hardware designers of the 3DO weren't specifically fans of the Amiga computer platform but rather two of its designers! R.J. Mical and Dave Needle were instrumental in helping to design the Amiga, as well as the Atari Lynx and of course the 3DO. They always were very forward thinking in creating genuinely astounding hardware for the era.
This is one of the few Wha Happun episodes with a fairly happy ending. Yeah the console failed but the 3DO company managed to do pretty well for a while after, and it's nice to know Trip Hawkins is still doing work.
5:19 I just noticed that Sailor Jupiter’s theme from the Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon S 3DO game is playing in the background. That’s a deep-cut reference and I love it!
I had a 3DO and it was awesome. Convinced my dad to get me one in 95 when the price had dropped. Crash n Burn, Star Control 2, Shockwave, Total Eclipse, Samurai Shodown, Escape From Monster Manor...it was very fun for the short year or so before it went under.
You can't talk about 3D0 and not mention RETURN FIRE. That game was awesome, kept me glued for hours and nailed the concept of action/strategy devs still struggle with.
The most amusing thing about the 3DO is that, despite being an American creation, it arguably saw the most support in Japan, of all places. Two region-exclusive variants (Panasonic's multi-disc ROBO & Sanyo's TRY), the best version of the original Panasonic FZ-1 (which allows you to turn off the 480i upscaling with literally the flick of a switch, even improving performance for some games), a memory expansion unit only sold in that region... And a crap ton of Japan-exclusive games. Yes, Japan not only got the largest portion of the 3DO's entire games catalog (214 games, or literally 2/3 of the catalog), but 139 of those were Japanese exclusives; literally, ~43% of the 3DO's entire catalog of games were only released in Japan! Quality of said games varies wildly, to no surprise, but it's still something no one really considers with this system.
The 90s was such a fascinating era for video games. Like, it was almost like the Game of Thrones era where everyone was competing fiercely and trying to establish their footing.
Nice to see you finally cover the 3DO. Do have a fact to chime in on the console's stumbled launch you didn't cover. The reason Crash n' Burn was the console's only launch title was because 3DO Company was continuing to make updates to the technical specifications of the console in the months leading up to launch. Due to this, game developers who originally planned to have games ready for the 3DO launch had to delay the release of their titles by a few months because they weren't properly programmed for whatever specifications the 3DO Company kept making for their console. Other than that, you were very spot on with covering the console's history and 3DO's later dabbling as a game developer. But wasn't aware that Trip was trying to also bring Sony aboard as a hardware distributor for their console when they were in the midst of developing the Playstation after their failed business venture with Nintendo to create a Super NES CD-ROM add-on.
The Panasonic 3DO was my first major credit card purchase. Babbages had one on display running Shockwave and I was floored. Not a lot of great games but I have some great gaming memories with it (Wing Commander, Road Rash, etc.) AND it still works. Not a great system but it was a fun step into the 32bit Era.
My Dad got a 3DO when I was a kid. The only notable game I remember having was Ballz 3D. A quite bizarre title. Certainly wasn't the most played console at our house. Also dat random Digimon movie screencap.
That video ending soundtrack gives me life; so glad to see that more people are using it, even if they may not like the game it's from. I've never looked into it personally, but I wonder are there any Wha' Happun' moments when it comes to that franchise
Man That *3DO* logo voice you heard every time you loaded up Heroes of Might and Magic 3 still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. The word *epic* doesn't do it justice.
3:40 Panasonic, Goldstar, sanyo... Also Creative Labs. They did the 3DO "blaster" for PC. There were also AT&T, Samsung, and Toshiba 3do prototypes (Though the consoles were never released) And the Goldstar 3DO Alive 2 released only in South Korea was LG Branded (Goldstar is LG. But still, it had the LG logo on it, which is pretty cool!) And then there's the DMB-800 3DO VCD Combo Player. I Haven't heard much about this one at all. I don't even know what company DMB is! LOL But I've seen pics of it. Seems like it's every 3DO collectors dream!
Despite the fact this system sold poorly, I think it's really good! Yes, Plumbers Don't Wear Ties exists, but there's WAY more good games than bad games on 3DO. Killing Time, Wolfenstein 3D, Crash 'n Burn, Gex, Another World/Out Of This World, Road Rash, Alone In The Dark, Starfighter and many more games which are worth buying a 3DO for.
I loved the 3DO. Guardian War, Wing Commander 3, super street fighter 2 turbo, the horde, twisted the game show, way of the warrior, alone in the dark, battle chess, syndicate, and my favorite Quarantine. I used to love those games
It actually reminds me a bit about VR headsets. It’s a great concept, that’ll for sure get huge later on, but the technological limits make them difficult to build around and incredibly expensive to purchase and use.
I would really love to see a What Happened? for “Alone In The Dark (2008)”. I think it had so much potential and it had a lot of good ideas for the time, but it ended up being extremely disappointing. I would love to know... well... what happened?
This was a lovely vid. I know many hated the 3DO and rightly so, but I actually have some happy memories of the games on it, as well as the fun psychedelic screensaver you could set it to that pulsed while you played your music cds in it. Ahhh, memories. Also Road Rash on it was some epic shiz for the time.
I owned a Panasonic 3DO. It was ludicrously expensive ($700 is steep for a console TODAY, let alone in 1990's dollars), and to this day I have no idea how my brother convinced my father to buy one for us. It certainly failed spectacularly, but I have a lot of fond memories. I loved playing Road Rash, Samurai Showdown, Wing Commander, and Space Hulk on it.
Since, Halloween is coming this month, I would suggest looking at The 3rd Birthday (the third installment to Parasite Eve) and especially Shadows of the Damned since there is a lot that happened behind the scenes. Long story short: EA's fucked Suda51's original vision.
I had a neighbor growing up with a 3DO, I remember playing the Road & Tracks presents Need for Speed game. and a different neighbor had a Sega Saturn and the Daytona USA game. They were both pretty awesome to a 10 yr old at the time. I had only owned Nintendo products up until that time, and had also played the Sega Genesis of course.
Predictions for future episodes; *Frontrunners:* Virtual Boy, Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, Metal Gear Survive, Fant4stic, Ghostbusters 2016 (these have enough clues to make a episode from start to end) *Maybe:* The Last Airbender, Fable Legends, Agent, Final Fantasy XIV (might require more research) *Unlikely:* Cartoon Network Battle Crashers, Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, Big Rigs, Google Stadia, (these were bad from the start) Also, don't expect bootleg games or Phoenix Games on this series. They'd fit more into Flophouse Files for example.
I'd add Final Fantasy XV on the Frontrunners because while the game was a success, it had a really rough time getting to the end. Also adding Prey 2 because that story needs to be told, despite it's rather "he said, she said" confusion.
3DO. The first console I ever bought with my own money and will always be my favorite console. Still heartbroken all these years later that we never got the M2.
I'll always be thankful to the 3DO for giving us the lovely freeware project that is The Ur-Quan Masters, which is based on 3DO source code of its port of Star Control 2.
@edmonddantes759 i was referring to the price of the Ps5 Pro (700 dollars just like the 3DO) which was revealed the day i left this comment,but yeah, that's another embarrassing thing modern Sony has done lmao
I have a 3DO and a lot of games, but I really only remember Gex, "Hey Scoob, let's get back to the Mystery Van!", and a game with Mark Hamill in it. As I recall, the thing was built like a tank!
I got the perfect movie for you to do a wah happun episode on. Disney's treasure planet. The stuff that happened between. Trying to start making the movie the the actual production, the guy who green lit the movie leaving soon after production started, and how Disney treated the movie all the way til it left theaters is a complete mess.
It's fun to look back and remember all of the different consoles that were released in the 90s. Some had such a little impact on my life I forgot they existed like the poor 3do.
3dO was sick. Best friend had one in 94. The 3 button controller design was not well thought out. Especially when we had been using the upgraded 6 button controllers for genesis and the super Nintendo controller for years. Jaguar made a similar mistake. The CD quality sound and video was very apparent. Especially on games like Road Rash and Way of the Warrior. It was so cool at the time.
15:05 Worth mentioning that though 3DO made and had some success with the Army men, Battletanx, Meridian, and the Might & magic, games. They never released any of them on the 3DO console. I always thought if they had taken the time to concentrate on software (their own as well as 3rd party) leading up to the console's launch, they could have done a little better.
I remember as a kid you really didn't see them at stores. You seen them mostly mail order in magazines. I seen more turbo grafix 16s and neo Geos than 3d0s. That's coming from a dude that was raised in the sf bay area. No one had them tbh. I only seen them years later used and in Matt's game exchange for super cheap. Someone commented on the PS1 launch. I remember it. I wanted a Sega Saturn. No one had them during Christmas they sold out. The PS1 was out, in stock and 200 dollars cheaper and it had clones of all of segas hits at the time (toshinden to Virtua fighter, ridge racer to Daytona USA etc) so it was a no brainer for parents.
There were actually some great games the 3DO were going to get but never got it. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was one, Mega Man X4 was another and then there were WipEout, Rayman, and ClayFighter 3 as well. Even the first Street Fighter Alpha was planned to be ported to the system at one point but never got there. SNK even plan to bring a port of Fatal Fury Special to the 3DO had its port of Samurai Shodown sold well which it didn't despite being an almost arcade accurate port.
I have to tip my hat. I just stumbled on this channel a week ago and have watched a lot of your videos now. Good stuff, especially the games I've played or have known about that you've covered. I was curious (if you actually read comments, lol) if you thought about Hellgate: London? I think this one would be great for your show and upcoming Halloween.
@14:57 - actually the M2 *did* come to market, but they never aimed it at home audiences and instead sold it to GM who used it as interactive car salesroom kiosk machines. They did also license it to Konami who made a few games with it (Total Vice, Evil Night) and that was about it. You can buy the M2 Interactive Kiosk Machine on ebay occasionally, although it's quite expensive, and it will play a few unencrypted demos and half-finished games that were leaked onto the internet.
Three things happened. 1. The high price at launch 2. Not enough good games at launch. 3. The controller didn't have enough buttons. I made the mistake of buying it at launch because I could afford and it took a while to get good games. After buying the 3DO I was supposed to stop buying consoles at launch but the Dreamcast was the last one.
I actually remember the buzz about the price of this thing in the mid 90’s. I thought the 3DO looked cool but the price made it a pipe dream to get one. Heck even the Sega CD was a pipe dream for me.
The one good thing that came from the 3DO was the 3DO port of Star Control 2, one of the best games ever, which became the now freeware Ur-Quan Masters.
Honestly the failures of the 3DO and CD-i really make the success of the Playstation seem impressive, especially considering Sony had no experience in video games before
Agreed. The PS1 could have easily been just another next gen failure. The key to ANY gaming console is the games. Get really good games made for it, people will buy it.
i think nintendos draconia practices where the real cause (thoe when you look at the state of steam and most digital game shops makes you kinda miss that)
sure there was sega but they had already started putting there pants on head first
CD-ROM FMV seemed to really enthrall the industry for a couple of years, moreso than gamers it seems. I remember at the time you'd ooh and aah for a minute but quickly cast aside when there wasn't anything more. Sony definitely made the right bet focusing on pushing polygons.
@@x-crisis So even back then, the industry focused on pretty graphics while the rest of the world didn't really care.
The secret ingredient is spite. Nintendo screwed Sony out of the Snes CD add on, so Sony decided to dominate the console landscape for a few decades as revenge
The guy falling and spilling his McDonald's was true rage and pain. That scene touched my soul!
In germany there was still Software made for the 3DO deep into the 2000's for driving schools. They were basically just FMV's of people driving into certain situations you'd encounter in normal day to day traffic with multiple choice questions on how to handle it.
That's really cool, I love seeing consoles reused for other purposes.
@@jasonwalker4003 Apparently, leftover molds for the Atari Jaguar were sold to a dental equipment company.
That’s really neat, it kind of sounds like a telltale/taletell game.
Failure as it was, there are some highlights and longlasting legacies from the 3DO. Insomniac and Naughty Dog both cut their teeth in the industry developing games on the 3DO. Insomniac first developed Disruptor on 3DO dev kits before switching to the Playstation - doing well enough with that game to make Spyro the Dragon a few years later. Naughty Dog wasn't a big name until they impressed the right people at Universal with Way of the Warrior to get signed to multigame contract - which led directly to Crash Bandicoot. Crystal Dynamics were the first first-party developer for the system - the same conpany responsible for Soul Reaver and the post Core Design Tomb Raider games also made Total Eclipse and Off-World Interceptor. Even Konami trusted the 3DO enough with a port of Policenauts that they were seriously considering making a 3D Metal Gear game on it, too. Imagine that: Metal Gear Solid on the 3DO!
@@devonwilliams5738 Insomniac never released a game for the 3DO, but Disruptor was largely coded and programmed on 3DO SDKs before work was moved to the PS1 when the platform began to fade from the public's eye.
That's why I consider the 3DO a sort of Playstation 0
13:30 There was exactly one good thing about the DOOM port for the 3DO. The music was done by the guy who ported it, along with his garage band, and they made some of the best versions of the venerable DOOM soundtrack to date.
I knew nothing about the 3DO port of Doom and I quickly wanted to thank you for making me aware of its awesome soundtrack.
With every console Wha Happun, we get closer and closer to examining the PlayStation Vita.
The memory cards, that's what happun.
The vita did much better in Japan, however! Many developers still decided to continue making games for the PSP instead..!
@@MrQwertysystem Looks at jailbroken PSP with a terabyte of games. I don't know... probably was a different reason. ⚆ _ ⚆
@@matane2465 And that's the true tragedy of the Vita : it isn't even allowed to die.
I want to hear story behind the gameboy micro.
It's really interesting to see something on "Wha' Happun?" that didn't fail on account of any kind of cynicism but rather because there were simply too many mistakes made in it's creation and marketing.
Also nice to see that Trip Hawkins has moved on to things that are wholesome and straight up making the world better.
he made one on doom 2016 , the game had the worst marketing by bethesda but turned out to be one of the best games in 2016
@@joeyparkhill8751 that is actually very likely as some episodes of Wha Happun have focused on good games with bad development cycles.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu There are good games with bad development or too many mistakes, does that count?
It's good that Trip went on to do better things, but I'm a little bummed Matt didn't go into Trip sending a threatening email to a magazine that gave _Portal Runner_ a bad review. I get the hunch he was under stress at that time.
How could the console that brought us Plumbers Don't Wear Ties possibly have failed?
I know right, it is one of the best game of all time
@@chinghamburger2200 Truly the Dark Souls of plumbing games
*"TAKE YER DAMN CLOTHES OFF!"*
It has a Panda driving a race car.
@@MegaManXPoweredUp What a pervert! And what's with all the filters?
When the price tag was unveiled I actually recoiled in my seat a little bit.
700 USD was a small fortune back in the early 90s. no wonder it never took off
@@JewTube001 699 US DOLLARS!
To put it into perspective $700 in 1993 is the purchasing power of about $1,260 today. You can build a good gaming PC or buy two PS5/Xbox series X or four Xbox series S/Switches for that kind of money.
I saw this comment first and then laughed out loud at the reveal
@@JewTube001 I remember going into Circuit city when Donkey Kong Country was about to launch, and they had a demo of Jurassic Park on the 3do running next to DKC.
The poor sales guy was trying so hard to hype up the game saying it had something like 30 man years of development time (Man years was briefly a buzz word for software dev) whereas most SNES games were done by smaller teams in far less time, implying that bigger budgets made better games.
All that didn't matter because DKC was just immediately fun to play, and the jurassic park 3do demo was this super janky driving stage where you have to out run a t-rex in a jeep. It wasn't much fun the first time, and once you won, you just started over.
Meanwhile the kid playing the super nintendo just got to the water level of donkey kong country, and the level looks beautiful and the music is just lovely.
That's why the 3do failed; it just wasn't fun most of the time.
The 3DO is the only console I've ever sold when I didnt need money. I just didn't like it. Lol
Sup nintendo channel 👍
I hope that at least they gave you half of what you paid since they didn't sell many of them
@@shannonhill3356 It wasn't bad, it just wasn't worth the price. I bought mine when they were lowered to $300 because I wanted to play Street Fighter 2 and it had the best version.
When it came out it was really cool. It just didn't have the game support.
John Doe I never had any trouble finding games, but the vid is right, a lot of them were garbage. I remember going to Best Buy when they were blowing out games for dirt cheap, I bought Mahjong, Soccer Kid, Alone InThe Dark 1+2, a couple of D&D games, a whole bunch of games but only a handful were worth playing.
My favorites were Star Control and SF2.
the 3DO is like that peach scented candle that is passed around during holidays, nobody wants it >.
The 3do : The Console released at the wrong place at the wrong time.
At the end, when there are only black holes left and then protons decay and the universe is so empty and big. This would still not be the right time to release the 3DO.
At the wrong price
Trip Hawkins looks and sounds like a CEO from a 90s movie.
He looks like Eric Bischoff (90s WCW era) to me :)
Megaman Legends 3 has got an insane story of what happened in its development. Honestly even after 15 or so years after what Capcom did they still owe the fans an appology
Yeah, there really needs to be a wha happun on Megaman Legends 3, it seems like they were asking fans to do the work for them. 😂
There's also that Mega Man online game they promised, and I don't think Mega Man X Street Fighter ever got released, but could be wrong.
Since the release of Megaman 11, I've been clinging to the dimmest ray of hope that Capcom would eventually put out something Megaman related.
Keep in mind Capcom also swapped business models due to Konami. Konami kept making *Dynamite* games but they always drooled at the arcade market. They looked at the sales for DK, Asteroids and other stand-up arcade cabinets; and wanted to get in there "because others proved you can do this." So they tried a ton of cabinets with *many unique parts for one cabinet.* Which made Konami hard-to-maintain, but could rake in good cash.
Then Konami got a Pachiinko business liscense. And now they only make Pachiinko machines.
Capcom did something similar, "Konami mixed nee stuff" and they went for gambling machines too.
I blame *lootboxes* and *Japanese Culture* for this. Their culture has little to look for in the future, so they gamble their money because the risk is "worth the reward" to them. It spread to china as well from what I hear and see.
You know the PS3 could a good "Wha Happen?", that whole Cell thing would be interesting.
Indeed, definitely video material right there.
I would also like to see that
I feel like the PSP would be a decent one, as Sony still succeeded in Japan with the PS3 over the Xbox 360. A console that was meant to take down the juggernaut that was Nintendo's unwavering dominance in the portable game's market, with the lessons available from all of Gameboy's previous competitors, and really only finding modest success despite every attempt possible to corner the market.
But the PS3 end up to be a success and one of the most selling videogame consoles of all time.
@@morganmcgill3169 But the launch was very bad and the Cell was a big opsie.
I do have a soft spot for the 3DO. There actually are some pretty good games on it. The Wolfenstein 3D port is one of the best versions of the game out there. I also like Road Rash, Killing Time, Need for Speed, Return Fire, Battlesport, and Escape from Monster Manor. I prefer it over the Jaguar for the aforementioned reasons. I would put this system as an interesting failure.
God I love videos like this. The archival footage, the commercials, all the research...fascinating stuff, excellent job.
The Atari 7800 is a system that would make a great episode of this show. If it had come out in late 1983/ early 1984 like it was supposed to it would have dominated but for a whole host of What Happened type reasons it didn't come out until three years later and got slaughtered.
A great video on a platform that I have strange fondness for.
Just a slight correction on something you said though... The hardware designers of the 3DO weren't specifically fans of the Amiga computer platform but rather two of its designers! R.J. Mical and Dave Needle were instrumental in helping to design the Amiga, as well as the Atari Lynx and of course the 3DO.
They always were very forward thinking in creating genuinely astounding hardware for the era.
This is one of the few Wha Happun episodes with a fairly happy ending. Yeah the console failed but the 3DO company managed to do pretty well for a while after, and it's nice to know Trip Hawkins is still doing work.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse may never exist, but hey, at least there's Darksiders.
I don't know why, but I giggles every time he says: "which was the style at the time"
th-cam.com/video/ZRn22H8zZ8U/w-d-xo.html
5:19 I just noticed that Sailor Jupiter’s theme from the Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon S 3DO game is playing in the background. That’s a deep-cut reference and I love it!
I had a 3DO and it was awesome. Convinced my dad to get me one in 95 when the price had dropped. Crash n Burn, Star Control 2, Shockwave, Total Eclipse, Samurai Shodown, Escape From Monster Manor...it was very fun for the short year or so before it went under.
You can't talk about 3D0 and not mention RETURN FIRE. That game was awesome, kept me glued for hours and nailed the concept of action/strategy devs still struggle with.
First fun multiplayer game growing up
That game was awesome and the only one I ever remembered playing on the 3DO. Running over the tents with a tank was a fond memory.
Only heard about this console from the AVGN, now we get the whole story.
was literally just going to go to bed...
weeeeeeeeell, it can wait 20 minutes
The most amusing thing about the 3DO is that, despite being an American creation, it arguably saw the most support in Japan, of all places. Two region-exclusive variants (Panasonic's multi-disc ROBO & Sanyo's TRY), the best version of the original Panasonic FZ-1 (which allows you to turn off the 480i upscaling with literally the flick of a switch, even improving performance for some games), a memory expansion unit only sold in that region... And a crap ton of Japan-exclusive games. Yes, Japan not only got the largest portion of the 3DO's entire games catalog (214 games, or literally 2/3 of the catalog), but 139 of those were Japanese exclusives; literally, ~43% of the 3DO's entire catalog of games were only released in Japan! Quality of said games varies wildly, to no surprise, but it's still something no one really considers with this system.
*Matt:* "Heroes of Might and Magic, which needs no introduction."
*Heroes of Might and Magic:* "Hey Hey, People."
Funny he used HOMM4 to show it off, the red headed stepchild of the franchise (Well not counting Ubisoft). Was expecting 3 xD
The 90s was such a fascinating era for video games. Like, it was almost like the Game of Thrones era where everyone was competing fiercely and trying to establish their footing.
Nice to see you finally cover the 3DO. Do have a fact to chime in on the console's stumbled launch you didn't cover. The reason Crash n' Burn was the console's only launch title was because 3DO Company was continuing to make updates to the technical specifications of the console in the months leading up to launch. Due to this, game developers who originally planned to have games ready for the 3DO launch had to delay the release of their titles by a few months because they weren't properly programmed for whatever specifications the 3DO Company kept making for their console.
Other than that, you were very spot on with covering the console's history and 3DO's later dabbling as a game developer. But wasn't aware that Trip was trying to also bring Sony aboard as a hardware distributor for their console when they were in the midst of developing the Playstation after their failed business venture with Nintendo to create a Super NES CD-ROM add-on.
I hate comments like these. Jesus christ. Make a video anyone wants to watch.
makes sence as sony along with pansonic were part of the MSX team
The Panasonic 3DO was my first major credit card purchase. Babbages had one on display running Shockwave and I was floored. Not a lot of great games but I have some great gaming memories with it (Wing Commander, Road Rash, etc.) AND it still works.
Not a great system but it was a fun step into the 32bit Era.
I wonder how Trips feels about EA now; hard to believe a guy that wholesome created the video game company version of weyland yutani
Hello, James. check this article : www.polygon.com/a/how-ea-lost-its-soul/chapter-1
My Dad got a 3DO when I was a kid. The only notable game I remember having was Ballz 3D. A quite bizarre title. Certainly wasn't the most played console at our house.
Also dat random Digimon movie screencap.
Neat to hear the background to this console. Surprising use of Mystery Dungeon music in the background was a pleasant if diverting touch.
That video ending soundtrack gives me life; so glad to see that more people are using it, even if they may not like the game it's from. I've never looked into it personally, but I wonder are there any Wha' Happun' moments when it comes to that franchise
fun fact, the 3do would cost almost $1200 today.
Man That *3DO* logo voice you heard every time you loaded up Heroes of Might and Magic 3 still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. The word *epic* doesn't do it justice.
omg I can’t believe I’m up early enough to see a Matt upload
3:40 Panasonic, Goldstar, sanyo... Also Creative Labs. They did the 3DO "blaster" for PC.
There were also AT&T, Samsung, and Toshiba 3do prototypes (Though the consoles were never released)
And the Goldstar 3DO Alive 2 released only in South Korea was LG Branded (Goldstar is LG. But still, it had the LG logo on it, which is pretty cool!)
And then there's the DMB-800 3DO VCD Combo Player. I Haven't heard much about this one at all. I don't even know what company DMB is! LOL
But I've seen pics of it. Seems like it's every 3DO collectors dream!
Despite the fact this system sold poorly, I think it's really good!
Yes, Plumbers Don't Wear Ties exists, but there's WAY more good games than bad games on 3DO.
Killing Time, Wolfenstein 3D, Crash 'n Burn, Gex, Another World/Out Of This World, Road Rash, Alone In The Dark, Starfighter and many more games which are worth buying a 3DO for.
Matt really playing SMT Nocturne music in his videos. I love it.
I loved the 3DO. Guardian War, Wing Commander 3, super street fighter 2 turbo, the horde, twisted the game show, way of the warrior, alone in the dark, battle chess, syndicate, and my favorite Quarantine. I used to love those games
Speeking of failed consoles, you should do an episode on the PlayStation Vita!
9:53 This Morshu/Matt laugh gets me every time.
18:17 Who could have guess that the guy that created EA is such a nice person
It actually reminds me a bit about VR headsets. It’s a great concept, that’ll for sure get huge later on, but the technological limits make them difficult to build around and incredibly expensive to purchase and use.
I would really love to see a What Happened? for “Alone In The Dark (2008)”.
I think it had so much potential and it had a lot of good ideas for the time, but it ended up being extremely disappointing. I would love to know... well... what happened?
Agreed!
Didnt he already?
This was a lovely vid. I know many hated the 3DO and rightly so, but I actually have some happy memories of the games on it, as well as the fun psychedelic screensaver you could set it to that pulsed while you played your music cds in it. Ahhh, memories. Also Road Rash on it was some epic shiz for the time.
Still playing Meridian 59 on and off till this day!
18:15 omg I was shown that in my school a few years ago. I never knew it would be mentioned in a What Happened video.
I owned a Panasonic 3DO. It was ludicrously expensive ($700 is steep for a console TODAY, let alone in 1990's dollars), and to this day I have no idea how my brother convinced my father to buy one for us. It certainly failed spectacularly, but I have a lot of fond memories. I loved playing Road Rash, Samurai Showdown, Wing Commander, and Space Hulk on it.
wing commander? chris roberts and high price tags go way back, i see
The 3DO at least had a Yuyu Hakusho game in Japan.
Why have I never heard this until now?
Was it a good game?
Since, Halloween is coming this month, I would suggest looking at The 3rd Birthday (the third installment to Parasite Eve) and especially Shadows of the Damned since there is a lot that happened behind the scenes. Long story short: EA's fucked Suda51's original vision.
Enough that he did an entire level in Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes that's actually about that game and his experiences making it
I had a neighbor growing up with a 3DO, I remember playing the Road & Tracks presents Need for Speed game. and a different neighbor had a Sega Saturn and the Daytona USA game. They were both pretty awesome to a 10 yr old at the time. I had only owned Nintendo products up until that time, and had also played the Sega Genesis of course.
Ah yes, the first time I learned about plumbers dont wear ties - the powerhouse that defined a generation
Predictions for future episodes;
*Frontrunners:* Virtual Boy, Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, Metal Gear Survive, Fant4stic, Ghostbusters 2016 (these have enough clues to make a episode from start to end)
*Maybe:* The Last Airbender, Fable Legends, Agent, Final Fantasy XIV (might require more research)
*Unlikely:* Cartoon Network Battle Crashers, Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, Big Rigs, Google Stadia, (these were bad from the start)
Also, don't expect bootleg games or Phoenix Games on this series. They'd fit more into Flophouse Files for example.
I'd add Final Fantasy XV on the Frontrunners because while the game was a success, it had a really rough time getting to the end.
Also adding Prey 2 because that story needs to be told, despite it's rather "he said, she said" confusion.
If Matt gets around on the Virtual Boy he better talk about how Japanese regulation laws forced Nintendo to create a stand and not a headstrap.
3DO. The first console I ever bought with my own money and will always be my favorite console. Still heartbroken all these years later that we never got the M2.
🤣
I have to see the timeline where 3DO beat out sony.
I'll always be thankful to the 3DO for giving us the lovely freeware project that is The Ur-Quan Masters, which is based on 3DO source code of its port of Star Control 2.
9:45 "suck it Sony"
Sony: lmao bet
Lmao at Concord $400m flop
@edmonddantes759 i was referring to the price of the Ps5 Pro (700 dollars just like the 3DO) which was revealed the day i left this comment,but yeah, that's another embarrassing thing modern Sony has done lmao
I have a 3DO and a lot of games, but I really only remember Gex, "Hey Scoob, let's get back to the Mystery Van!", and a game with Mark Hamill in it. As I recall, the thing was built like a tank!
That reaction to the mention of EA was awesome. Very much what was on my mind!!
I got the perfect movie for you to do a wah happun episode on. Disney's treasure planet. The stuff that happened between. Trying to start making the movie the the actual production, the guy who green lit the movie leaving soon after production started, and how Disney treated the movie all the way til it left theaters is a complete mess.
not to mention the abysmal marketing for the film
A lot of people don't know that Goldstar is known as LG (Lucky Goldstar) these days. Crazy that LG was in the video game market at one point.
Did anyone else play "D" on the 3DO? Freaked me out as a little kid.
".... Doodled on a paper napkin back in 1989."
What could possibly go wrong?
It's fun to look back and remember all of the different consoles that were released in the 90s.
Some had such a little impact on my life I forgot they existed like the poor 3do.
Love the Nocturne music at the end!
I want to believe he's still just being ahead of his time, and in a decade, all the massive games and apps will be educational and anti-bullying.
First game launched was Crash and Burn... such sweet poetic irony.
I definitely wanna see a “Wha Happun?” of the Amiga CD32.
3dO was sick. Best friend had one in 94. The 3 button controller design was not well thought out. Especially when we had been using the upgraded 6 button controllers for genesis and the super Nintendo controller for years. Jaguar made a similar mistake. The CD quality sound and video was very apparent. Especially on games like Road Rash and Way of the Warrior. It was so cool at the time.
15:05 Worth mentioning that though 3DO made and had some success with the Army men, Battletanx, Meridian, and the Might & magic, games. They never released any of them on the 3DO console.
I always thought if they had taken the time to concentrate on software (their own as well as 3rd party) leading up to the console's launch, they could have done a little better.
I really miss the Army Men series. Especially the pc version which was isometric.
Intro is looking amazing Matt. Good job on improving all around over time 👍👍
19:21 is this Playing the Fool?
A song in the SMT3 Nocturne ost?
Hoy!
I remember as a kid you really didn't see them at stores. You seen them mostly mail order in magazines. I seen more turbo grafix 16s and neo Geos than 3d0s. That's coming from a dude that was raised in the sf bay area. No one had them tbh. I only seen them years later used and in Matt's game exchange for super cheap. Someone commented on the PS1 launch. I remember it. I wanted a Sega Saturn. No one had them during Christmas they sold out. The PS1 was out, in stock and 200 dollars cheaper and it had clones of all of segas hits at the time (toshinden to Virtua fighter, ridge racer to Daytona USA etc) so it was a no brainer for parents.
There were actually some great games the 3DO were going to get but never got it. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was one, Mega Man X4 was another and then there were WipEout, Rayman, and ClayFighter 3 as well. Even the first Street Fighter Alpha was planned to be ported to the system at one point but never got there. SNK even plan to bring a port of Fatal Fury Special to the 3DO had its port of Samurai Shodown sold well which it didn't despite being an almost arcade accurate port.
Gotta love the classy SMT3 song at the credits
I've got great memories of playing games on this system. My brother still has the console and it still works!
2:40 - that Grandia II music brings back fond memories!
it's always somewhat surreal to see videos on these consoles and games from 30 years ago.
@6:57 That right there is why is best to wait sometimes and not rush.
Good call Sony made
I have to tip my hat. I just stumbled on this channel a week ago and have watched a lot of your videos now. Good stuff, especially the games I've played or have known about that you've covered. I was curious (if you actually read comments, lol) if you thought about Hellgate: London? I think this one would be great for your show and upcoming Halloween.
O my god I thought the army men games were just a fever dream I had as a kid! I remember playing the shit out of those on play station and N64
@14:57 - actually the M2 *did* come to market, but they never aimed it at home audiences and instead sold it to GM who used it as interactive car salesroom kiosk machines. They did also license it to Konami who made a few games with it (Total Vice, Evil Night) and that was about it. You can buy the M2 Interactive Kiosk Machine on ebay occasionally, although it's quite expensive, and it will play a few unencrypted demos and half-finished games that were leaked onto the internet.
I worked at Digital Chocolate short lived studio in Baja, Mexico back then. It was interesting times indeed.
16:26 That DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3 OST right there was so awesome!
Three things happened. 1. The high price at launch 2. Not enough good games at launch. 3. The controller didn't have enough buttons. I made the mistake of buying it at launch because I could afford and it took a while to get good games. After buying the 3DO I was supposed to stop buying consoles at launch but the Dreamcast was the last one.
I actually remember the buzz about the price of this thing in the mid 90’s. I thought the 3DO looked cool but the price made it a pipe dream to get one. Heck even the Sega CD was a pipe dream for me.
Love the Grandia 2 dungeon music at around 7:00
1:42 This was so baffling it made Zero cry
It might be 1am. I might have work at 8 and I might have a hangover then, but goddamnit I’m watching the new Matt video
The one good thing that came from the 3DO was the 3DO port of Star Control 2, one of the best games ever, which became the now freeware Ur-Quan Masters.
These Simpson's and eventually AVGN's references are one of the best parts of the editing 😂
Stadia is the modern day 3DO
At least on the FZ-10 models, I always thought the screensaver that was displayed when you put a music cd in was awesome!
Really liking the frequency of uploads here Matt
NOOOOOOOOOOO that four horseman game looked amazing I would love to play that
I must admit, the daisy-chaining of controllers was really clever.