The Story Of The 3DO - The Console Born From EA's Founder & Makers of The Atari Lynx & Amiga 1000

This video covers the overall story of how the 3DO came about, failed, and the people behind it. This video doesn’t quite cover everything regarding the 3DO. For example, I didn’t dive into the Sanyo 3DO model, AT&T’s 3DO prototype, or the European and Japanese launches. If you want to learn more about the 3DO I added some of my sources to the end of the description of the video.  I almost broke this video up into two parts since it’s a bit longer than what I prefer my videos to be. There’ just so much information out there about the 3DO.  Also, I know some people may feel like it’s unfair to concentrate so much on the 3DO not being able to compete with the Playstation and not really discuss the Saturn as much. I chose to concentrate more on the Playstation since it did so well and even Trip Hawkins feels like the Playstation is ultimately what finished off the 3DO. I try to make my videos as accurate as possible but I’m only human. If you have any corrections please let me know and I’ll be happy to look into it. Well, maybe not happy, haha, but I’ll look into it and issue a correction if needed 😊

This such a powerful lesson to those potential investors out there. Nothing is a sure thing.

Where I lived at the time I coundn't be sold eventhough it cost less then an PC and hear's why Blockbuster Video and both the Sega and Nintendo kids agreaing to never buy video game systems for that Blockbuster Video dosn't offer games for rent. That's how that same sotre lost sells of the CDI, Apple Pippin, Neo Geo, and Jaguar systems. So it colsed lees then one yaer after it opned " it was an Campo by the way". In fact because of Blockbuster Video not offering DIVX disks. DIVX killed the Circuit City sotre where I lived less then one year after it opend.

i would loved to have one of the 3DO a lot back then i still do i think when EA fully left that is what ruined things, is EA stayed with Trip and not go their alternate path things would have been different, but the alternate would have preceded no Playstation though and forced companies to really work at making better quality except Nintendo the 64 had bad graphics compared to Playstation people always thought 64 bits was better yes it was more bits but the processors that did the graphics were way more primitive than playstation and 3DO.

I believe Needle had made money off of the ATM industry. He has some component patent that was used globally in a bunch of common ATMs all over the world.

I could be mistaking him for another feller who worked there but heard that ontl the grapevine from someone who worked on the 3DO

i read about the 3DO from EGM magazine and Gamepro back in 93 I've been wanting one ever since it was something very very amazing i really knew what made the numbers fall back then same with most now most worship Mario more than anything even though it is literally a boring game series from Nintendo i couldn't stand another remake of a rehash of the same Mario game, i wanted to play Terraforming Ground Zero Texas something new and exciting i was given a 3DO game Who shot johnny rock i still have it too.

As a european only reason I know about 3DO is their involvement in the publishing of Heroes of Might and Magic 3

Good console but overpriced and few exclusive games.

Full motion video? Full motion video my ass

Ohhh myyyyy days army men I miss that game

i was at the uk launch. in some motorway service station down south they had a bunch of buses with dolly bird models handing out the controllers. i got a bag full of tat with a cap.

Great video! Can you make one of Turbo Graphix 16 and Dreamcast?

I remember reading somewhere online that Mical & Needle were developing a eventually cancelled handheld console for Ericsson called the red jade console that was supposed to be released in 2003. Talented guys but unfortunately their hardware wasn't as successful as it could have been.

I think in the end the best solution would have been for Panasonic to buy out the 3d0 company, buy out LG's failed video game softwarebusiness (so they have 2-3 1st party game studios) & continue development of the M2 machine then release it in 1999. Until them keep supporting the 3do interactive multiplayer. The M2 technology was revealed WAY too early imo.

So why did Trip Hawkins 🤔 decide to make 3d0 as a separate company? 🤣🤣🤣😅Should have bought out Needle & Mical's technology & made it into an EA console 🤷🏾‍♂️

I could be wrong but it seems to me the people behind 3DO were very narcissistic, and did not take their competition seriously. They also showed a massive misunderstanding of the US customer base and what it wanted from a video game system. Jaguar did the same thing with their marketing. It all centered around how stupid the other systems were, and almost insulted all of us that owned one. Why not just show why your system is great, instead of trying to show us that the other ones suck? Another problem that both the 3DO and Jaguar had was how cheap the physical console felt....and the controllers were AWFUL. How in the world did no one bring up any issues with them? Cheap plastic crap.

I heard of 3DO at the time, but never actually saw one in the shops.

I'm not sure how my family got one - Maybe after it was deeply discounted, or probably we rented one from the movie shop - But I enjoyed playing Road Rash and Samurai Showdown.

Like the videos, will you still produce them?

I was at the 3d0 launch party way back in the day. As a developer I had a feeling it was going to struggle. Writing games for it was a beast and not intuitive.

I had the 3do and back then there was nothing else like it unless you had sega cd and even that couldnt' compare. But i remember having all the fmv games like sewer shark, night trap, mad dog mccree, shockwave, wing commander, and a number of other fun games like road rash, need for speed, space hulk, etc. It was such a surreal time. Miss those days

I had this system not all that great not to many games. I sold it to my buddy for 300 bucks. It cost 400 bucks to buy it. There are few good games for the system.

Still unaffordable in that time even being 40 percent cheaper

"Hey what should we design our new state of the art console to look like?"
"Eh, who cares? Make it look like a VCR."

Don't forget the import industry was bringing in the Playstation NINE months earlier than the US and EU launches in 95

Great video!

Fun(and cute) fact: Despite Trip's overall vitriol he had against Nintendo for their rather harsh and aggressively licensing policies back in the day, he does have a soft spot for Mario! Kind of ironic in a sense!

Wish we had that level of competition now, Atari was in it's last leg, CD-I never played or wanted it but it was different, Nintendo/Sega, the 3DO which had some good games, Playstation starting up, and PC. Lot's of good games in that era. I only had 4 games on the 3DO Shockwave, Jurassic Park, Road Rash, and the last bounty hunter. Part of that small line up managed to get a N64 for xmas and always managed to have at least 4 friends to play 4 player split screen and lots of fun times. When the PS1 came out was old enough to get a job and buy one. The 3DO wasn't bad just not many had 1, I didn't even know it had that big of a library.

Great memories of 3do. Love those commercials and in game videos.

When Trip said 15 time jump in previous generation, you'd probably laugh now but he was speaking the truth. Us gamers back then were amazed about ridiculous things like having voices and real music tracks in the video game.

I love how during the final stages of the console wars, Sony Playstation was the system of doom in 1995 in the US. I remember preordering the console myself. Now we have Xbox, Nintendo, and Sony as the main 3... I still weep and place digital flowers at the grave of sega consoles. At least I still have my Sega Dreamcast. Tempted to buy a Neo Geo CD. I still have a Neo Geo Pocket color. Had an XBox 1.

I still have mine

Had potential but that 700$ price tag was complete and utter suicide, effectively choking out all launch sales and also spreading bad word of mouth. Nothing else about the system stands out when you have that inconceivable number on it.

I had one. There was never really a killer app for it. Gex? But it looked awesome and I was the envy of my friends. Then PS1 arrived. I never went back to 3DO.

Trip was quite the cute guy. 100% would've hit it.

With the 3DO you can really feel the sense of pride and accomplishment.

Look at all these early consoles, especially 3DO and I wonder how different it would be, if we had the modern development community we have now back in that time frame would 3DO still exist today

3DO, Amiga 1000 and Lynx were all better than anything else at the time they all launched. Top of the shelve hardware innovators.
EA made the graphics standard for AMIGA too, and made one of the most beloved freehand painting programs ever. Deluxe Paint on Amiga.
EA were great up until Battlefield 1942 in 2002. Then EA started to go downhill as they also shutted down several legendary developers too.

Still the best music visualiser I have ever tripped balls to.

What sold me on the 3DO was the built in memory unlike the Playstation which you had to buy memory cards separately. I'm thinking I bought a later model system. It was a Panasonic top load.

The 3DO would have probably sold quite well if it had launched at $399. Hardly anyone would have paid $699 for a console back in 1993. It was a powerful console for the time, so it's a shame that devs didn't get to push the hardware further and further over the usual 5 year period. I loved Crash 'n Burn, Total Eclipse, Slayer, Road Rash, Off World Interceptor, The Need For Speed. I wish there had been more refined sequels.

It was really the pricing why the Panasonic 3DO failed. $699 USD in 1993 was a lot of money. It was equivalent to $1342 today! It was doomed from the start even though it had the games

One of the best channels on YT, we need more content though bro!!!

All this time I thought it was called the 3 Do or 3D zero lol

i rented a 3do system from a local game store....it came in a suitcase that looked like it housed a RPG...anyway, the cd quality blew my mind lmaooo

I still have mine and it works great. Some games don't though.

Came back after a while to see some of these old videos. Still fun to watch after all this time!

E.A. Games... Consume Everything