Games - 3DO Interactive Multiplayer

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	Games - 3DO Interactive Multiplayer

3DO Interactive Multiplayer (most commonly referred to as 'the 3DO') was a line of video game consoles released in 1993 and 1994 by Panasonic, Sanyo and Goldstar. The consoles were manufactured according to specifications created by The 3DO Company, and were originally designed by Dave Needle and RJ Mical of New Technology Group. The system was conceived by entrepreneur and EA Games founder Trip Hawkins.

Despite a highly-promoted launch and a host of cutting-edge technologies, the system's high price ($699.95 USD at release) and an over-saturated console market brought 'the 3DO' to a speedy demise.

Features and catalogue

The consoles had very advanced hardware features at the time: an ARM60 32-bit RISC CPU, two custom video co-processors, a custom 16-bit DSP and a custom math coprocessor. They also featured 2 megabytes of DRAM, 1 megabyte of VRAM, and a double speed CD-ROM drive for main storage, Up to 8 controllers could be daisy-chained on the system at once. In addition to special 3DO software, the system was able to play audio CDs (including support for CD+G), view Photo CDs, and Video CDs with an add-on MPEG video card (released for Goldstar model only). However, few titles utilized the console's full potential.

A notable feature of the console is that it is one of few CD-based consoles that feature neither regional lockout nor copy protection, scoring it points amongst import gamers and software pirates alike, though reports have suggested that the Goldstar model isn't particularly durable when used for either of those purposes.

It was often said that the 3DO software library exhibited many of the worst aspects of home video gaming at the time. This was the dawn of CD-ROM gaming, so cutscenes of pixelated video footage dominated many titles at the expense of good gameplay. The most well-received titles were commonly ports of games from other systems, such as Alone in the Dark, Myst, Out of This World, and Star Control II. Other notable titles include Need for Speed
, Jurassic Park Interactive, Crash N' Burn, Slayer, Killing Time, and the first console port of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, which exceeded the original with its CD-quality audio. Game series that started on 3DO by Electronic Arts, Studio 3DO and Crystal Dynamics established themselves on other 32-bit consoles.

In addition to the consoles, a 3DO Blaster ISA peripheral card for PCs which offered all the features of the home console was manufactured by Creative Technology.

The 3DO Company also designed a next-generation console called the M2, which was to use a PowerPC 602 processor, but the company abandoned the console business and sold the technology to Matsushita who never brought the system to the market.

Specs

Double-speed (depending on manufacturer) 300 kbit/s data transfer CD-ROM drive with 32 kilobyte RAM buffer
Multitasking 32-bit operating system

Processor

32-bit 12.5 MHz RISC CPU (ARM60) made by Advanced RISC Machines (roughly equivalent to 25 MHz 68030)
Math co-processor
32kb SRAM

Display

Truecolor 640x480 pixel resolution (approximately 16.7 million colors)
Two accelerated video co-processors capable of producing 9-16 million pixels per second (36-64 megapix/s interpolated), distorted, scaled, rotated and texture mapped

System board

Super-fast bus speed (50 megabytes per second)
36 separate DMA channels for processing data quickly
2 megabytes of RAM
1 megabyte of VRAM
2 expansion ports

Sound

16-bit stereo sound
44.1 kHz sound sampling rate
Fully supports Dolby Surround Sound
Custom 16-bit Digital Signal Processor (DSP)

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