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AngusThermopyle
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Re: complete newbie needing some general advice
« Reply #15 on: March 20, 2009, 07:06:25 pm »

I'd have loved a PC CD-ROM release, myself.

There was a bundled, CD-ROM released years after the original game came out. However, it contained none of the 3D0-specific content.
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jaychant
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Re: complete newbie needing some general advice
« Reply #16 on: March 20, 2009, 08:08:11 pm »

The 3DO was heavily hyped in 1994 and was expected to become a major console for several years. However, stupid marketing ("It's a high-end audio-visual system, not a video game console!") and high prices killed it off in 1996.

They advertised it as not being a video game console?! No wonder it failed...

That would be like Nintendo saying, "The Wii isn't a videogame console, it's an advanced multi-movement tracking system!"
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Re: complete newbie needing some general advice
« Reply #17 on: March 20, 2009, 09:38:10 pm »

There was a bundled, CD-ROM released years after the original game came out. However, it contained none of the 3D0-specific content.
I'm aware of that. What I meant was, of course, "a PC CD-ROM release with the 3DO content". Also, the last character in "3DO" is the letter 'O', not the number '0'. Whose stupid idea was it to pronounce both of them "oh" anyway?
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Re: complete newbie needing some general advice
« Reply #18 on: March 20, 2009, 10:58:46 pm »

The 3DO was heavily hyped in 1994 and was expected to become a major console for several years. However, stupid marketing ("It's a high-end audio-visual system, not a video game console!") and high prices killed it off in 1996.

They advertised it as not being a video game console?! No wonder it failed...

That would be like Nintendo saying, "The Wii isn't a videogame console, it's an advanced multi-movement tracking system!"

Attitudes about this sort of thing were different back in the 80's and 90's. Memories of the Crash in 1983 were still relatively fresh, which made retailers and manufacturers a little skittish about flooding the market and taking up shelf space with a lot of products. It's notable that Nintendo refused to call their machines "video game consoles" for a long while as well, because they didn't want to associate their products with the bad memories that the Crash had associated the term with. Besides, calling it a more convoluted name allowed them to secure shelf space at more conservative retailers who only dealt in "high-end electronics", rather than being dismissed as a "kids toy" (because it was not generally socially acceptable to admit you played video games after you hit your teens yet) and relegated to toy stores and specialty retailers (the latter of which were few and far between then, rather than today's "Gamestop on every corner").

You youngsters have it easy these days... Whippersnappers.
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Re: complete newbie needing some general advice
« Reply #19 on: March 21, 2009, 10:18:38 am »

Attitudes about this sort of thing were different back in the 80's and 90's. Memories of the Crash in 1983 were still relatively fresh, which made retailers and manufacturers a little skittish about flooding the market and taking up shelf space with a lot of products.
In Europe, the market was already dominated by home computers (especially the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64) and the crash had little effect. Marketing was usually along the lines of "Why buy a video game console to waste your kids' time when you can get them a computer they can use for work at the same price?" Also, computer games (on cassette) were much cheaper than ROM cartridges (not to mention much easier to pirate).

The CD-I and 3DO consoles, being early CD-based consoles, were seen as platforms for "interactive movies", a marketing-speak phrase used to sell games to people who watch movies but don't play video games (a big market segment at the time). Many of these were full motion video-based games with little or no actual game (Night Trap being a particularly famous example); others used FMV as an important part of an adventure game (e.g. The 7th Guest).
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Re: complete newbie needing some general advice
« Reply #20 on: March 22, 2009, 10:10:36 am »

They advertised it as not being a video game console?! No wonder it failed...

That would be like Nintendo saying, "The Wii isn't a videogame console, it's an advanced multi-movement tracking system!"

Sony pretty much did the same with the PS3, saying it's an "entertainment center" rather than a game playing tool.
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Dabir
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Re: complete newbie needing some general advice
« Reply #21 on: March 22, 2009, 10:55:44 am »

Sony might actually be justified with that; after all, an "entertainment centre" has a lot more functionality (DVD etc) than a console (such as SNES) whereas a "high-end audio-visual system" just means "it has light and sound".
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Re: complete newbie needing some general advice
« Reply #22 on: March 25, 2009, 09:55:37 pm »

Interesting stuff people Smiley Im actually 30 so I can remember the vast majority of what is being discussed here, its funny as I actually bought an amiga just not long ago and well I basically got into PCs, so I have 2 or 3 really decent PCs in the house and alot of games but being spoiled that way or maybe having my eyes opened to the shallowness created by a graphically intensive game well I am going through this weird phase for the last while, trying to collect retro/old games that were classics and unlike the vast majoity of todays games you would be playing them for alot longer than 2 days to 1 week , I mean I see modern games with 9s and 9.8s and even 10.0s which are terribly shallow, I also dispair when I see a game with 10 out of 10 and that makes me say "okay I will no longer take this reviewer seriously!" Maybe its just me but 10 out of 10 is perfection and when you consider that none of the classics got 10 out of 10 well in my view its laughable that reviewers give out 10 these days, I could name at least 2 modern games with this which would illustrate the crazyness of it but I dont want to create any hassle in case someone likes the mentioned games Smiley

I remember those old gaming machines, does anyone remember a game called heimdall 2? I was actually quite young when I purchased that and I remember at the time thinking that it was graphically astounding lol and also that if I understood the game a bit better that it would be awesome(I didnt have much experiance with rpgs at that time)

One other thing, Im actually remotely thinking about getting a sega genesis system Smiley Its just although they were out when I was younger I never owned one and also theres a clip of starflight 2 on the genesis and it looks awesome
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Re: complete newbie needing some general advice
« Reply #23 on: April 02, 2009, 04:43:10 am »

Fred Ford had this to say on the topic  Grin

The 3DO version was a 'saving throw'.  We had been contracted to do a Sega CD version of the Horde and subsequently had hired two sub-contractors.  They quit their previous jobs to do this for us and literally the day before they were due to show up, the project was cancelled, because Sega reneged on some promises.  We were so guilt stricken that we convinced Crystal Dynamics, for whom we were making the Horde PC and 3DO, to allow us to do a 3DO version of SC2 (although we did program the aforementioned voiceover Mac to fire the sub-contractors when they arrived the next morning).
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