Atari Jaguar vs 3do

[Lost Dragon]

@Otto1980:Having recently purchased Chris Wilkin's rather fine book, The History Of US Gold and read the stories from various Tiertex people, it's clear the company was more geared towards getting games coded and published within 6 months and people simply told to do the best they could, quality not at the forefront of concerns....

 

Talk of not wanting to make most of Amiga conversions as they'd make the ST one's even worse, wrong ST disks being sent for mastering, very little play testing etc.

 

Kinda renders it a bit 'pointless' trying to reach people behind Supercross 3D, as it's clear no-one at Atari or Tiertex were really that concerned about quality of the Jaguar game, it was simply 'product' and treated the same as any other that came before it.

[JagChris]

 

agreed. what jerks. they're ruining it for everyone. Probably on purpose too. It's definitely not the other way around

 

[Lynxpro]

 

Yes. From what I understand, it wasn't at the $599 price very long, and it had pretty competitive price drops over the next two and three years until it was discontinued.

 

 

The way I remember it was that the Panasonic 3DO stayed at $699 for a long time until other manufacturers' 3DO units were released plus the incoming competition from the Saturn and the PS1.

 

Sony came in and blew everyone out of the water with their pricing. Of course, they allegedly got around the dumping charge by changing a few of the parts inside from the Japanese original. So for those who like to claim Microsoft bought their marketshare with the Xbox, well, Sony did it first…and I say that as someone who greatly prefers Sony over Microsoft.

 

SCEA seems to have more ex-Atari people working for them than the Xbox division does.

 

Edit: It would've been interesting to see the M2 actually be released for the consumer market. Same with the Jaguar 2. But both companies had run out of money by then and they probably still couldn't have defeated the Playstation. Atari would've had to have been bought back by Warner and with a serious cash infusion to boot…shame the Tramiels didn't sell out back in 1991 or so when it was rumored Warner wanted back in. And I suppose 3DO would've needed Panasonic or Samsung to have purchased them outright to make the M2 a success.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Lynxpro

[AtariORdead]

 

PS, your signature is one of the biggest jokes ever to be put to print.

[Austin]

The way I remember it was that the Panasonic 3DO stayed at $699 for a long time until other manufacturers' 3DO units were released plus the incoming competition from the Saturn and the PS1.

 

Yeah, based on a thread I found, $699 and for about six months by the looks of it. After that it was $500 for a little less than a year and a half, based on this thread: http://3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3400&hilit=price#p36881

 

I'm still looking, but there was another thread there where Trip Hawkins himself apparently remembered, "The price was most definitely $599 in the beginning". I think he was just misremembering, based on this Software Etc ad. I was for the most part unaware of the 3DO until at least a year after it released, so I didn't have first-hand experience with the pricing back then.

 

 

(tl/dr)

 

 

 

October 3, 1993 - $700 (Panasonic)

February 19, 1994 - $500 (Panasonic)

June 1, 1995 - $300 (Goldstar) ($50 Rebate)

June 28, 1995 - $300 (Panasonic)

November 1995 - $250 (Goldstar)

December 4, 1995 - $200 (Goldstar)

April 8, 1996 - $200 (Panasonic)

[phoenixdownita]

Yeah, based on a thread I found, $699 and for about six months by the looks of it. After that it was $500 for a little less than a year and a half, based on this thread: http://3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3400&hilit=price#p36881

 

.....

 

 

October 3, 1993 - $700 (Panasonic)

February 19, 1994 - $500 (Panasonic)

June 1, 1995 - $300 (Goldstar) ($50 Rebate)

June 28, 1995 - $300 (Panasonic)

November 1995 - $250 (Goldstar)

December 4, 1995 - $200 (Goldstar)

April 8, 1996 - $200 (Panasonic)

 

Well from that list it indicates the 3DO may have squandered its first holiday retail season at 700US$ ... too high .... but by Feb next year it was at 500US$ and stable at that for almost 16 months ... guess it didn't see any other console as a threat until Saturn (May'95) started to sell in US, it was likely the right assumption as outside the Jag there were no believable contenders and the Jag was not exactly brilliant in the 3D dept, still it may have costed the system the wide spread adoption it needed.

By Nov'95 the PS1 started selling in US/EU and another price drop on the 3DO .... the threats were now more obvious.

 

Thanks for digging up that timeline.

Edited November 23, 2015 by phoenixdownita

[Lynxpro]

 

Yeah, based on a thread I found, $699 and for about six months by the looks of it. After that it was $500 for a little less than a year and a half, based on this thread: http://3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3400&hilit=price#p36881

 

I'm still looking, but there was another thread there where Trip Hawkins himself apparently remembered, "The price was most definitely $599 in the beginning". I think he was just misremembering, based on this Software Etc ad. I was for the most part unaware of the 3DO until at least a year after it released, so I didn't have first-hand experience with the pricing back then.

 

 

(tl/dr)

 

That's okay. Trip has failed for many years to remember to pay his taxes to the State of California:

https://www.ftb.ca.gov/law/meetings/12042014/Agenda.shtml

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampbarrett/2011/03/25/video-gaming-pioneer-trip-hawkins-is-still-on-the-hook-for-big-taxes/

[masschamber]

 

Yeah, based on a thread I found, $699 and for about six months by the looks of it. After that it was $500 for a little less than a year and a half, based on this thread: http://3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3400&hilit=price#p36881

 

I'm still looking, but there was another thread there where Trip Hawkins himself apparently remembered, "The price was most definitely $599 in the beginning". I think he was just misremembering, based on this Software Etc ad. I was for the most part unaware of the 3DO until at least a year after it released, so I didn't have first-hand experience with the pricing back then.

 

 

(tl/dr)

 

I like how the games are simply $3 off with coupon, no mention of the price

THough I think the inclusion of crash and burn game cartridge is even better

[phoenixdownita]

 

 

Yeah, based on a thread I found, $699 and for about six months by the looks of it. After that it was $500 for a little less than a year and a half, based on this thread: http://3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3400&hilit=price#p36881

 

I'm still looking, but there was another thread there where Trip Hawkins himself apparently remembered, "The price was most definitely $599 in the beginning". I think he was just misremembering, based on this Software Etc ad. I was for the most part unaware of the 3DO until at least a year after it released, so I didn't have first-hand experience with the pricing back then.

 

 

(tl/dr)

 

I like how the games are simply $3 off with coupon, no mention of the price

THough I think the inclusion of crash and burn game cartridge is even better

 

And thinking how it was NOT a cartridge it's even more funny, the ad calls it a cart I guess to keep it in familiar territory (???).

I would have been proud to advertise it as a CD system, not Software Etc evidently ... or they were just incompetent.

Edited November 26, 2015 by phoenixdownita

[Merendino]

This may have been mentioned earlier in the thread but I'm honestly too lazy to look for it:

 

(My memory might also be hazy but this is what I remember)

 

The 3DO had a high launch price because Panasonic set up a system just about opposite of what Nintendo instituted in the 80's: a huge portion of the software sales went right back to the studio in question (that was the draw for getting companies to program games for the 3DO; very little to no restrictions and a bigger cut of the profit for sales). Since Panasonic wasn't seeing much profit for software they needed to recoup their money via system sales.

 

This of course may have also meant very little to no quality assurance testing; let's just throw whatever at the wall and see what sticks.

 

I love my Jaguar but the fact that the 3DO has an amazing port of Star Control 2 is what wins it for me alone. That game is easily in my top 5 of all-time.

 

Now that I think about it, the parent company "Toys for Bob" (who are swimming in Skylanders money right now) released the source code to the public and SC2 has been re-released as "The Ur-Quan Masters". I wonder if there's ever a chance for a Jag port? #nofumesIswear

Edited November 26, 2015 by Merendino

[Atlantis]

Now that I think about it, the parent company "Toys for Bob" (who are swimming in Skylanders money right now) released the source code to the public and SC2 has been re-released as "The Ur-Quan Masters". I wonder if there's ever a chance for a Jag port? #nofumesIswear

Indie games for old platforms why not?

 

Will it happen: nope.

[Lost Dragon]

Regarding the 3DO retail price:

 

Mark Cerny: '...they added another megabyte of memory-brought it upto 2MB-which is one of the reasons why it ended up costing $700 at launch.'

 

 

John Edelson: 'There was also the problem of the high cost of the CD drive and RAM prices which were very high at the time the 3DO was launched.'

[GroovyBee]

A talk by programmer Andrew Hutchings of Starfighter fame on the Archimedes and 3DO. Its over 3.5 hours hours and hes not the best presenter but I think its interesting all the same :-