Youtube series on 3DO M2 - new episode uploaded 10/30!

[awbacon]

Hey all,

Since I started collecting M2 stuff, my end goal was to be able to produce a series of videos on M2 itself. After years of cobbling together the hardware and software, today I am launching a new channel, "Video Game Esoterica".

The channel isn't exclusively devoted to M2, but will focus on lesser known hardware, games, betas, etc etc. Basically whatever I find interesting haha. The first "season" of episodes will be focused on M2 though (Konami arcade games, kiosk stuff, Cirrus M2 card, playthroughs, history, chip design, etc etc).

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn2pQB4jsCTLUtx2NIkCvUg

Videos will release weekly on Tuesdays over the next couple of months!

Hope you all like it! It's taken a ton of time and energy (not to count money buying all this crap lol) to get the ball rolling on all this.

Edited October 30, 2018 by awbacon

[Lost Dragon]

Some background quotes to go with your series:

 

 

My limited knowledge of the Saturn and PSX suggest that trying to

do dymanically-computed textures on them would be extraordinarily arduous.

 

With M2, it's a snap. This lets you easily and cheaply pull tricks like

"video feedback." In fact, one of our earlier demos had a TV set object

which was displaying the current camera view. So when you moved the camera to point at the TV screen... It was pretty cool.source:

 

Leo L. Schwab -- D

 

the demo tape featuring the D&D-style monster fight and the racing game were fakes... excuse me, simulations,created using Alias.

The animations were based on a set of theoretical rendering speeds,

which were later shown to be tremendously optimistic when actual silicon

arrived.

Still, the numbers we did get out of BDA were pretty damn

> impressive; 300K polygons/sec in a typical case (2x N64), 500K if you're

dilligent...

Source:

Leo L. Schwab -

 

THOSE* demos! You mean the ones with sailboat in the lagoon

and Bossie the cow (actually a hermaphrodite; it had horns *and* an udder) behind the cyclone fence? I had completely forgotten about those.

Yeah, those videos were generated using a software simulation of

the BDA chip. They were extremely legit, and in fact the Bossie-behind-

the-fence demo was ported to real hardware, and worked precisely as

advertised. I don't think anyone ever got around to porting the sailboat

program; the people who wrote it were immersed in more important things by the time real silicon showed up.

 

You've seen the N64 controller, right? Well, the prototype M2

controller I saw looked very similar. However, it was built using

prototype plastics. For those of you who have never seen the stuff

before, it's this yellowish-white substance that isn't very pretty (it

doesn't need to be; it's for prototypes).

 

So here we are, looking at this yellowish-white thing with a long

central component and two smaller roundish components at one end, and it was just completely impossible for us to keep a straight face when anyone grabbed hold of it.

 

Source:

Leo L. Schwab

 

All public Opera demos were run on actual hardware. The original Opera

machines were 13 boards of silicon, which were later compressed into

3 chips, but the "giant graphics engine" was the actual Opera hardware.

 

Some of the very early very speculative PRIVATE Opera demos were mockups, but these were never represented as running on real hardware.

 

They were in fact video tapes of our guesses as to what the hardware

would eventually do.

 

The approach to the M2 demos was another story altogether...

Source: "Stephen H. Landrum"

[Lost Dragon]

Re:M2 Battlesport..

 

I have indeed seen a version of M2-BattleSport, put together by a

couple of guys at Cyclone (whose names I'm embarrassed to say I've

forgotten). It was by no means polished; it was just a technology

exploration to see if BattleSport could be done on M2, and how it might look.

 

And I must say, given the amazingly short time in which these two guys put it together, it looked pretty good. So, in my mind, there's no question that Cyclone could indeed make it into a good M2 product.

 

As to whether or not they *will* make it into a product, well,

even if I were free to speak, it would still be impossible for me to say.

 

Given 3DO's stated intent to become a PC/Internet titling house, it's not clear whether or not they would go full-bore on M2-BattleSport.

Personally, I'd like to believe they would since it would be a good game,

but for me to say one way or the other would be pure speculation on my part.

 

Awaiting the call from the lawyers...

 

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Leo L. Schwab -- Digital Spellweaver

[+chicgamer]

Watched some of these videos today. Was cool to finally see footage of M2 games.

 

It's too bad that Tobe! Polystars and Evil Night didn't get ports to other systems. They both look fun.

[Punisher5.0]

I used to collect for the M2. I had a system, two controllers (the black ones) and dev documents. Its neat hardware but after years of just staring at it I ended up selling it all.

[Lost Dragon]

Jane Whittaker was kind enough to answer my Q's on M2 Power Crystal:

 

 

Jane Whittaker

On Power Crystal, it was in fact reviewed by a number of magazines, including Edge, although those reviews were never printed. Most magazines, as you know, have a significant lead time so they review ahead of time. 3DO had all the reviews pulled from publication once it was announced they were no longer going ahead with the hardware console. Yes, it did get top marks in the Edge review, I am really proud of that, although to this day really sad that the M2 console itself was scrapped. We had the reviewer from Edge visit us regularly in the office and I got to know him really well. (although it earned me the worst dressed developer award in Edge! but that is another story ) On Artemis, there is a misconception that it was an early version of Power Crystal. In fact, the two games are totally unrelated. Artemis never stretched beyond paper design for Jaguar CD and wasn't actually a fantasy RPG. Artemis was open world exploration but in a modern setting. Actual production of Artemis was never started beyond initial concept ideas. Artemis actually was a joint idea with my friend Jon from New York, with Artemis being the working title as that was the name of his dog! So Project Artemis was always a bit of an in-joke.

[Lost Dragon]

Thanks to several Perceptions staff coming forward and giving personal testimonials, along with documented magazine coverage (letters pages etc making clear the magazines only Previewed early, unfinished versions of Power Crystal) and court documents being obtained. 

 

We can put enough evidence forward to prove the version of events Jane Whittaker presents in interviews, is sadly in keeping with the complete and utter nonsense stated about anything else connected to Andrew/Jane Whittaker. 

 

 

The game was never heralded as a Zelda 64-beater, merely it was in the same style. 

 

It was made clear Perceptions lacked the artistic resources at Nintendo’s disposal and the magazines had used a mixture of lush mockup screens and rather disspointing actual in-game screens. 

 

 

3DO signed a publishing deal with Perceptions, who began work on the ambitious RPG on an incomplete M2 development kit. 

 

 

3DO then suddenly pulled out of the deal (we suspect when they sold the M2 technology to Panasonic) leaving Perceptions in a  dire financial state. 

 

 

A rescue attempt was made to secure a fresh publisher, via the publicity of Previews in Edge and Next Generation Magazines... 

 

This failed and Perceptions became the victims of bankruptcy. 

 

 

Panasonic then annouced the M2 itself was now dead, some 6 months later. 

 

 

There never were the reviews Jane claims. 

 

The title was never finished. 

 

It simply joined many other M2 titles that had been started and were abandoned. 

[Lost Dragon]

Update:

 

Thanks to information from a source who wishes to remain anonymous, but who worked on the game, we have the following addt. Information - 

 

Power Crystal reached the stage where a big chunk of environmental art had been finished. 

 

It had a basic landscape system, basic economic system, so you could buy/sell items, some basic characters, but no interaction.

 

It was nowhere near the stage where it could be reviewed. 

 

Jane Whittaker claiming it was 100% finished, reviewed by GamePro, Edge and Next Generation magazines and recieved 100% scores and described as a Zelda 64 Killer, is a complete lie and we have had the games actual status now confirmed by multiple ex-perceptions sources.