🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <wunner.736350153@nova> wun...@nova.tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de (Guenter Wunner) writes:
>Well, I have only heard a little about 3DO. It seems to be a video
>game system with terrific hardware (Silicon Graphics-like) and fairly
>low prices. The company was apparently founded by Trip Hawking who
>once was the head-honcho of Electronic Arts. 

I'm excited about the prospects of 3DO until I consider the current
state of Philips' CD-I system and how dismally it is doing.  The first
generation of 3DO machines is to be made by Panasonic/Matsushita,
priced at around $700 list (ouch!).  This seems pricey, but look
at the fervent interest in ibm.pc.games--circa $2000-3000 for an
IBM games machine isn't exactly cost-effective, either.

Rick Tompane, 'chief technology officer for 3DO', points out in 
issue #2 of Wired that the thrust of 3DO will be to provide lower-cost 
software for the platform than the pricing scheme for SNES or Sega 
consoles.  The premise for those systems seems to be simply to take 
a loss on the console hardware, while reaming the customer for game 
cartridges.  The concept of 3DO will allegedly be to shift more of 
the cost to the initial hardware purchase; Tompane sketches prices
in terms of $10 to $30 for CDs.

>The Neo Geo also wasn't a great
>success. Great games come out for that system regularly, but not many
>people can afford them.

This confuses me--here the console is pricey and the games themselves
are $100-$150.  I only hope this isn't what the pricing sceme for
3DO ends up like, despite the initial intentions of the developers.

Followups might be best-placed in one of the rec.games.video.* groups.

-Russell Webb
rw...@nyx.cs.du.edu