Vaporware.... What ever happened to......

[Anthony1]

The M2 add on for the 3DO system. The Virtual Reality headset for the Atari Jaguar. The pippin.

Whatever happened to all this stuff. I mean I know that it got canned and never came out, but does anybody know any behind the scenes stories why these hardware units got canned?

Can anybody think of any other systems or add-ons that never made the prime time?

Can anybody list every single piece of vaporware?

Wasn't Hasbo going to come out with a system at one point?

[digitalpress]

The Pippin came out, both in the USA and Japan. Better known as Atmark Pippin or Bandai Apple Pippin.

I own the US (black) version, and one game (Gundam), complete with the modem and packaging. The Japanese (white) one is slightly more accessible.

[Goblin]

The pippin.

Whatever happened to all this stuff.

The Pippin wasn't cancelled it did come out, although I don't know how many units were actually produced. A few on this board have consoles, although I know software is extremely hard to come by.

[YoshiM]

As for the M2, this is what 3DO site "3DO A DoDo" says:

" In the autumn of 1996 M2 was expected to be on sale in Japan, this never happened and the M2 slowly but surely disappeared into Oblivion. What went wrong? The story is a little hazy but goes something like this. When Matsushita purchased the rights to M2 from the 3DO company for 100 million dollars they seem to have had some kind of strategy planned. This strategy however did not involve releasing M2 to the public in console form but instead in an arcade board and consumer display guise. Panasonic were in discussion with the US and Japanese coin-op manufacturers way back in early 96, offering 80% less cost than competitors with 30% more performance than Sega's model two hardware. This along with the plan for corporate displays and DVD ROM players seems to have side tracked Matsushita into canceling the M2 home console altogether. This was also due to the fact that although they had plenty of money for marketing and backing up the immensely powerful console, Developers for the system were few and far between even when they added another Power PC chip to the design, big software houses like Electronic Arts and Interplay all kept their distance and thus scared off smaller developers. Lack of third party encouragement and the failure of the 3DO 1 all managed to sway Matsushita into a final decision that brought about the 3DO's extinction, a critical decision that probably set back the console industry about two to three years. M2 never made a great impact in the arcades or in the DVD player market and is now but a shadowy memory in the great console graveyard in the sky. Everyone seems to have lost out except for one. One man who nurtured and sculpted the 3DO and M2 from existence to the grave and made millions of dollars at our expense in the process. Trip Hawkins take a bow, you are undoubtedly THE - Top Man. "

[SoulBlazer]

Heh, I don't agree with all the conclusions, but the information was handy.

You can also add into that the fact the M2 probaly never would have been able to take much steam from the 'big three'. Three consoles is the most the market can support right now in the post crash gaming age.

Trip Hawkins is a good person but even 3DO is under Chapter 11 protection now. So much for the money.

[Zaxxon]

Obviously Atari didn't have the money or the user base to release an expensive peripheral like the VR unit. A couple Jag collectors have proto units though. One guy figured out how to make it work with the only known compatible game, Missile Command 3D. People who used it would get motion sickness. There's no way around that. Your brain is getting mixed messages, eyes sense that your moving but your brain can tell your sitting still.