would the M2 have been more succesful than 3DO?

[mailman187666]

what do you guys think? there are mixed feelings about the 3DO as a system, but I'm wondering who was looking foward to the M2 back in the day? I think it would have been able to stand up to PS1 and N64 in its time because it would have been the only CD based 64 bit system. I remember very little about what was planned for the system but I know I was very bummed out when I heard it was getting sold to Matsushita and eventually canned. Remember when it was originaly supposed to be an upgrade for the original 3DO? Could we have seen games like more of the Samurai Shodown series and possibly even more street fighters? could we have seen sequals to games like Killing time? what do you guys think. I tried doing a search on the M2 here but got no results.

[YoshiM]

I remember a buddy of mine came back from CES with a demo tape showing the capabilities of the M2. I remember a polygonal Greek styled helmet rotating in one of the scenes and it looked fantastic. However the 3DO was way out of my grasp financially at the time so I never really gave the M2 much thought.

[RCM]

I believe some arcade titles made use of the M2 hardware. I know at least one guy on DP owned M2 proto hardware. If good games came out on the system I would have picked one up...eventually. Didn't D2 for Dreamcast start as an M2 title? I think so...

[fishsandwich]

Didn't D2 for Dreamcast start as an M2 title? I think so...

It did indeed put the concept for the M2 game was completely scrapped and reword into what eventually appeared on the Dreamcast. The screenshots I have seen of M2 D2 (?) suggest a visiual style far closer to the original D than the snow-covered look that we see on the Dreamcast.

[Xian042]

I think M2 was destined to be too little too late.
3DO never caught on the way they wanted it to. It would have been way too expensive, and the 3DO relationship was too close. People would have just passed it off as a last ditch effort to save the 3DO. Pretty much another Atari Jaguar CD.

[fishsandwich]

It seems the actual chipset is still in productions... it powers some ATM's and automatic coffee vending machines.

No Street Fighter, though.

[Marriott_Guy]

Being one of the the three other idiots in line at Electronice Boutique to buy the original FZ-1 model for $699, I guess you could say that I was looking forward to the M2 back in the day. I was, and still am, a big fan of the system (might be those long boxes that are near impossible to store) though the overall game library for it is not that great.

As previously stated, games were developed for this (I think 5 in total plus the Konami arcade port). I have one of the FZ-35S models, which was distributed to a few automobile dealerships in Japan for use within a kiosk. The only software I have is demonstration disk for Chevy. The program is ok, but nothing really special. As fish stated, the M2 technology is still in use today, primarily in Japan, in ATMs, automatic coffee machines and toasters (read that last part from some site).

The programs load directly from the CD, so there are load issues with the system that may or may not have been worked out prior to release. The PS would have crushed it, even though the technology inside the M2 was a bit better. Pictures of the M2 attached alond with the 1st page of the manual.

[Gentlegamer]

Are you also a prototype collector, Marriot_Guy?

[Marriott_Guy]

To be honest Gentle, not really. I will pick one up when the opportunity arises and the price is right, but I am still trying to finish up the 'main' systems (new technology at it's time) to complete my collection (still need a CreatiVision, Olivetti Envision, Commodore 64 GS, Capcom CPS Player, Daewoo Zemmix (any model), and of course the RDI Halcyon).

Great site by the way in your banner - I wrote a couple of console reviews there. Dave runs a great site.

[Bojay1997]

I doubt the M2 would have been very successful. I own two of the Konami M2 based arcade titles and they frankly don't offer much more than the Playstation or Sega Saturn was capable of delivering in similar games at that time. While on paper the tech specs may have been superior to those systems in some respects, your hardware is only as good as the software developers see fit to push it. The sales numbers for 3do were so spectacularly low (I've read less than 500K in the US and maybe 1 million units total in the rest of the world) that it's not like there was much of a base to migrate to the new platform. As such, it would have been almost like starting over from scratch and this time with only one hardware manufacturer building systems (Panasonic) and most major software developers, most notably EA, unwilling to invest in development given their serious losses on the first console. The fact that there are only a handful of games that saw any sort of development given how close the M2 was to final manufacturing is more evidence that it just wasn't going to work out whether the system was released or not.

[tritium]

The problem with the 3do was they were looking at the market incorrectly imo. They were going for a high end market, which ultimately didn't exist at the extent they had originally thought. Or at least thats how I feel about it. I'm sorry but 600+ for a system is still to expensive for me, and most of the people I know. Worse when 3do came out 600 was worth more then. Neogeo actually ahd more to impress with than the 3do did in the end. Never saw anyone drool over a 3do...

[jwm2]

Yeah the 3do was a quick flop. I don't think i've seen a ship sink that fast. It had some good games, i think the original need for speed came out on it. A buddy of mine had one, but he didn't have too many games. I wonder if hes still got it, hrmm.

[Rob2600]

Was a sequel to the Dennis Miller 3DO game in the works? If so, the M2 would've been a huge success.

[Wraith Storm]

I was REALLY looking forward to getting an M2. Would have bought it day one had it been released.

First there was D2 that I thought looked awesome (Wish the DC version had been a port of this) and then there was a RPG Andrew Whittaker was developing for it called Power Crystal (or something like that). I have a huge article that the magazine Next Generation did on the game back in like 96. From the details the article provides it very well could have been the M2's answer to Fable and years before Fable was even in development!!!

I alwas wondered what happened to Andrew Whittaker. He developed AvP for the Jag. Then had Power Crystal and a handfull of other games in development for the M2. Then when the M2 essentially turned to vaporware so did Mr. Whittaker.