Considering a 3DO

[Retronick]

A buddy of mine just found a 3DO FZ-1 bundle on his company's bulletin board for $200. It includes long-boxed copies of Way of the Warrior, Jurassic Park Interactive, Shock Wave, Madden, and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. I'm definitely curious since I never owned the system and there are a lot of titles I've been curious about (Warrior & Street Fighter are two of them), but I feel like a majority of this software I can already get or have on my Saturn. Return Fire is great and I always wanted to try HELL, but what do folks here think? I should mention I have a soft spot for corny FMV, but I also have a TGCD, Sega CD, and DOS titles to scratch that itch.

What do you all think? Is $200 outrageous for this? By my math it's just about right for the system, WotW, & SSF2T alone.

[Aussie2B]

I don't know if that's a fair price compared to current market value, but I definitely wouldn't drop that much for a 3DO. The library isn't great, and most of its worthwhile games can be had on other, much cheaper platforms.

[gbpxl]

Yeah its hard to justify spending the money if you just want to play the games but if you are looking to collect, the 3DO is an awesome system for that and a lot of great titles made their first appearance on that system. Night Trap, Road Rash, Gex, Need for Speed

[Greg2600]

It's not outrageous, but it's not swell deal either. There are some exclusives, but the system has zero copy protection so burn away. Also keep in mind that most Panasonic's need cap replacement, while I wouldn't touch the Goldstar crud.

[Az]

Way of the Warrior is a good game if you enjoy low budget digitized fighters (I do). SSFIIT is a good port, but nothing to write home about nowadays what with it available so many other ways.

That might not be the best price in the world, but IMO it's not outrageous (especially if the games are boxed). If you're buying it to enjoy the games and you know what you're getting into then by all means fire away. Just don't buy it expecting to get that much or more back if you flip it.

[mailman187666]

I suggest getting a 3DO, but I've had one since I was a kid, so I have nostalgia glasses on. You can also burn CD-Rs to play games in it, so you could get the whole library for the cost of your time getting the roms and a stack of blank cds. I feel like you should be able to get that bundle for a little cheaper. Maybe see if they will take $160 and negotiate from there. Just my opinion. If you don't want to wait and have the $200 to spend get it anyway. The way I see it is A) It can be sold but may lose a few bucks from what you paid B) If you enjoy having it, you will forget about the $200 in a couple months because you will already have gotten a few paychecks in that time.

EDIT: After checking ebay completed listings, that is actually a decent deal because street fighter with the box alone goes for between $60-100, Way of the Warrior about $25-$35, and the console about $130

[Mangar]

I still have my old 3DO, and will say outright that while it was great ages ago - You aren't wrong about Saturn covering most of their titles. For collection purposes it's great, but in terms of gameplay - Nearly all of the older games either don't hold up well, or have better versions.

One game I really liked that is 3DO only was PaTaank. It got poor reviews, but I absolutely loved this game. Essentially it's pinball, but you play as the actual ball. Have no idea how it holds up....

[Retronick]

I suggest getting a 3DO, but I've had one since I was a kid, so I have nostalgia glasses on. You can also burn CD-Rs to play games in it, so you could get the whole library for the cost of your time getting the roms and a stack of blank cds. I feel like you should be able to get that bundle for a little cheaper. Maybe see if they will take $160 and negotiate from there. Just my opinion. If you don't want to wait and have the $200 to spend get it anyway. The way I see it is A) It can be sold but may lose a few bucks from what you paid B) If you enjoy having it, you will forget about the $200 in a couple months because you will already have gotten a few paychecks in that time.

EDIT: After checking ebay completed listings, that is actually a decent deal because street fighter with the box alone goes for between $60-100, Way of the Warrior about $25-$35, and the console about $130

This is about where I ended up in my reasoning. I always saw the 3DO in stores and I was always intrigued since everyone was talking about it but seemingly nobody I knew personally had one. I knew about the copy protection and was planning on burning most of the library. The only games that I absolutely couldn't live without being boxed are Return Fire and SSFII so I figure I only have about another $30ish to get to where I want for a legit 3DO collection. I do think it's worth haggling down a bit since, hey, that's what you do on the Internet.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. Heck, thanks to everyone for the thoughtful responses. I'm going to wait to hear back on the state of things (he is testing it now), and see if I can talk him down. If it needs repairs I might just try to buy it as salvage and re-cap the sucker.

I'll get an epilogue to ya'll no matter what direction I go.

[Az]

Protip: Immediately loosen the screws in the controllers about a quarter turn if they haven't been already.

[Retronick]

As promised, I'm here to report on what happened with the 3DO bundle. The guy tested it and confirmed that the disc drive isn't working. Not uncommon for an FZ-1, but not something I have enough interest in to shell out $200 for and repair or pay to have repaired. Thanks again to everyone who weighed in.

[Greg2600]

As promised, I'm here to report on what happened with the 3DO bundle. The guy tested it and confirmed that the disc drive isn't working. Not uncommon for an FZ-1, but not something I have enough interest in to shell out $200 for and repair or pay to have repaired. Thanks again to everyone who weighed in.

The drives on those often fail due to capacitors on the MB, which can affect the entire console. I just got one that didn't read, had the caps changed, and it works now. However, the price is too high as you said. The seller is out of line asking that much for a non-working system. It's not a Turbo Express!

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

I'd see if I could get it for cheaper. Because of the games alone it's going to be worth at least $100 though. Maybe $150 would be a good deal for a broken 3DO + those games?