M2'd. (Panasonic FZ-35S)

[Zoe F]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=62054&item=8159353982&rd=1

[davidleeroth]

They have more of these? @_@ Bought one!

[Ed Oscuro]

SAME. $35, I can't lose!

[SoulBlazer]

What is this exactly? And if it can't play CD's or DVD's, what CAN you use it for? :/

[Ed Oscuro]

HAHAHA WIN:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=62054&item=8158205608

If nothing else we can always resell these :D

[max 330 mega]

count me in, i picked up one too.

[Zoe F]

Well, if you didn' get one last time, here's about forty more! Where are these coming from?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=62054&item=8159605682&rd=1

[vision89]

What exactly is it? Can anything be used on it?

[max 330 mega]

dammit now the market has been flooded. shit.

[Griking]

What is this exactly? And if it can't play CD's or DVD's, what CAN you use it for? :/

I'd like to know this as well? The auction description doesn't mention anything about games at all.

[Lemmy Kilmister]

What is this exactly? And if it can't play CD's or DVD's, what CAN you use it for? :/

I'd like to know this as well? The auction description doesn't mention anything about games at all.

It an looks like a old PC of some type that was M2 compatible. The M2 was supposed to be the successor to the 3DO. Though it never was released to the public as far as I know. As far as games go, maybe a few prototypes lying around, but i'm pretty sure there was any releases for the console.

[Griking]

Will this play 3DO games?

[Zoe F]

Unfortunately no, it will not play 3DO games.

[SoulBlazer]

So basicaly it's a useless prototype system that can't play anything at all and is not even rare with how many are being sold right now? Am I missing something here? :hmm:

[Dreamscape]

Actually, this system is a kiosk. It was used in Chevy places to show of their cars. The software is much harder to find than the system. However, even if you did find software for it, all it would be is demo videos trying to convince you to buy a Chevy. So, to answer the question of what this thing can be used for... a doorstop.

[Griking]

Does this have anything at all to do with games? I mean, from the item description it sounds like the only thing that this item does is run kiosks. How is this any different from on old PC and what's the big attraction for it by everyone here?

Edit: Oops, looks like this question was being answered as I was typing it. I'm still puzzled why everyone here rushed to buy one though. :?

[SoulBlazer]

Well, the auction DOES say that there was a adapater made that would allow CD's and DVD's to be played....maybe if you can get one of those, it would have some value. ;)

[anagrama]

Recent Assembler thread about these (clicky). (http://www.assemblergames.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=1307&highlight=m2)
Apparently, there's just one demo disc which will actually boot on them.

[Ed Oscuro]

My condolences to anybody who bought one to play 3DO games or thinking they could somehow get Polystars or Battle Tryst (lol I'd like to see that! You'd essentially need to buy a working Polystars or Battle Tryst unit which have all the M2 hardware anyways, i.e. those Lawrence has/had).

But if you bought one because you just wanted the M2 hardware, this isn't so bad.

Just sent off payment for mine. I don't care HOW useless it is; as long as you have the hardware you stand a chance (depending on whether burners can create discs readable by the system) of eventually getting it to do something.

On a related note, wow, it's cool that it does DVDs (again, sort of). 3DO and DVD just don't seem to click for some reason :)

As for the power of the hardware itself...I read something that led me to believe it can map MPEG data to polygons? UBER SWEET. Now whether or not that's workable with anything over four polygons onscreen at a time (and assuming maybe only one/two can have MPEG mapped to it), well...all the same this is something I'm pretty sure didn't feature in the Konami arcade games whatsoever.

[Flack]

Cool, with the add-on you can get it to play DVDs, for about 2-3 times the price of an Apex DVD player. :eek 2:

[SoulBlazer]

I was just going to say, the add-on to allow this M2 to play CD's and DVD's can NOT be very cheap. :)

[Ed Oscuro]

Cool, with the add-on you can get it to play DVDs, for about 2-3 times the price of an Apex DVD player. :eek 2:
You get big time negative coolness points for using an Apex DVD points, though. LOL

[Ed Oscuro]

Well, what do we have here?

http://www.tuvgm.com/3do/pages/5_13.php

Also... flyer picture (http://www.staticgamer.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/9/size/big/sort/1/cat/2/page/1) I see Strahl, some Gex or other, Street Fighter 2 of some sort, some other games? Not sure what all of them are.

[Ed Oscuro]

Good GOD, there's 38 MORE of them!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=62054&item=8159605682&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

It seems these don't have the DVD-ROM drive, though - be warned.

[Lost Monkey]

Good GOD, there's 38 MORE of them!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=62054&item=8159605682&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

It seems these don't have the DVD-ROM drive, though - be warned.

Where do you see that they don't have the DVD drive? It looks to me like it doesn't include a software "DVD", but as is stated:

"In addition to the DVD-ROM drive in this unit, this particular unit also has a 20GB IDE Hard Drive. We include the unit and a copy of the manual which came with the unit. "

[davidleeroth]

So, to answer the question of what this thing can be used for... a doorstop.

One man's treasure is another man's doorstop. LOL

[max 330 mega]

well , i just got mine in the mail.. will someone please give me a breakdown as to what this thing has as a signifigance to the 3DO console that was never released? is it a possibility that with this system in combination with a few other development pieces that it would have been capable of producing the games for the 3DO M2? or is it just of signifigance because it uses the M2 technology, or what????

[dj898]

it's just kiosk unit that require the special car dealer demo or kitchen demo disc... other than that it's nice looking doorstop...

[Lemmy Kilmister]

Wooh. Man i'm I glad I didn't break down and buy one of these things after I noticed a cheap auction with the word "M2" in it.

[Griking]

well , i just got mine in the mail.. will someone please give me a breakdown as to what this thing has as a signifigance to the 3DO console that was never released? is it a possibility that with this system in combination with a few other development pieces that it would have been capable of producing the games for the 3DO M2? or is it just of signifigance because it uses the M2 technology, or what????

I have absolutely no clue what it is and what it can do.

I'm kind of curious why you and a bunch of others jumped on it since it seems like you don't know what it does either

[Zoe F]

I got mine today. It looks like it definitely could play any M2 games that might exist, provided you actually had something to plug into that controller port on the back.

The DHL guy that delivered it to my house was awful though. After I opened the door, he literally just flipped it into the air and as soon as it landed he was out of there. I don't see why he didn't just hand it to me like a normal person would... at least it was packaged well so nothing was damaged.

[digitalpress]

I have absolutely no clue what it is and what it can do.

I'm kind of curious why you and a bunch of others jumped on it since it seems like you don't know what it does either

It doesn't "do" anything (unless some clever hardware tech can rig it to run M2 demos). It's a piece of videogaming arcana. I bought one for the CGE museum and will likely use a summarized version of this product press release:

http://members.tripod.com/~faberp/m2fz35spr.html

[SegaAges]

if all else fails, somebody posted an auction where one of these sold for over 100. if you get this for a good price, i am sure that others would be willing to pay for for it if they really want it.

[SoulBlazer]

Just what is the backstory behind this anyway and why did nothing happen with it?

[Ed Oscuro]

Mine arrived today. It's in the original shipping case, has a bit of permanent marker and two labels they've slapped on which I dislike but this is actually much better than I'd been expecting. Think it's going to stay this way for a while :)

[Lost Monkey]

Mine arrived today. It's in the original shipping case, has a bit of permanent marker and two labels they've slapped on which I dislike but this is actually much better than I'd been expecting. Think it's going to stay this way for a while :)

Do you mean that there are labels on the unit or on the box?

Mine arrived shipped in the original box.. (although the serial doesn't match...) and it (the box) has many labels on it.. all piled on top of each other.. this thing has been shipped at least 4 times already.

The unit itself is in near mint condition though.. much better than I expected, there isn't a single scratch on it anywhere and when I opened it up it was practically dust free.

[Ed Oscuro]

Sounds like your box has had a worse time than mine. Mine has two labels from PC Rebuilders, and the outer box looks almost like it's out of the factory besides that and some sharpie under tape. Looks like it's only had tape on it once, since there's no tearing of the box surface (what happens when you take the tape off, ya know). There's also a label on the side addressing it to DCI Marketing, and a covered up label on another side that apparently is the original JAL shipping tab.

On the sides there's a black rectangle covered by a large gray one stating the model number.

Overall a pretty darn cool box!

[Lost Monkey]

Overall a pretty darn cool box!

LOL

At least we know what we can use the box for!