The PlayStation came out on September 9, 1995, once it launched it was lights out for any of the 1993/1994 launched 32-bit era systems (aka pre-Saturn). So any "success" that these systems would have would be dependent on the time period before September 9, 1995. The holiday season of 1994 was crucial.Originally Posted by gbpxl
The 3DO sold 2 million units. That's 3 times that of the 32X (665,000) and 8-10 times that of the Jaguar (200,000-250,000). It was $700 initially at its launch in October 1993, in spring 1994 the price was lowered to $500 and in November 1994 to $400. However, the Saturn still outsold it 4 1/2 to 1.
It was also the only one of these systems that was the most advanced on the market, and that was for two years. I suspect that if they'd gotten the 3DO out there at $500 and had it down to $300 or less by holiday 1994, it could have seen more success. The initial FZ-1 model would have needed a simpler design (more like the FZ-10 ended up being) There were plenty of games available for the 3DO by the 1994 holiday season. Of course, it would have been fighting the PlayStation hype train by this time. The high cost of the system was offset by the lower cost of the games, but that didn't benefit them as much as it should have. Overhyping the M2 early on also hurt them. Third party support completely died on the 3DO by spring 1996 because of that.
Another thing that could have helped 3DO would have been, ironically, a slightly later release combined with a slightly earlier hardware finalization date. The hardware for the 3DO was finalized very close to release, which was October 4, 1993. Only one game was available that day, and few systems produced. Finalizing the hardware a month or so earlier and waiting for an early-mid November release would have still allowed the system to meet the lucrative holiday launch window and would have allowed for more supply and probably 6-8 launch games instead of one. Hype was strong for 3DO in 1993, it was Time's Machine of the Year.
The 3DO was the only early 32-bit system that had any chance of competing with the PlayStation. If (and this is a BIG "if") they managed to get the price down to $150 for the 1995 holiday season AND not hype the M2 too early, keeping a steady stream of third party support through all of 1996 and even into 1997, they would have probably racked up a few sales by people looking for a 32-bit system cheaper than the PlayStation with a decent game library. The 3DO would have still died in 1997 whether or not the M2 was released. But a lower price and more third party support would have probably allowed it to rack up 4-5 million total sales instead of 2 million. If the M2 had come out in 1997, it would have probably had some success if it were cheap enough but still would have trailed Sony and Nintendo by a wide margin. It was only slightly more powerful than the N64 in practice so it would have had to be about $250 or less at launch.
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