Quote Originally Posted by Greg2600 View Post
The problem that the 3DO console had was that it was not manufactured by them directly. They licensed this to Panasonic, Sanyo, and Goldstar, resulting in a massive MSRP. 3DO had those too, but since nobody was taking a hit on the hardware, it went straight to the consumers. No, it was worse, because the hardware manufacturers had to make a profit themselves! Therefore, what should have been an entry at say $300-350 with later discounts became $599-699 or somewhere in between. That killed the system really from day one. Sony, Nintendo, Sega all sold their hardware at a loss, with profits coming from software licenses. Meanwhile, 3DO charged a pittance comparatively, meaning that low sales generated them even worse revenue.
It wasn't really the manufacturers' fault but more that their intended target market didn't really exist. They aimed the 3DO at people who wanted to play Multimedia PC games without having to buy an actual Multimedia PC. Back then a decent home computer would have cost around $3000 give or take, so they thought that the $600-$700 was a great price when compared to that as it was cheaper than a home computer but still more powerful hardware than the competing console systems(which were priced cheaper).

The thing is that most people who wanted PC quality games actually bought a real PC instead, and people who wanted a cheaper option than a PC for gaming just went with the even cheaper consoles. This compromise 3DO system fell in the middle where there wasn't much interest. Not as powerful/versatile as a real PC, not as cheap as other dedicated game consoles.