'The 3DO Company' (formely THDO) was founded in 1991, under the moniker of 'SMSG Inc.' by Electronic Arts co-founder Trip Hawkins. The idea of developing an all-new games console developed into a project where the 3DO Company would provide a set of pre-determined hardware specifications that would then be licensed out to various manufaturers. Support would be provided in the form of EA's complete backing, and financial muscle.

Now, it is important at this time to understand what Electronic Arts really were. Since the company's inception in 1982, EA steadily became nothing less than the largest software publisher in the world, by providing a seamlessly endless stream of sensationalist, brand-endorsed and immediately disposable software, most of which has little or no merit beyond its year of release. Be it golf simulators, American football games, or bikini-clad bimbos crashing luxury cars into each other, EA have always been more than happy to provide. Not a single EA game has ever stood the test of time: ever-lasting sports 'franchises' are updated on a yearly basis, released at maximum cost, then rapidly supplanted the following year. To put it simply, there is no such thing as an EA classic.

By the turn of 1993, most of EA's success had come from their overwhelming edorsement of the Sega Mega Drive. Following an initial flurry of below-average PC conversions, they eventually found particular success in the States, by producing a never-ending avalanche of throwaway big name-endorsed sports games. They even went as far as producing their own cartridges, in order to avoid Sega's licensing fees and maximise profits. So by the end of the year, with a coffer full of cash and their egos on the peak, it is easy to understand why they would see their next logical step as nothing less than total industry control.

They wasted no time in striking deals with some of the largest corporations in the electronics busines: AT&T, MCA, Time Warner, and finally, the world's largest electronics manufacturer, Matsushita Panasonic (Japanese HQ pictured middle left). It was Panasonic who eventually took on the burden of producing the first 3DO units; the first one of which, the Panasonic FZ-1, launched in the USA on the 10th of October 1993, with a suggested retail price of $699.95.

Crash'n Burn

Mad Dog McCree

Regardless of all of the 3DO's technological wizardry and endless PR, the second wave of software couldn't arrive too soon. But when it finally did on the 26th of March 1994, the machine's fate was all but sealed. Never before had such garbage hit the screens.
Crash'n Burn (Crystal Dynamics)
Stellar 7 (T&E Soft)
Total Eclipse (Crystal Dynamics)
Dragon's Lair (T&E Soft)
and Escape from Monster Manor, renamed 'Virtual Horror - Norowareta Tachi (Electronic Arts).