13 replies to this topic

[Jaguarfan]

I recently got one of these. Its the dev kit model and I was wondering...........are there any other prototype systems out there that are not totally impossible to find?

[shadow460]

Some of the folks here own prototype consoles. I think one of them has spoken about a prototype PS2, and several have posted about prototype Atari units.

How much did the M2 set you back, and did you get any games? I wonder if World Championship Racing ever made it to a playable phase.

[Jaguarfan]

shadow460, on Fri Jun 12, 2009 10:52 PM, said:

Some of the folks here own prototype consoles. I think one of them has spoken about a prototype PS2, and several have posted about prototype Atari units.

How much did the M2 set you back, and did you get any games? I wonder if World Championship Racing ever made it to a playable phase.

Um my M2 set me back 5500 bucks and I got a tech demo 2d shooter game with it and some dev software

[mcjakeqcool]

Ahh the M2, this along with the Jaguar 2 was one of the 2 aborted 128 bit consoles. Had this particular console, the M2 been releaced, if releaced cheap enough may have been around as cheap as the Dreamcast and may have given significant competition to the ps1 and n64, however knowing 3do, Trip Hawkins etc... it would have probally been ridiclously expensive as with it's predecessor the 3do.

[Punisher5.0]

Cool. That tech demo sounds very interesting. Do you have any pics of your set up? I have a M2 system but no software yet.

[Blur2040]

Punisher5.0, on Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:54 AM, said:

Cool. That tech demo sounds very interesting. Do you have any pics of your set up? I have a M2 system but no software yet.

Well consider this your lucky day then.

The tech demo/shooter that the OP has is freely available. It was released by WindowsKiller here:

http://www.assembler...ead.php?t=23062

Read the release notes and you'll see where he got it and what it was for. Pretty cool. Bin/Cue, so it should be easy to burn and try out. Most importantly, it will run on a FZ-35s kiosk unit, which I presume you have...as the actual true M2 Console is ridiculously expensive and such.

If you give it a try and have the capacity, try and capture some video of it. There's no video of it on youtube...although there is video of many other M2 games. I would like to see what this demo looks like.

[Klove]

We had several of these in-house, back when I was at Virgin. The 3-D-O people had come down to visit and pitch to us the concept of doing a break-through title for it. "Something as cool and innovative as SEGA Genesis Aladdin title."

The biggest issue we had it with though, was that we were supposed to develop the game within a 7 Month time-frame and we wouldn't even get the hardward until 3-3.5 Months into development.

We passed on it as most publishers and developers did. The 3-D-O was never really anything all that special. When it came out, it was WAAAAAY over-priced.

The M2 was also known as their "Bulldog" platform. :-/

- Ken

[Wickeycolumbus]

mcjakeqcool, on Mon Jun 15, 2009 5:35 AM, said:

Ahh the M2, this along with the Jaguar 2 was one of the 2 aborted 128 bit consoles.

128 bit? The Jaguar 2 has a 32 bit processor...

[bojay1997]

Wickeycolumbus, on Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:14 PM, said:

mcjakeqcool, on Mon Jun 15, 2009 5:35 AM, said:

Ahh the M2, this along with the Jaguar 2 was one of the 2 aborted 128 bit consoles.

128 bit? The Jaguar 2 has a 32 bit processor...

The 3do M2 was supposed to be a 64 bit architecture, but I believe it was still just 2 customized Power PC 602 - 32 bit processors with a 64 bit bus. Not sure where you got the idea that either the 3do M2 or the Jaguar 2 were 128 bit machines.

[Jaguarfan]

Blur2040, on Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:20 PM, said:

Punisher5.0, on Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:54 AM, said:

Cool. That tech demo sounds very interesting. Do you have any pics of your set up? I have a M2 system but no software yet.

Well consider this your lucky day then.

The tech demo/shooter that the OP has is freely available. It was released by WindowsKiller here:

http://www.assembler...ead.php?t=23062

Read the release notes and you'll see where he got it and what it was for. Pretty cool. Bin/Cue, so it should be easy to burn and try out. Most importantly, it will run on a FZ-35s kiosk unit, which I presume you have...as the actual true M2 Console is ridiculously expensive and such.

If you give it a try and have the capacity, try and capture some video of it. There's no video of it on youtube...although there is video of many other M2 games. I would like to see what this demo looks like.

Actually I have one of the true M2 consoles. It is a prototype dev kit model http://www.videogame...m/pg90-3do2.htm I have the one on the left

Edited by Jaguarfan, Mon Jun 15, 2009 7:49 PM.

[Blur2040]

Jaguarfan, on Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:21 PM, said:

Actually I have one of the true M2 consoles. It is a prototype dev kit model http://www.videogame...m/pg90-3do2.htm I have the one on the left

I know you have the devkit. I was addressing Punisher with that comment. Who knows though...theres a decent amount of M2 consoles out there and I don't know where they all are...so he might have the console as well.

I consider the M2 arcade hardware to be the only bit of M2 Hardware worth getting. Actual working, released hardware, pressed CDs and, most importantly, actual games that you can play. Lets you see what released games might have been like...

Edited by Blur2040, Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:49 PM.

[Jaguarfan]

oh by the way. a little off topic but would it be possible to get one of those unreleased Phantom consoles?

[mcjakeqcool]

@bojay 1997
The reason was cos the Jaguar 2 and 3DO M2 were both Sixth Gen consoles, I guess though the bits don't really matter, cos the Xbox was 32 bit, the ps2 was 64 bit, the 360 was 128 bit, etc... Fair enough, just a missunderstanding, no offence like.

[shadow460]

IIRC, Next Generation magazine had expected the M2 to launch at somewhere between $200 and $400. In 1997 they published several articles about the system.