3DO M2
The M2 Hype
Very soon after launch the 3DO company had started hyping things up over the next iteration of 3DO called M2 which was initially supposed to be available as an add-on to the original 3DO as well as a stand alone console. In 1996 there were a number of impressive M2 demos shown to industry analysts and the press like the futuristic racing game (later to become IMSA racing) that looked amazing and a 1st person dungeon type shooter (that later ended up as Disruptor on PS1) and various other tech demos.
The new system was initially based on one powerful Motorola/IBM Power PC 602 Chip with a 64MBit data bus clocked at 66MHz but later was expanded to include two 602 chips. But this supposed PlayStation killer never arrived and in 1996 3DO ultimately sold the M2 rights for $100 Million to Matsushita, wiping out their considerable accumulated debt in the process. The 3DO Company then stopped all 3DO console and 3DO game development in favour of creating games for other platforms under Studio 3DO.
Panasonic unfortunately for 3DO fans then cancelled the M2 home console launch in 1997 due to too much existing competition from Nintendo (N64), Sega and Sony but repurposed the hardware for car showroom kiosks, real estate viewing systems, ATM/point-of-sale systems and also licensed it to Konami for arcade game development.
There were a few almost finished M2 console games around at that time like IMSA Racing from Studio 3DO and many half-developed games like WARP’s D2 (later adapted for Dreamcast), Interplay’s Clayfighters III (appeared on N64 in a lesser form) , Ironblood and a version of Descent. Electronic Arts had planned to release John Madden 98, NHL Hockey and a new version of Road Rash and Need for speed for the M2 and Silent Software was to release Return Fire 2.
IMSA Racing
Of all the original M2 console games in development, IMSA Racing was the one most near completion and survives today within the M2 community as a playable game – but with very sensitive controls as its meant to be used with an analogue M2 N64 type controller or a M2 compatible steering wheel (both impossible to find). There are no M2 emulators available yet so it’s only playable on the very limited availability original hardware- in most cases the FZ-35.
D2
D2 was famously nearly 50% done when Panasonic suddenly cancelled the M2 game console concept and in his frustration the game director Kenji Eno dismantled the M2 development station and ditched the game code. He would subsequently rewrite D2 for the Dreamcast using a different narrative in Dec 1999.
D2 FMV intro for the M2
Evil Night M2 on MAME
M2 hits a road block
Panasonic was also in talks with Sega for a while to license the M2 technology for Sega’s next gaming console the Dreamcast. But Panasonic were reluctant to agree to Sega’s requirement of exclusive rights over the use of the M2 technology and Sega’s technicians were also not impressed enough with M2 to follow through with a deal. Also as Trip was quoted as saying- ‘Sega’s corporate ego was too big to allow them to partner with anyone’.
There was also a prototype of a Cirrus Logic graphics card built using M2 that would have adapted M2 technology for the PC platform and Windows 95 Direct3D API. This PC 3D card was supposed to be more powerful than VideoLogic PowerVR cards and anything PlayStation or Saturn could offer at the time. This deal with Cirrus Logic also came to nothing as there was a very crowded 3D acceleration graphics card market at the time with the likes of 3DFX and others fighting for dominance.
Konami’s M2 Arcade legacy
Konami did go on to develop 5 playable arcade game PCB boards under license using M2 technology: Tobe! Polystars, Battle Tryst, Evil Night (House of the Dead clone), Total Vice, and Heat of Eleven 98. There are some M2 Kiosks/consoles and Konami boards kicking around but they all sell for allot of money and are notoriously unreliable which means you really need to be an avid collector to acquire one.
Why did Matsushita fail with M2?
For any 3DO fan the failure of M2 was a big disappointment . However even if it has launched, I feel the console may have struggled again to gain traction like the original 3DO, because with a price point of maybe $399 it would be up against the cheaper $299 PlayStation and Saturn, making it again a hard sell.
Also any prospective M2 developers had jumped ship once they realised that tech support from new owner Panasonic Wondertainment would fall far below the previous high level offered by the actual hardware developers from the 3DO company.
Another challenge was the fact that Panasonic had no real established unique gaming franchises or cool mascots to help sell the system, like Mario, Sonic or Zelda. They also failed in an attempt to acquire MCA and all its entertainment know-how and only became a minority share owner.
M2 Impressive Technical specs
- Central processing unit – 2 X 66 MHz PowerPC 602.
- 33 MHz 64-bit multiplexed address and data bus.
- 4 KB data and instruction caches.
- 1 million un-textured triangles/s geometry rate.
- 100 million pixels/s fill rate.
- 700,000 textured polygons/second without gouraud shading or additional effects
- 500,000 textured polygons/second with gouraud shading, lighting and effects shading: flat shading and gouraud shading.
- Texture mapping.
- 320×240 to 640×480 resolution at 24-bit colour.
- Sound hardware – 16-bit 32-channel DSP at 66 MHz.
- Quad-speed CD-ROM drive (600 KB/s).
- RAM – 8 MB.
- 64-bit bus resulting in peak 528 MB/s bandwidth.
- Full Motion Video – MPEG-1.
- Writable Storage – Memory cards from 128 KB to 32 MB.
- Expansion Capabilities – 1 PCMCIA port (potentially used for modems, Ethernet NICs.
M2 Technical demo
Tobe Polystars M2 on MAME
M2 hardware variants
M2 D2 very early gameplay
M2 arcade and console game screenshots
Gone but not forgotten
EDGE Magazine 3DO M2 Feature
Next Generation Magazine 3DO M2 Feature
3DO M2
About this 3DO site
This site was created out of my love and interest in the 3DO system when it was launched in the UK in 1994 at a time when the scene was dominated by side scrolling Sega Megadrive and SNES games. The 3DO looked amazing in comparison with its groundbreaking 3D visual capabilities and the exciting future of upgrading to M2 seemed even more promising. I purchased my first 3DO FZ-1 from HMV in Watford and was blown away playing Total Eclipse and Shockwave.
The site is purely designed for people who love the 3DO history and help others get a quick overview of 3DO and the M2 game systems but is by no means a comprehensive and infallible deep dive into the complete history of 3DO or M2 and detailing many other 3DO gaming peripherals that existed.
The site is purely my interpretation of what historically happened and I’ve focused on trying to present the information with complimentary high quality imagery and videos where possible.
Imagery has been sourced from my own YouTube videos and my 3DO consoles/hardware/games and magazine collections or was repurposed and visually improved and adapted from many amazing 3DO sites and 3DO resources on the internet and from existing scans of magazines.
Notable excellent information was gleaned watching the dedicated and very watchable M2 collector Video Games Esoterica, reading Edge Magazines, the UK 3DO Magazines, watching Japanese 3DO Live demo discs, reading Next Generation magazine, and looking through various Wikipedia, 3DO websites such as Archive 3DO and other 3DO YouTube videos and articles from old newspapers found online.
To all those existing 3DO content creators and fans past and present and all the 3DO console modders, developers and enthusiasts still out there, I say a big thank you.
If you want to send me any feedback or feel I’ve infringed your own personal specific copyright or require me to name you as a source then please email me at boyd@real3do.uk
Love the site and layout, it has a virtual coffee table book presentation. Would be interesting to see you replicate it for some of the other now obscure consoles.
Thanks so much- it’s exactly the look I was going for. Thinking about maybe the Saturn next but it is a time consuming hobby.