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[VGEsoterica]

If you have never heard of the 3DO M2 I wouldn't be surprised. But if you had you'll know it was a "cancelled console" in the 90s. Panasonic bought it from 3DO for a cool 100 million...then never released it outside of arcade boards and interactive marketing kiosks. But it does have game alphas and betas and five released arcade games from Konami that are a ton of fun and KIND OF work in MAME.

I've been preserving content for it for awhile, and now I have and can release the full source code to the SDK. Should be super useful for MAME emulation including getting console software running in MAME

But really I just think "sharing is caring"...so I want the community to have it

If anyone wants to help get more fun stuff working...let me know

 

[shoplifter]

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

Awwwww YES!

Thanks for the dedication and work!

 

[VGEsoterica]

Haha solid gif

Awwwww YES!

Thanks for the dedication and work!

Always happy to do it!

 

[gradient]

Awesome. Thanks, man.

 

[shoplifter]

Seriously, you're doing God's Work.

 

[fart town usa]

Oh wow, I have no idea how any of this works but well done.

Love people like you who are preserving old stuff. Well done!!

 

[Futaleufu]

Could this code potentially help to improve MAME's support?

 

[VGEsoterica]

Seriously, you're doing God's Work.

I prefer Alvis...he slapped iron for our sins

 

[AMSCD]

This is awesome. I don't have the technical background to really appreciate this, but I want to bump the thread so that people smarter than me can comment on it!

 

[ReBurn]

Maybe Tommy Tallarico will use this to start a 3DO company next

 

[VGEsoterica]

This is awesome. I don't have the technical background to really appreciate this, but I want to bump the thread so that people smarter than me can comment on it!

I find the stuff and I let the people who know how to use it run with it. I can barely core anything LOL

 

[manzo]

Oh man, good Polystars emulation? Count me in.

 

[VGEsoterica]

Oh man, good Polystars emulation? Count me in.

Hopefully. I need to try M2 emulation with my new PC. Granted I have two Polystars boards next to me (not bragging...I need to sell one) but I want to see if an i9 12900K can run it at a decent speed. Brute force it

 

[Sir_Teraflop]

Great system - i was honoured to have one. Wing Commander and Space Hulk were games that marked my age.

 

[MrA]

Come on tomb raider port!
Development on the my, So pointless but so awesome!

 

[Meowtor]

this is wild, my brother and I had a OG Panasonic 3D0 growing up

 

[Bogroll]

I had a 3DO from launch. I was probably one of a few in the UK. I think I still got my Edge magazine which features M2 3DO.

 

[Kadve]

Great system - i was honoured to have one. Wing Commander and Space Hulk were games that marked my age.

The original Interactive Multiplayer i take it? This was as mentioned never released to consumers.

 

[Sir_Teraflop]

The original Interactive Multiplayer i take it? This was as mentioned never released to consumers.

Panasonic FZ-10 European version

 

[RAIDEN1]

The M2 will go down as a "....If only".......a console that would have given the Saturn, N64, PS1 a run for its money and then some.....but instead Matasushita got cold feet....of all the people to sell the tech to...

 

[Doczu]

Yo, it's our #1 3DO fanboy.

I envy your dedication in preserving the M2, you are making gaming history

 

[VGEsoterica]

Yo, it's our #1 3DO fanboy.

I envy your dedication in preserving the M2, you are making gaming history

Appreciate it. A foolish yet noble endeavor

 

[VGEsoterica]

The M2 will go down as a "....If only".......a console that would have given the Saturn, N64, PS1 a run for its money and then some.....but instead Matasushita got cold feet....of all the people to sell the tech to...

They tried to sell it to Philips too. CD-I 2 LOL

 

[ShadowNate]

I don't fully understand what it all means but it sounds very cool!
Was this M2 backwards compatible with the original 3DO? There were a few quite alright titles released for 3DO (and many stinkers) which I'd love to be able to replay today.

 

[Doczu]

I don't fully understand what it all means but it sounds very cool!
Was this M2 backwards compatible with the original 3DO? There were a few quite alright titles released for 3DO (and many stinkers) which I'd love to be able to replay today.

Mate the M2 never released. They only made like 5 arcade games based on similar specs and the M2 tech was used in industrial and commerce type of machinery

 

[VGEsoterica]

Mate the M2 never released. They only made like 5 arcade games based on similar specs and the M2 tech was used in industrial and commerce type of machinery

For an unreleased console it has five arcade games, multiple betas and some demos. People go wild over the SNES CD and that has nothing playable that isnt fan game territory

 

[ShadowNate]

Mate the M2 never released. They only made like 5 arcade games based on similar specs and the M2 tech was used in industrial and commerce type of machinery

I understand it never released. But there could be provision in its SDK for backwards compatibility. I don't think it's that far fetched.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

I remember watching a promo vhs that showed a fps game that I believe had ray tracing like reflections.

 

[nush]

I had a 3DO from launch. I was probably one of a few in the UK. I think I still got my Edge magazine which features M2 3DO.

I had one too, but not at launch, too rich for my blood.

 

[Aldynes]

Kudos to you man ! And the source code was just right under your nose all this time! You're not the first for which it happened, In the Tomb Raider community Chris who has a YT channel dedicated to TR : Raidercast searched for years for the Beta of Tomb Raider 1; turned out he had it all this time just collecting dust in a cardboard box among other CD's he got from ex CORE Design devs 10 years ago; recently found it after moving house, it's often the case among collectors.

 

[VGEsoterica]

Kudos to you man ! And the source code was just right under your nose all this time! You're not the first for which it happened, In the Tomb Raider community Chris who has a YT channel dedicated to TR : Raidercast searched for years for the Beta of Tomb Raider 1; turned out he had it all this time just collecting dust in a cardboard box among other CD's he got from ex CORE Design devs 10 years ago; recently found it after moving house, it's often the case among collectors.

Haha still doesn’t help get rid of the feeling of being an idiot though but yes, the more you collect the more you forget. I will admit to purchasing a duplicate game more than once due to forgetfulness. Now I have an app to track it all!

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

A bit late on my end, but big ups to you VGEsoterica for doing this. Game preservation is paramount, and one of the biggest things that could always do with improvement in this industry. We've lost too much source code as-is, and this is a great effort on your part that as you said, helps with the emulation and preservationists aplenty.

Could we even get a M2 demoscene going, to show off what the system could fully do? I'd be highly interested in such a thing.

 

[Quasicat]

They tried to sell it to Philips too. CD-I 2 LOL

I would have loved that! I picked up a 3DO much later, but the Philips CDi was my first disc based system. There was a Magnavox store one town over that sold it and the games, and due to my diehard Nintendo Fanboyism, I bought the CDi. It broke years ago, but I still have the Mario/Zelda games, the 7th Guest and burn.cycle. I should look into playing those again. That thing also played vcds right out of the box which was amazing!

 

[RAIDEN1]

They tried to sell it to Philips too. CD-I 2 LOL

Well the fact that the CD-I lasted as long as it did despite its lacking catalogue is SOME achievement, when you compare it to the debacle that was the CD-32

 

[sinnergy]

If also the old stuff from 3do 1 is in the M2? Could you code to use both hardware in tandem, for extra compute power ?

 

[West Texas CEO]

an FPGA clone when?

 

[nkarafo]

M2 articles in magazines at the time used to impress me. I really wanted to see what the machine could do.

But from the few games and demos i saw it doesn't seem that far off from the N64. It's graphics even have a similar overly filtered look.

 

[yurinka]

Awesome, VGEsoterica . Thanks for sharing it.