Word: 3do
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That pretty much set the tone for the first annual EEE (or E3, as insiders call it), the new spring showcase for the latest and loudest in video-game software and hardware. It was not a pretty sight. Five hardware manufacturers--Nintendo, Sega, Sony, 3DO and Atari--are battling for one of the top spots in a market that most analysts believe has room for no more than two or three...
...things are not going according to plan. The 16-bit market is winding down all right. Sales are expected to drop as much as 40% this year. But 32-bit systems from 3DO and Atari have been sitting on shelves in U.S. stores for nearly two years, and lately they have been doing only that, sitting there. Last Christmas millions of parents passed over all the competing video-game systems in favor of home computers that can play games and do productive work as well...
...Sony, no stranger to the stratagems of consumer-electronics marketing, neatly parried with its own surprise: a pre-emptive price cut on the PlayStation--before the official list price was even set--to $299. That positioned the game system well below the $399 list prices of the Sega and 3DO machines and only slightly higher than the $250 price Nintendo has been promising for the Ultra 64. (The Atari Jaguar player, at $159, would appear to be the best bargain of the lot, but the beleaguered company has had trouble attracting top-flight game developers...
...companies are also engaged in a fierce fight on the technological front. Sony and Sega are following 3DO's lead, using 32-bit processors and double-speed CD-ROM drives with sufficient capacity to store VHS-quality video images and CD-quality stereo sound. Nintendo, striking out on its own, is opting for a higher-powered, 64-bit chip, and will store its games on high-capacity, plug-in cartridges instead of CD-ROM discs. Nintendo says this will enable it to offer both a lower-cost system and the blistering speed demanded by its target market: adolescent boys...
Hawkins' strategy is to stay just ahead of his competitors -- whether they are PCs, CD-ROMs or video-game systems. So his next project is a plug-in device called the M2 that turns the 32-bit 3DO into a 64-bit system -- yet still plays all the old software. That's if he makes it through Christmas...