Word: 3do
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Journalists who cover the computer and video-game business always look forward to the annual pre-Christmas visit from Trip Hawkins, chairman and founder of the upstart game-system company called 3DO. Hawkins is a rarity in the uptight game industry -- a straight-shooting top executive who actually enjoys the products he sells. His press tours, first as chairman of Electronic Arts and then as front man for 3DO, usually combine a lively round of game playing and a dose of blunt talk about the business -- shaded ever so slightly to set his own company apart. This year, however, there...
...business. The real action this year is in Japan, where parents are gearing up for Golden Days, the gift-giving holiday season. There it's a three-way race between Sega's Saturn, which hit the market in mid-November, Sony's PlayStation, which appeared 10 days later, and 3DO. That's why Hawkins is not ready to give...
Hawkins has been scrambling ever since. He cut the price twice, once in February to $499 and again in September to $399, sweetening the deal for his hardware manufacturers by giving them a couple of shares of 3DO stock for every machine they sold. He hounded game developers to write more software and, when they didn't respond fast enough, started developing his own. When money ran short, he put up $12.5 million from his own savings...
...3DO was saved by the sheer marketing muscle of its Japanese manufacturing partner, Matsushita, which aggressively pushed 3DO machines through company-owned stores and sold roughly two boxes in Japan for every one in the U.S. Those sales bought Hawkins enough time to get the second generation of software in place, including some flashy new titles such as Road Rash and FIFA Soccer. He still doesn't have that killer application -- a Mario Bros., say -- that could turn it into a machine game players feel they have to own. But he's got a few months to find one before...
Cover (clockwise from top left): Star Trek: The Next Generation/Spectrum HoloByte, Inc., for 3DO 7Interactive Multiplayer; Sonic the Hedgehog/Sega of America, Inc.; Voyeur/Philips CD-i -- Philips P.O.V.; Super Mario/Nintendo of America Inc.; Jurassic Park Interactive from MCA ( (c) Universal City Studios, Inc., & Amblin Entertainment, Inc.) for 3DO Interactive Multiplayer; Acclaim's Mortal Kombat for the Super NES; "Disney's Aladdin" for Sega Genesis, Disney characters (c) The Walt Disney Company