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Subject: Remembering the 3DO
Over on his blog, Kendrick remembers the 3DO quite fondly. He professes a certain admiration for the first-gen Panasonic model, and is impressed at the fact it's still running today, and is better built than modern consoles.
Unfortunately he's wrong.
The original 3DO was a horrible piece of junk, with a failure rate beaten by few consoles before or since. For a while, we wouldn't even take them in trade at my store 'cause they'd die all the time and we'd be stuck with doorstops. They were the Xbox 360 of the 32-bit age. Everyone knew someone whose 3DO had died. The second-gen FZ-10 model was far more reliable (but still played the same old shitty 3DO games, and came with a controller best described as rubbish.
Modern consoles are still pretty bulletproof, if you don't consider the staggering failure rate of the 360. I've never heard of a PS3 dying, though I'm sure they do. The Wii, the GameCube, the Dreamcast - all basically indestructible. The 3DO doesn't even compare. In fact, of all the mainstream systems, it's probably #3 for being most failure-prone (360 and SegaCD being #1 and 2 respectively).
That Kendrick found one that still works is the exception, not the rule, and there's every chance it still works 'cause the original owner never played it. =)
Unfortunately he's wrong.
The original 3DO was a horrible piece of junk, with a failure rate beaten by few consoles before or since. For a while, we wouldn't even take them in trade at my store 'cause they'd die all the time and we'd be stuck with doorstops. They were the Xbox 360 of the 32-bit age. Everyone knew someone whose 3DO had died. The second-gen FZ-10 model was far more reliable (but still played the same old shitty 3DO games, and came with a controller best described as rubbish.
Modern consoles are still pretty bulletproof, if you don't consider the staggering failure rate of the 360. I've never heard of a PS3 dying, though I'm sure they do. The Wii, the GameCube, the Dreamcast - all basically indestructible. The 3DO doesn't even compare. In fact, of all the mainstream systems, it's probably #3 for being most failure-prone (360 and SegaCD being #1 and 2 respectively).
That Kendrick found one that still works is the exception, not the rule, and there's every chance it still works 'cause the original owner never played it. =)
BLEARGH
I do have to admit that of all the game console repair I've ever done, I've never been asked to fix someone's 3DO. I've provided care for dozens of Saturns and Playstations, I've made Jaguar CD units work again, and I even brought a Neo Geo CD unit back from the dead. But nobody ever put a 3DO in front of me, telling me that they couldn't live without it. That's probably telling.