3DO M2 dev kit on eBay

[Megadrive1988]

those are really sweet magazine pics, Zeross, thank you for sharing those.

man I've love to know what the article is saying.

I see they've got a part on Sega MODEL2 and MODEL3. probably something to do with how Sega would use 3DO M2 to port Model2 and reasonably translate Model3 games.

well, anyway, at least you can see, what were pre-rendered demos in 1995, as been reached and surpassed by realtime game graphics years later.

btw, if I am not mistaken, the raptor dinosaur and the dinosaur vs the woman, was not pre-rendered, but realtime.

I saw footage of the FPS on television back in 1995 or 1996. it looked to me that it was running 60fps and with detailed textures. IMO it would've taken a Gamecube or Xbox or 2000-2001 PC to pull that off in realtime. especialy since the pre-rendered footage used anti-aliasing.

 

[swaaye]

What exactly is a PowerPC 602? I never knew there was so little info about it out there. Apparently it's some sort of derivative designed for comsumer apps (meaning it's probably crippled somehow, like R4300i with its 32-bit buses).

BTW I have all of Next Generation mag from 1995 thru 1997 I believe, and sporadically after that too. I will have to dig up the M2 issue and read up again. I loved that mag. The quality of the mag is so high. Their crazy photography of interviewees and the weird, thick plastic-ish covers. I liked how each issue had a mission too. Heh their premier issue is an in-depth look at 3DO with a big Trip Hawkins interview. The whole mag is like an embodiment of the level of buzz in the arcade and console markets of the day.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Swaaye, since you have Next Generation magazines from 1995 thru 1997, do you think you could do me a favor an look at issue 16, 17 or 18. there is a one-page article that mentions the failed SEGA-Matsushita M2 deal. I think it was said that Sega was impressed with M2, but not enough to adopt it, and also, it says something like, M2 is just going to be another polygonal game machine, not something that looks like a million-dollar flight simulator.

if you have the time to scan that page, or type out that part, it would be appreciated, but if not, I understand.

 

[swaaye]

I'll see if I have the issue when I get home. Will do some scanning if I find a good M2 article too. I know they had an issue with lots of coverage on it.

 

[Megadrive1988]

yup. there's another good Next Generation article (2 pages i think) in 1997 about the cancelation of M2. They noted that M2 spec is getting old, in the face of new consoles in development from Sony and Sega.

this (may issue?) was an issue or two before news of Sega's Black Belt surfaced, in the magazine that is, as web articles already reported on Black Belt due to the time lead websites naturally have,

 

[Farid]

Heh, I remember this issue of Console +, according to the article the M2 was the center of the developer talks, that it motivated developers houses to sign partnerships (in order to develop for the M2...), that publishers were interested in the M2, it also precises that the latest hearsay from Matsushita the M2 should have been on Japanese shelves by december 96 and released in the US in the late 97...

And that's indeed the FPS demo I talked about earlier. Even back in the days already the thing did scream prerendered as soon as you did take a look at the pictures, as much as the Jumping Flash and the dungeon crawler "demos" for the Playstation.

Sorry for the quality I haven't got a scanner so I took theses images with my camera. I know that "Scans of magazines/publications NOT allowed in this forum" but this magazine is 10 year old or more so I'm sure that no harm is done

Scans of vintage magazines are more or less allowed, no problems with that.

 

[swaaye]

I looked thru all of my ancient Next Generation mags to find some juicy M2 info. There are scans of some system info, a few games, and some predictions. Cool stuff. 1995-97.

http://www.harpgallery.com/assets/images/swaaye/ng/

 

[Megadrive1988]

Swaaye, wow, just wow. thank you very much for the effort.



these are the nuggets that I was after:

And yet another developer questioned the value of the system: "It's good, but in comparison other next-generation systems it's nothing special. It's going to look like you are playing on another polygon-based next-gen system.
Not a $4 million flight simulator."

First of all, Next Generation has learned that Sega wanted to be the sole M2 brand, which would have contravened Matsushita's hopes of setting up M2 as a standad with several other hardware companies on board. Second, although Sega technicians were reported impressed with the M2, they were not sufficiently awestuck to warrant its immediate implementation into their plans.

and this is what i remember seeing on television at (IIRC) 60 frame per second that really blew me away, even though it was pre-rendered.

part of the FPS / Doom / Dungeon demo


another picture of it

at 60fps with anti-aliasing, the amount of texture detail and polygon count, it would've been impossible on M2.
Maybe MX could've handled it. if not, then certainly last gen consoles, specially GCN and Xbox.

 

[swaaye]

Heh it looks like they were trying to say the console could do per-pixel lighting and lots of bump mapping!

Yeah these were definitely the days before people started to really complain about them advertising pre-rendered shots as the actual gameplay. Of course, FMV was all the rage back then, and as such it wasn't totally evil to use pre-rendered shots.

I wish I had the issue with the look at D2 and Power Crystal. I know I had the issue at one point, but not anymore. Those really hyped the console up.

There are some shots of D2 over here: http://assembler.roarvgm.com/Panasonic_m2/panasonic_m2.html.

And of Power Crystal (these remind me somewhat of what I remember from the NG issue):
http://m2-x.hp.infoseek.co.jp/images/crystal.htm

 

[Megadrive1988]

I used to have all the 1995-1998 issues, but no more.

btw the article on (IMSA) World Championship Racing have the best shots of the game that I've seen.


the M2 version of D2 looked WAY more interesting than the graphically superior but completely different Dreamcast game.

oh and Power Crystal, the description of it in Intelligent Gamer (or IG Fusion) magazine, truly got me hyped for M2.

One exceptional title under development off site is what is being described by IG sources as the first-ever virtual reality RPG, Power Crystal. According to those who have witnessed the game in motion, the early version of the graphics engine is blazingly fast despite its use of beautiful visual effects: You can walk up to the shore line of a river or lake and see glimmering translucent water splashing the shoreline without polygon breakup, and you can then look
into the water and see pebbles and sedimentary rocks in the basin. Early versions allow the player to fully walk around and explore a village.

Next Generation said Power Crystal was running at 60fps, and IIRC, that was on a non-final iteration of M2 with a single PowerPC 602 processor.


back to the pre-rendered stuff for second...

noticing the sharpness of the textures, the lighting, 640x480, and assuming a 60fps framerate, that's Gamecube or Xbox territory right there.

 

[mboeller]

Mars / 32X should NEVER have been released. Saturn's release is questionable, but lets go with it. Saturn came out in late 1994 (Japan) and early 1995 (U.S.)... by late 1996 Sega could have and should have come out with either an upgrade for the Saturn, or a complete replacement,

IMHO; Sega should have scrapped the Saturn and instead should have sticked with the MARS/32X upgrade for three years (1993-1996). Well the 32X as it was would not have been competitive but a "small" memory upgrade from 512KB to 1,5MB + a faster VDP1 should have allowed nice games until 1996. Then Sega should have released a highend nextgen console. All in all with such a strategy Sega would have been in a far better position 1996 then with the 32X and Saturn.

[edit]:
IMHO the BIGGEST mistake of Sega was, that they released the X32 only as an Addon at first and the MARS console only as a afterthought 1/2 or even 1 year later. If they would have released the MARS-console and the X32-upgrade at the same time (end of 1993) then the X32 would have had a far better standing. Together with the mentioned upgrades, the X32 would have been a real nextgen system suitable for up to 3 years. Afterwards when a "sort of Saturn" would have benn released the X32 would have been sold as the lowcost system for maybe 1-2 years till 1998 ( a highend Saturn, as taked here would have been very expensive at first, so without a cheaper companion system Sega would have lost a lot of consumers from 1996-98 ).

"would have" seems to be _the_ words in my post here

Manfred

 

[swaaye]

I went digging thru the mags again. I just knew I had to have that Power Crystal preview, and I found it. I also scanned another preview of the machine (hit or myth) and the announcement of M2's end (theend).
http://www.harpgallery.com/assets/images/swaaye/ng/

 

[Megadrive1988]

once again, big time kudos, Swaaye

from the Power Crystal article

Power Crystal was running at 60fps -- and the current development kit only has one PowerPC chip.

see, my memory is pretty good

 

[Zeross]

Thanks for the scans, I love reading these old articles.
Btw am I dreaming or is there a quote by of one of our famous developers in one article ?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Some things never change...
"The whole thing takes place in a full 3D environment, in real time, and the player can walk around and interact with other characters - the idea being to simulate a rea,l living world."

Even nowadays games that toot real, living worlds aren't realy getting close to that concept! I think all these companies just plain underestimate what that actually needs, and a decade ago they thought the tech was up to the job.

 

[hey69]

HAHAHAHA

read this page http://www.harpgallery.com/assets/images/swaaye/ng/ng-m2article1-1.jpg
from the part :

OBSTACLES facing the introduction of the DVD format

hilarious.. does it remind you guys of something?

hehe, i love this part,

"whats wrong with VCR ? "

hahaha

 

[OtakingGX]

HAHAHAHA

read this page http://www.harpgallery.com/assets/images/swaaye/ng/ng-m2article1-1.jpg

Is that lady fist-fighting a dinosaur?

 

[swaaye]

Well it took forever for DVD to catch on. Actually, many games are still CDROM today when they would be better served by a DVD release. Instead we get the ridiculous "collectors editions" to get DVD for $10. At least some devs are a bit more down to earth and just release on DVD. I bought my first DVD-ROM in '99 for $70. I still have it actually, a Toshiba 6X IDE.

You know I think Power Crystal probably was going to be awful and hence why it never showed up. The graphics in the one or two shots of actual gameplay aren't exactly overhwhelming, even compared to N64. Zelda Ocarina may look better IMO. I sure wish I had the issue with D2. That game was just totally out there.

Looking over the specs I keep seeing it almost feels as if the machine was designed to primarily use the PPC 602s as the renderer. There is very little mention of any sort of GPU.

 

[Fox5]

Swaaye, wow, just wow. thank you very much for the effort.



these are the nuggets that I was after:






and this is what i remember seeing on television at (IIRC) 60 frame per second that really blew me away, even though it was pre-rendered.

part of the FPS / Doom / Dungeon demo


another picture of it

at 60fps with anti-aliasing, the amount of texture detail and polygon count, it would've been impossible on M2.
Maybe MX could've handled it. if not, then certainly last gen consoles, specially GCN and Xbox.

Eh, up the resolution and you're nearly at oblivion quality there. I don't know if it could have been done at 60fps on last gen consoles, though its limited scope may have made it possible at a lower framerate.

the M2 version of D2 looked WAY more interesting than the graphically superior but completely different Dreamcast game.

Based on those pictures, it was an RE/Alone in the Dark clone. D2 on Dreamcast had tentacle porn. Which would you prefer?

noticing the sharpness of the textures, the lighting, 640x480, and assuming a 60fps framerate, that's Gamecube or Xbox territory right there.

I dunno, it looks like it may have even higher quality textures and a higher polygon count than F-zero GX, though F-Zero GX has a lot more cars on screen at once.

hehe, i love this part,
Quote:
"whats wrong with VCR ? "
hahaha

Except DVDs ended up being cheaper and more convenient than VCRs, and it didn't take long to get TVs that could showcase the better quality. Trying to make DVD mass market in 1996 would have been like trying to make Blu-ray mass market now, it's just a few years too early. Too expensive, and not enough people have the TVs to take advantage of it yet. (blu-ray will likely take even a little longer to take over, since its format doesn't give it any advantage over DVD besides size, whereas the disk format is superior to the tape format in several ways)

 

[swaaye]

I found some info about PowerPC 602. http://www.microprocessor.sscc.ru/powerpc-faq/ (use browser Find for 602).

PowerPC 602
A processor aimed at consumer electronics (set-top boxes, game consoles, etc.), PDAs, and embedded controller applications.
Data Bus Func units Si Ship
Proc width width (I/FP/BP/LS) Cache Trans Process date date
-------- ----- ----- ------------ ------ ----- ----------- ------- ------
MPC601 32 64 1/1/1/0 32 2.8 0.6u CMOS Oct 92 Apr 93
MPC601+ 32 64 1/1/1/0 32 2.8 0.5u CMOS 2Q 94 Nov 94
MPC602 32 64 1/1/0/1 4/4 1.0 0.5u CMOS Feb 95 2H 95
MPC603 32 32/64 1/1/1/1 8/8 1.6 0.5u CMOS Oct 93 Nov 94
MPC603e 32 32/64 1/1/1/1 16/16 2.6 0.5u CMOS Feb 95 2H 95
MPC603ev 32 32/64 1/1/1/1 16/16 2.6 0.35u CMOS ? ?
MPC604 32 64 3/1/1/1 16/16 3.6 0.5u CMOS Apr 94 Dec 94
MPC604e 32 64 3/1/1/1 32/32 5.1 0.5u CMOS ? ?
MPC620 64 64/128 3/1/1/1 32/32 7 0.5u CMOS Apr 96 ?

It looks like it has half the L1 cache of a 603, and the SpecInt92 scores are lower than N64's 94 MHz VR4300 (R4300i) scores. SpecFP92 seems to be unrecorded anywhere. It has less than 1/3 the transistors of a 601, and is missing the branch processing unit but gains a load store unit.