3DO

The 3DO Company was founded in 1991 by Trip Hawkins, who had earlier founded Electronic Arts. The idea was to make no hardware at all, but to draw up a specification — the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer — and license it to Panasonic, GoldStar and Sanyo. The console arrived in 1993 at $699, because the makers paid 3DO a royalty rather than subsidising the price the way Sega and Nintendo did.

The price killed it. 3DO became a game publisher instead, sold its M2 successor technology to Matsushita, and went bankrupt in 2003, its game franchises parcelled out to others.