The ten-minute intermission flashed by in an instant.
The countdown on the big screen hit zero.
The star of today's final press conference took the stage.
3DO.
The attendance was a third lower than it had been for Sony and EA.
Many reporters from Europe and Japan had left early to file their stories, and most of those who remained looked exhausted.
The continuous, high-intensity bombardment of information had pushed these media professionals to the limit of their attention spans.
3DO's situation over the past few years had been extremely awkward.
Back then, Trip Hawkins had ambitiously proposed the concept of a "unified hardware standard," attempting to become the VHS of the gaming world.
Electronics giants like Matsushita and Sanyo responded one after another, manufacturing the 3DO console under contract.
The harsh logic of business dealt Hawkins a heavy blow.
Without first-party software to support it, the console relied entirely on a hodgepodge third-party launch lineup.
The exorbitant hardware price scared away the vast majority of families.
The $699 price tag at launch in 1993 became a classic cautionary tale in the history of video games.
Over these few years, under market pressure, 3DO had lowered its prices repeatedly.
By the end of 1994, the price had dropped to $399, and in 1995, it fell even further to $299. Even so, the market response remained dismal. David had reviewed industry reports from a few days prior. As of May 1996, cumulative global sales of the 3DO had not exceeded 1.4 million units. The Japanese market accounted for over 700,000 of those, while in its home market of North America, it hadn't even sold 500,000 units.
If not for Hawkins leveraging his status as the founder of EA to get his former company to release a few games for the 3DO to keep it on life support, the console would have been discontinued long ago. Back then, the 3DO attempted to subvert the royalty system established by Nintendo.
Hawkins promised third-party developers extremely low licensing fees, charging only three dollars per disc. This profit-sharing strategy should have attracted a massive library of games, but the burden of hardware manufacturing costs fell entirely on the contract manufacturers. Matsushita and Sanyo lost money on every console sold and could only try to stop the bleeding by constantly raising the retail price.
This created a vicious cycle: the console was too expensive, which kept the installed base low; a low installed base meant third-party developers were unwilling to invest resources in exclusive blockbusters; and the lack of blockbusters further dragged down hardware sales. David drew a downward-pointing arrow in his notebook.
This is a textbook case of a business failure. Once the profit distribution mechanism between hardware and software is out of balance, even the best ideas cannot be implemented. The company stood on the edge of a cliff, attempting to use one last trump card to save the desperate situation. The lights in the venue dimmed.
Trip Hawkins himself walked onto the stage. He wasn't wearing a suit; instead, he wore a polo shirt with a slightly frayed collar, holding a remote control in his hand. "Good afternoon,"
Hawkins began, his voice echoing in the vast exhibition hall. "Let's cut to the chase and take a look at our new game for the 3DO." The big screen lit up. It wasn't a traditional 2D side-scroller, nor was it a racing game. It was a first-person perspective. Rough 3D polygons constructed a medieval-style tavern. A wooden bar counter, a burning fireplace, iron swords hanging on the walls. The player's health and magic points were displayed at the top of the screen.
The player-controlled character walked out of the tavern and arrived at a plaza. Seven or eight characters with various designs stood in the plaza, text bubbles floating above their heads. "Hello, want to go to the forest outside the city and fight goblins together?" "I'm missing a healer mage." The characters were communicating via text. David frowned.
Isn't this just a graphical version of a MUD? Early multi-user dungeon games relied entirely on text to describe scenes and interactions; now there is concrete visual feedback on the screen. "Meridian 59," Hawkins pressed the remote, and the screen cut to a combat scene. "The world's first fully 3D graphical MMORPG.
Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game." There was scattered applause from the audience, but those who truly understood the weight of that string of modifiers had already begun whispering to each other. Paul sat up straight and adjusted his glasses.
As a PC gaming editor, he was very sensitive to online games. "They've turned the text interface of MUDs into 3D polygons," Paul said while taking notes. "That's no small feat of engineering. Early MUDs relied entirely on text-based imagination; 'Meridian 59' provides concrete visual feedback. This is an epoch-making step."
The demonstration continued. Characters teamed up and entered the forest. The mage cast fireballs from the back row, while the warrior held off the monster's attacks in the front. After the monster fell, it turned into a pile of ashes and disappeared, leaving behind a few gold coins and a longsword. After the battle, the loot dropped to the ground.
Characters exchange items through a trade window. Hawkins is explaining the game mechanics on stage.
"In this world, players can join guilds. Guilds can fight over territory. You could be a blacksmith, specializing in forging weapons for other players; or a merchant, trading goods between different towns. We are providing a complete virtual social structure." Social interaction.
This is the core competitive advantage demonstrated by Meridian 59. NPC behavior in single-player RPGs is hard-coded; the objects of player interaction are essentially just data running on scripts. Behind every character in Meridian 59 is a real player. Such human-to-human interaction will generate unpredictable chemical reactions.
Players can get married, form feuds, and build alliances within the game. David writes in his notebook, "A prototype for online social interaction?" The lifecycle of a single-player RPG is limited. Once players defeat the final boss and watch the credits, the game is over.
If developers want to make their next profit, they must start a project for a sequel. Meridian 59 broke this rule.
"They are selling a service, not a product." Paul wrote this in his sketchbook. "As long as the game world is running and the players' social networks remain, they will continue to stay in this virtual society. Grinding for levels is just a means; maintaining a sense of social presence is the ultimate goal." "How do you solve latency on a technical level?" A reporter asked loudly from the audience. "Client-side prediction," Hawkins replied.
"Player movement and routine attacks are calculated locally, while the server is only responsible for verifying critical data and synchronizing states. As long as your dial-up connection can maintain 14.4kbps, you can play smoothly." This technology answered many of the doubts held by the peers present.
In 1996, network infrastructure was very weak; packet loss and high latency were the norm. If some of the computational pressure wasn't offloaded to local clients, the server simply couldn't handle the data throughput of a large number of players online simultaneously.
The demonstration ended. The pricing model appeared on the screen. The entire room was in an uproar. It wasn't the traditional one-time purchase model. "The price of the game software itself will be kept extremely low, available for free download," Hawkins revealed his trump card. "Players will need to pay a monthly subscription fee of $9.95 to gain access to the server."
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