M2`s

I saw a documentary on Kenji Endo on Japanese TV years ago. It was very interesting but didn't really go in to too much detail about his games. He did however say that thanks to his decision to move Enemy Zero to the Saturn from the PSX, he made some very good connections within Sega. It's therefore very possible that he could have had Dreamcast dev tools just as early as Sega7S own programmers.

Yakumo

 

where there actually games for this system created?

 

However they do look terrrible. Its the pictures of the starting FMV but in game gfx instead... Cant find them now!

 

Hey Zappenduster did you try Battle Tryst in your black M2 yet? I'm dying to find out if it worked or not!

Do you have any new M2 info? I've hit a wall for the last 6 months.

 

A few pictures of my 3DO Dev System up and Running








I managed to flash one of the ROM demos in the Dev CD (version 3.0) onto the development board. I need to hook up the external drive box and a controller to see what else it does. I'll keep tinkering and post my findings...

 

Awsome, thanks for sharing!!

 

did you find any insight on how to burn your own m2 cds since all i found from a quick checkout you should send you finalized project to 3do or whoever and they create that cd for you (which sounds a little complicated to me but in a time when cdwriters cost as much as a cheap car maybe plausible) ?

about the battle tryst didnt have much time to try it since iam stuck in tons of work at my fab (changing from 8hour shift to 12 hours got me 4 of 9 people sick)

but i just ordered a supergun so maybe we see at least a movie how it looked in reality when i put that together

 

I haven't run across anything having to do with CD duplication - maybe 3DO wanted to charge royalties per copy of the game produced (like Nintendo did with carts) though that sounds like a complete reversal from thrir open policy with the Opera/3DO I.

Regarding Battle Tryst - If you bought that FZ-21 unit that was on Ebay last year, I got a tip from a source I can't name that all Konami arcade games should work on it without modifications. Let us know if that's true when you finally do try it out...

 

could you specify a little more which unit you mean ?

my fz 21 wasnt bought of ebay i think (cant remember right =) its the left one in the picture here fz 21 cd drive + fz 21 retail

but iam still on the lookout for a fz 35 interactive mediaplayer from panasonic those big desktop pc like units

 

Last year some guy from North Carolina (STFlynn, I think) found an M2 unit at a local flea market and got it for $20, including a prototype controller. The unit powered up, and played VideoCDs - it was a black M2 like the one in your picture (the white one is just the development kit drive box, like the one I have). He sold it to someone from this board (not through Ebay - sorry about the mistake) - maybe it was you? Anyway, that unit, accoding to my source, should play every piece of M2 software out there, including alphas, betas and the Konami arcade games. In fact, the only things it won't play are the programs designed for the FZ-35s (which are DVDs anyway.)

 

if you could check back with your source for more infos of that black unit i would be very happy

and yes thats stflynns unit which bought and when the m2 car demo from assembler arrives i try that too

and for the arcade battle tryst game (konami you mentioned) gotta order a 220/110V converter first before i can put those into the m2

 

Anyway, yesterday I was stuck at this boring seminar at a local hotel. After lunch I wandered the hotel to explore a bit, and found the hotel arcade, filled with ancient games like Hydro Thunder and such. An lo and behold, stuck in a corner, a hidden jewel - a mint-condition Konami "Total Vice" game, one of a few based on 3do M2 hardware. I had my trusty Treo 650 with me (best cellphone/PDA there ever was/is) and took some pictures and videos. The games is pretty fun for a circa 1996 title, and let me tell you, the graphics were about Nintendo 64 quality, maybe with better textures due to the extra storage the CD provided, and the extra 4 MB RAM the M2 was supposed to have. The sound was good, but then again 3DO sound was always great. After seeing this, I think Matsushita decided against releasing this because it was not as good as 3DO led them to believe - I mean, it was a bit better than PSX-level visuals (it had bilinear filtering, the blurry effect the N64 had to mask the low-res nature of the textures) and perspective correction, and hardware MPEG1 decoding, and that's it. People who have posted the M2 had Dreamcast or PS2-quality viseuals have no idea what they're talking about.

 

well it doesnt seem soooooooo bad but indeed its bad. :-(

i hoped it would be better, but maybe its the first games, maybe it had potential...

 

ok iam a bit biased on that subject but what do you await of a consoles first generation that got canned before even released not many people had the time to work into it
total vice is from 1997 if iam not wrong at least the eu release

and the idea with the 2x602 powerpc hmm multiple cores/cpu have been most time be difficult to programm for

so and now i need the adress and phonenumber of that hotel/arcade to buy it of their hands =)

 

Don't get me wrong - I love 3DO, and I've always been fascinated by the M2. When I made my post I'm accounting for the fact that few people worked on the hardware, and that it was 1996-97 (when the PS1 ruled, and N64 had just come out.) Even with all those caveats, and accounting for the fact that maybe "Total Vice" was just a bad game, what I saw could not match the power of those first 3DFX 3D cards (those were out when, 97-98?). Granted, I wish I'd seen more games to make a more fair assessment...

 

I'm posting what could be a dirty little secret of 3do M2 collectors'. Remember those black FZ-35 Panasonic Media Players that were sold on Ebay awhile back for about $25-$50 apiece? I bought one of them for a somewhat higher sum, and since I also own a complete M2 development system I was negotiating with a source to get some software. The deal fell through, but what the source had to say astounded me. This source is "in the know", although I can't divulge the identity, these people were/are working on an M2 emulator for the PC... Anyway, I'm posting the emails:

Me

"Hi,
>
> I recently purchased a Panasonic FZ-35s multimedia player on Ebay. I
> know that this units are not real 3DO M2's, even though they operate on
> the same hardware. I also know that since Panasonic used these units
> for video kiosks and car dealer demos that the software for the unit is
> extremely limited and scarce. However, I read somewhere you guys might
> be working on an M2 Emulator, so I decided to contact you to see if you
> have any software for this unit, and if so, if you were willing to share it?
>
> In addition to the FZ-35s (which hasn't been delivered yet - I bought it
> yesterday) I also own an M2 development system with the external drive
> box, 2 M2 Hardware emulator cards (Revision H) and M2 Development
> Software versions 2.7 and 3.0. I just want something to run on the
> FZ-35 that will at least give me an idea of what the M2 hardware could
> have been capable of if it had been released as a game system back in
> the 90's. Thanks in advance."

Source:

"Hi,
1. those are real 3do m2 and without any modification runs beta and released m2 games.
2. yes, i have 12 titles (3 for kiosks, and 9 games) which runs and installs (yes you can install them on build-in HDD) perfectly on FZ-35.
3. will you be able/want to sell one of those rev.H cards?"

The Source even gave me a list of his titles:

"Well, i have complete V2.7, V3.0 and V3.2 SDK and Docs (in printed form), dev cdrom box (actually it's not really necessary for rev.H cards) and burned out rev.H board (mac had fire in it's power supply so board was damaged too)
as for software -- i have Cadillac 2002, Chevy 2002, Ford 2003 dvd roms.
and :
D2 beta (dvd-r), Speed Race beta (cd-r), Polystars (consumer edition japanese),
Hell Night beta, Total vice consumer edition, Arosen, Total control alpha, Heat of 11 beta, Ultimate Fighter beta.

Anyway, like I said, the deal fell through, but I just wanted to reveal exactly how mucy M2 software is actually being hoarded by collectors, and that the black FZ-35 units are apparently complete and working super-M2's. since they have a DVD drive instead of a CD-ROM drive, twice the RAM and even an expansion slot. So if you have one, hold on to it, or don't give it away for cheap...

 

And now I want to cry :crying: You know, I really can't stand it when people won't share videos of stuff they have. Can there honestly be anything wrong with providing videos of beta games? D2 beta :-( :crying:

Yakumo

 

I feel your pain... the deal we were negotiating involved me getting working copies of all software in exchange for one of my Rev.H cards, which they need to continue developing the emulator (their card was damaged when the PS in their development Mac burned out.) I thought we had a deal, then they suddenly stopped responding to e-mails.

Anyway, I'm not particularly fond of hoarding, and I was planning to share the titles with all interested parties. Too bad it didn't work out.

 

:crying: well, please keep mailing them... its really great to know that there are some betas for my beloved 35s. at least we know sth and i thank you for that...

 

Pretty sure they are lying...

I know one of the guys at Konami of America who did primary development of the tools used in-house on the Konami M2 titles and he told me that these were never intended to be consumer titles nor were any such versions ever worked on. In fact, Konami knew the M2 was not going to receive a consumer launch months before any of the titles was completed. As such, I am very skeptical that this guy actually has any of the stuff he told you about in the e-mail.