3DO M2
Two years after the release of 3DO, the company began working on it's
successor codenamed "Bull Dog" (model FZ-DR21)At first, M2 began as 64-bit add-on for 3DO systems. The concept was initially developed by the same
people responsible for the first 3DO system (called Opera).
Later around 1995, 3DO sold the
technology to Matsushita and left the hardware market. The Japanese electronic giant worked
on the base of the system to produce a better technology called M2. At first this
technology was to be sold as a videogame system in June of 1998, but Matsushita felt the
market was not ready for another videogame console, and changed their game plan.
Matsushita / Panasonic finally released M2 later on that same year. The technology was
remade into a TV-based interactive multimedia player that was geared towards corporate
businesses for use in Public Information and Display Terminals, Sales Promotion and Exhibit
Presentations, 3-D Viewing, Educational and Training Kiosks, etc.
The Panasonic M2 Interactive Media player came in two versions. The FZ-21s was a more sleek
and compact version that featured a 4X CD-ROM (Plays M2-CD's, as well as VideoCD 2.0) and a
PCMCIA Type III slot for use with modem, Ethernet, memory, hard drive or other compatible
PC card devices.
The FZ-35s is the more high end featured model that features a DVD-ROM
drive for increased content storage capability, as well as expanded input/output device
connectivity, expanded SRAM, a built-in Infrared Receiver, LS-120 SuperDisk, Flash Memory,
Modem, or LAN card.
It would have been interesting to see what the M2 could have done videogame wise. Sadly, it
remained a multimedia device.
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