10 Terrible Decisions That Doomed Popular Video Game Companies

5. A Ridiculous Price Tag - 3DO Interactive Multiplayer Console

Sometimes reading the room is the best thing you can do before you open your mouth. After all, who wants to hear about your leather suit and tie at a vegan brunch? Well maybe me as it’s definitely an interesting fashion choice, but you catch my meaning.

It’s something that 3DO should have done when looking to launch their new console, the Interactive Multiplayer. While this was, as many entries on this list, a fine idea on paper, its execution did the same to its company.

The concept wasn’t a console, but hardware that other companies could buy and then make into their own home units. A good idea, but when the tech hit the market it carried a ludicrous price tag of $699 (although this might be an inflated cost according to the founding director of 3DO), which was far above the retail price for other consoles at the time.

Other companies decided to sell their consoles at launch at a loss and make it up through games sales, but 3DO pushed to do the opposite. If this wasn’t bad enough, tweaks were being made to the hardware a month before launch, meaning that the 3DO arrived onto the market with ONE game, a title called Crash N’ Burn. Pretty apt.

[JG]