The 3DO promised to revolutionise the video game industry when it launched in 1993, and, in many ways, it lived up to its promise.
It was the first next-gen gaming system to come with a CD-ROM built-in and leveraged that technology to bring us FMV sequences and CD-quality sound—as well as impressive 3D capabilities.
The bad news is that both Sony and Sega had more powerful consoles in development, and by the time PS1 and Saturn launched in Japan at the close of 1994, 3DO was finding it hard to maintain its modest foothold. It ended up selling around 2 million units worldwide, a long way off the PS1's 102.49 million.
Even so, it's tempting to ponder what 3DO might have been capable of had it stayed around for a little longer and had more development support. Now, decades later, homebrew programmers are pushing the console to its limits, releasing updated ports that look and sound fantastic—Mortal Kombat II is one recent example.
Programmer @XProger_san—the dev behind the OpenLara engine and team lead on the official Tomb Raider I-III Remastered—has shown off a clip of Psygnosis' PS1 classic WipEout which compares the original with a potential 3DO version.
It's not currently known if this is part of a full 3DO port (we've asked the developer and will update this post once we have clarification), but it would be interesting to see how the game shapes up on the hardware. A Saturn port of the game was released in 1996, which, despite being on a console with weaker 3D capabilities, ended up receiving positive reviews.
Would you like to see WipEout ported to 3DO? Let us know with a comment below.