How Dumb is Trip Hawkins (3DO)
 

I really am starting to hate this guy.. He talks like he knows all, but he ends up always being wrong!

Please post your stories about how stupid Trip Hawkins is.. We'll need a few about the 3DO gaming machine (ie: the cleveland steamer or Hot Karl)..

Here is mine for the day..

When I heard today that 3d0 was now going to be making games for Xbox, it hit me.. Trip Hawkins bashed the Xbox early on and said he wouldn't make games for it!

As he said:
"What you see is what you get, however, cautions Trip Hawkins, CEO of game developer 3DO, which has no plans to support the Xbox. Console makers count on selling many games per console (known as the tie-in ratio) to subsidize hardware costs, and the Xbox lineup is way too shallow to pay off, he said.
"It looks like Xbox will have the worst tie-in ratio in the history of the games business," Hawkins said. "It'll have a couple of killer games for the hard-core gamers, and the rest of them will be rented." "

Turns out the Xbox has one of the best software tie-in ratios... and now they are making games for Xbox. Yah! Army men games, sweet!


What a tool he is, what a tool.

-Jim

Yeah, but he is a rich tool. The 3DO company made mistakes and I'm sure most of them are Trip's fault, however, he was a visionary with the idea of the 3DO but it was just too far ahead of its time to be cost effective. Its still one of my all time favorite consoles though and when I look at the Xbox and PS2 I see the dream Trip had coming close to being realized. The all in one box may someday control the living room of everyone.

The biggest mistake 3DO made when they changed to a Software developer was abandoning some of the great things Studio 3DO had started like Captain Quazar, Star Flight, Twisted the Game Show, etc that maybe could have really been turned into great titles on the PSX and instead focus on the one PC hit Army Men. They cranked out Army Man after Army Man game until they ran the entire franchise into the ground. In the process they pissed away all the money they made from selling the M2 to Panasonic and now are on the verge of closing down without loans and probably millions pumped in from Trip.

Yes its a sad story, but the man that created John Madden Football is anything but a tool in my book. If not for him getting them off to such a good start who knows if EA would be the number two publisher in the world. He should at least get some credit for that if nothing else.

Trip Hawkins highlights:

1996: 'The 32-bit generation is already obsolete and will be bypassed by the consumer.'

1993: 3DO multiplayer released at $700

Pre-EA: Sets price of some type of computer hardware WAY too high (I'm thinking Apple Lisa, but I'm not sure if that makes any sense at all). Whatever it was, it made 3DO pricing look sane. [According to the following link, Lisa cost $10,000! http://lisa.sunder.net/mirrors/Simon/Lisa/What.html ]

Only imagine how big EA could have been if Trip wasn't in charge!

-Jim

I truly hate the man.
I watched sadly as my beloved Might & Magic series went down the tube.

1-5 are old, but well loved classics PC RPGs. 6 revitalized the series and introduced new people. 7 added more to a good thing. 8 was pure trash... word from developers was that is was bad because everyone was working on 9. 9 was worse... its sad to belive it, but it was.

The spin-offs have sucked (save Heroes 1-3). The only other visionary title, besides Heroes, was Legends. The original idea and original game they WERE making (I have the press releases), was completely dumped and replaced with a poor Counter-Strike clone. Had they kept the original title )which I think they dumped to shove some more bad content into 9 for), we could have had a GREAT game.

The failure of the series was blamed on the development team, and they were either layed off, or told to move within two weeks to the new building (in San Francisco from LA), no expenses paid, or be layed off. They also fired their PR rep for no good reason, for she was easy to work with and actually attempted to promote their crappy games. I will miss her.

Only ONE, yes, ONE original team member exists, the series creator.

To top it off, they sit on the M&M series now, and COULD bring it to the GBA (the early ones, 3 was on the SNES), but probably will not (even though the classic Eye of the Beholder may be making it). And will most likely attmept to piss the series away even more, even though their fan base has went to the shitter.

Truly a sad, sad, company.

No Trip probably means no John Madded Football. That pretty much equals no EA. The guy has screwed up plenty, but he did good things at EA. Problem was he should have stayed there.

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Tuan Jim

3DO is just afraid of competition, especially from Sony. I had a 3DO system and I loved it, but just when Playstation came out they give up. Then we fast forward a few years when 3DO buys a little game developer and releases the first 3D online RPG Meridian 59. Oops, Sony releases Everquest and suddenly 3DO abandons Meridian, and to this day Trippy I bet Trippy is still saying that internet gaming will never catch on