Unreleased IMSA Racing for the canceled Matsushita M2 console

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2ackXME-pE4
Don't forget to click 'watch in high quality

IMSA Racing is impressive on the M2 hardware, which was developed from 1993 to 1996, and upgraded from its original form, 'Bulldog', into the final version under Matsushita which had two PowerPC CPUs, a polygon engine capable of over 1M flat-shaded triangles or 300K~500K textured triangles with all features on, 8 MB RAM, 4x speed CD-ROM drive. It was at least twice as powerful as N64.


Although artistically bland, IMSA Racing is, technically, definitely beyond anything the PS1 or N64 ever did, and slightly better than games running on 3D accelerator equipped PCs (i.e. Rendition Verite V1000, 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics, NEC/Videologic PowerVR PCX1/PCX2) in 1996-1997.

Only Namco & SEGA arcade games looked better at the time.


Next Generation magazine article on IMSA Racing:

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/2...ing1ah4.th.jpg

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/9...ing2ot5.th.jpg


I'd say this was the best home technology Sega could've adopted to replace the Saturn with. Sega was in negotiations with Matsushita over M2 in late 1995/early 1996, but any deal between them fell apart

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/1...segapx6.th.jpg


The truth about M2 tech

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/8...th01sa9.th.jpg

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/1...th02eg4.th.jpg



M2, in the form of a console, dies

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/150...nd01nv6.th.jpg

http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/1...nd02st6.th.jpg


M2 was not totally unreleased however. Consumer versions were in Panasonic DVD players, but no games got released. There were a number of Konami M2-based arcade games. It's a damn shame the hardware was not released as a game console though. It would've allowed Sega to bring Model 2 arcade games home without severe downgraded that had to be made for Saturn.
It would've also been possible to bring scaled-down versions of Model 3 games to the home as well. The only thing that would've been better than M2 in 1996-1997 would've been a Sega console based around Lockheed Martin's Real3D/100 chipset.

that was supposed to be the successor to the 3DO. Nothing really to do with Sega.
And I dont see sega releasing anything on it, as they would have supported only their own hardware.

I would have liked to have seen that get released though. I liked the 3DO. Still have mine, and occasionally fire it up for some star control 2 or space hulk or return fire.

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Originally Posted by Rassilon

that was supposed to be the successor to the 3DO. Nothing really to do with Sega.
And I dont see sega releasing anything on it, as they would have supported only their own hardware.

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Sigh.... Yes, I know M2 was the 2nd-generation 3DO. It was meant to be both an add-on upgrade for the original 3DO and a standalone next-gen 3DO console. I know all about M2, I followed its progress for years.

There was a point in time, around the time Matsushita bought M2 from 3DO for $100M (late '95, early '96) when Sega was involved in talks with Matsushita about using M2 as Sega's next system, or, making games for Matsushita M2. All of that fell apart.

from the article "The Dreamcast Story" from Totalgames.net

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3DO began shopping around its 64bit M2 system. According to informed sources, Sega's Japanese bankers had brokered an unwritten deal whereby Matsushita would manufacture M2 units, while Sega would concentrate on the software. M2 devkits were supplied to Sega in early 1996, with initial work reputedly concentrating on a Virtua Fighter 3 conversion for M2's launch.

Sega's M2 project soon fell apart however. 3DO's Trip Hawkins blamed corporate ‘egos' for the collapse, while Sega insisted its engineers were unconvinced M2 was the breakthrough technology they needed.

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That game looks like a regular 3DO game with more objects onscreen and a better framerate. In other words, it looks like ass. I can see why it was canceled. This was Saturn and PS1 level, if that. It would not have survived, especially with sloppy games like this. The Dreamcast was light years beyond this.

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Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

That game looks like a regular 3DO game with more objects onscreen and a better framerate. In other words, it looks like ass. I can see why it was canceled. This was Saturn and PS1 level, if that. It would not have survived, especially with sloppy games like this. The Dreamcast was light years beyond this.

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You contradicted yourself. First you say it looks like a regular 3DO game (no it doesn't). Then you say it was maybe Saturn/PS1 level. That makes no sense. Saturn & PS1 had much higher 3D performance than regular 3DO. I disagree either way. The regular 3DO could not come anywhere near IMSA Racing and it's also beyond anything the Saturn or PS1 ever did. It's even beyond what was done on N64.

As for Dreamcast, yeah it was far beyond M2, because Dreamcast was a generation after M2, since M2 is of the same generation as N64 (although M2 was better). You obviously don't remember what 3DO games were like or what Saturn/PS1 games were like. M2 was almost as much of a leap beyond Saturn/PS1 as those consoles were beyond regular 3DO.


I suppose it's silly to argue for a dead platform that never got released as a console, but just going by what's been shown of a real game that had been made, your observation doesn't hold any water.

You seem to have missed the last half of my sentence where I said it had more objects and a higher framerate. But the graphics themselves, right down to the blocky textures, look like a 3DO game. And those blocky textures make it look like Saturn/PS1 as well. Personally I consider N64 below the PS1 and Saturn just because of its blurry, foggy and vomit-inducing graphics. If there were ever a console that wanted to make me stab my eyeballs out, it was the N64. That system had absolutely no right to exist.

The M2 looks like shit, even for its day. Maybe it was capable of doing better, but this horrible racing game certainly doesn't show it. Why would Sega want to replace the Saturn with this instead of the Dreamcast?

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Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

You seem to have missed the last half of my sentence where I said it had more objects and a higher framerate. But the graphics themselves, right down to the blocky textures, look like a 3DO game. And those blocky textures make it look like Saturn/PS1 as well. Personally I consider N64 below the PS1 and Saturn just because of its blurry, foggy and vomit-inducing graphics. If there were ever a console that wanted to make me stab my eyeballs out, it was the N64. That system had absolutely no right to exist.

The M2 looks like shit, even for its day. Maybe it was capable of doing better, but this horrible racing game certainly doesn't show it. Why would Sega want to replace the Saturn with this instead of the Dreamcast?

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Sega ultimately rejected M2 in early 1996, but it could've been available to them much, much sooner than Dreamcast, two years earlier. M2 would not have meant Dreamcast would not come out, but given Sega a solid 3D machine in the 1996 timeframe, something decent enough in 3D to compete with PS1 and N64. It would've been fine for doing Model 2 ports.

Now M2 was not revolutionary or anything special, it was just a solid-performing 3D machine-- and both Japanese & western developers worldwide confirmed that in various interviews. The only technology better than M2 that might've been affordable was the Lockheed-Martin Real3D/100 chipset (that's not the one used in Model 3 btw).

Even Nintendo was impressed with M2, impressed enough that they wanted to use a more powerful version called the MX in the successor to N64. That deal went down the shitter though because Samsung (owners of CagEnt the renamed 3DO Systems team) and Nintendo couldn't agree on whether to use DVD or cartridges. Nintendo moved on to ArtX to build the Dolphin/GameCube.

That's way too many Sega home machines in such a short timeframe. Sega was having issues with this as it was without needing yet another console. Plus, the Saturn was doing very well in Japan and it would have made a lot of people sad (me included) for them to basically halt the Saturn and concentrate on something like this which really wasn't big enough of a leap to justify its existence in the company lineup.

Those graphics are well beyond anything I've seen on the 3DO, Saturn or Playstation and they are early demos too. They easily blow the crap out of any 1st gen game on the Polygon monster. Nice post. I remember reading about the M2 when it was a 64-bit upgrade for the 3DO.

Definitely a step above Playstation and Saturn. I agree that the textures aren't anything beyond what we've seen in some PSX/Saturn games, but the draw distance is a lot better.

Still, it's closer to Playstation than Dreamcast, which doesn't make sense for a console that would've been released in 1997. I can definitely see why Panasonic canceled it at that late date. Perhaps if it had been ready to launch around the same time as N64, it would've had a decent shot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

That game looks like a regular 3DO game with more objects onscreen and a better framerate. In other words, it looks like ass. I can see why it was canceled. This was Saturn and PS1 level, if that. It would not have survived, especially with sloppy games like this. The Dreamcast was light years beyond this.

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I agree, I can see that it runs at a better frame rate, but I've seen Saturn games that look better.

Come on man what Saturn games look better then that? The resolution looks high, the frame rate is smooth, the lighting looks more advanced than anything the Saturn has and the draw distance is nearly infinite. It looks closer to DC than anything from the 32-bit era if you ask me.

I wouldn't say the lighting is all that advanced. Apart from the intro in the very beginning, there's hardly any lighting at all. The car's shadow is just solid/static. To say it looks anything like DC is crazy talk. For comparison, think of Tokyo Xtreme Racer, a DC launch game. TXR has advanced light sourcing with moving shadows and reflection effects. It also runs at 60fps and has higher-quality textures. This game looks more like something on Playstation or Saturn, except with more detail and a better draw distance.

This is really the system that all the game magazines were hyping up in the mid 90s? REALLY?

It does look better then the PS1 or the N64, but it doesn't look as good as Virtua Fighter 3 (to use a contemporary example).

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Originally Posted by Puffy2k316

This is really the system that all the game magazines were hyping up in the mid 90s? REALLY?

It does look better then the PS1 or the N64, but it doesn't look as good as Virtua Fighter 3 (to use a contemporary example).

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I wouldn't expect it to look as good as what was then the latest and greatest expensive arcade hardware. That was back when (actually probably the last time) they still put a lot of resources into arcade hardware development, and made arcade boards far beyond what could be done on consoles (and even high-end pc's) graphically. I mean, F-Zero doesn't look as good as Rad Mobile.

The only reason Dreamcast had such good arcade ports was because they designed it and the Naomi system at the same time, for the purposes of easy porting (and also for a cheap but powerful arcade board). A changing arcade market made expensive, light-years-beyond-consoles arcade games much less practical. Also, and this may just be my opinion, I really think the DC/Naomi hardware was incredible in terms of engineering and cost-performance ratio. It's crazy to think about how, in Japan, the length of time between the N64 and DC launches was shorter than the length of time between the DC and Gamecube launches. And yet, Dreamcast is very close to Gamecube in terms of graphics.