Editing 3DO (section)

=== End of 3DO ===
Unlike Panasonic, Goldstar initially produced only 3DO hardware, not software. This made it difficult to manage competitive price drops, and when the price of the Goldstar 3DO dropped to {{US$|long=no|199}} in December 1995, the company took a loss of more than {{US$|long=no|100}} on each sale.<ref name=EGM80>{{cite magazine|date=March 1996|title=Goldstar Drops 3DO|url=https://retrocdn.net/images/c/c7/EGM_US_080.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://retrocdn.net/images/c/c7/EGM_US_080.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|magazine=[[Electronic Gaming Monthly]]|publisher=[[Ziff Davis]]|issue=80|page=18}}</ref> Goldstar tried switching to the usual industry model of selling hardware at a loss and profiting on software, but though a handful of Goldstar games were published for the 3DO, Goldstar's software development operation arrived too late to allow them to turn a profit on the 3DO. This lack of a profitable business model, combined with Panasonic acquiring exclusive rights to the M2 technology, were cited as the two chief reasons for Goldstar dropping support for the 3DO in early 1996.<ref name=EGM80/> During the second quarter of 1996 several of the 3DO's most loyal software supporters, including the software division of The 3DO Company themselves, announced they were no longer making games for the system, leaving Panasonic as the only company supporting active software development for the 3DO.<ref>{{cite magazine|date=July 1996|title=3DO's Downhill Slide Begins |url=https://archive.org/details/GamePro_Issue_084_July_1996/page/n17|magazine=[[GamePro]] |publisher=[[International Data Group|IDG]]|issue=84|pages=16–17}}</ref>

The 3DO system was eventually discontinued towards the end of 1996, with a complete shutdown of all internal hardware development and divestment of the M2 technology to [[Panasonic]]. The 3DO Company restructured themselves around this same time, selling off their hardware division to become a multi-platform company focused on software development and online gaming.<ref>{{cite magazine|date=November 1996|title=Tidbits|url=https://retrocdn.net/images/8/89/EGM_US_088.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://retrocdn.net/images/8/89/EGM_US_088.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|magazine=[[Electronic Gaming Monthly]]|publisher=[[Ziff Davis]]|issue=88|page=21}}</ref> After The 3DO Company sold its "Opera" hardware to [[Samsung]] in 1997,<ref name=":0" /> the 3DO platform had achieved more attention in South Korea, where LG had opened a '3DO Plaza' in [[Seoul]] on its 1994 launch and many games had been localized.<ref>{{Cite news |orig-date=5 May 1995 |title=LG Makes a Bet On Parlor Games |work=[[International Herald Tribune]]}}</ref> It competed there against Samsung's local version of the [[Sega Genesis]] and [[Hyundai]]'s "Comboy" [[Super Nintendo]].{{citation needed|date=August 2024}}

The initial high price is considered to be one of the many issues that led to the 3DO's failure, along with lack of significant funding that larger companies such as Sony took advantage of.<ref name=gamespy/> In an interview shortly after The 3DO Company dropped support for the system, Trip Hawkins attributed its failure to the model of licensing all hardware manufacturing and software to third parties. He reasoned that for a console to be a success, it needed a single strong company to take the lead in marketing, hardware, and software, and pointed out that it was essentially a lack of coordination between The 3DO Company, Panasonic, and the 3DO's software developers which had led to the console launching with only one game ready.<ref>{{cite magazine|date=October 1996|title=The World According to Trip |url=https://archive.org/details/nextgen-issue-022/page/n7/mode/2up|magazine=[[Next Generation (magazine)|Next Generation]]|publisher=[[Imagine Media]]|issue=22|pages=6–12, 159, 161, 163, 165}}</ref>