$700 Multimedia Dream

Lyrics

[Intro]
Six hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-five cents.
You sat under the halogen spotlights, behind glass.
A black box.
A Panasonic FZ-1.
The promise.

[Verse 1]
I remember the whispers from San Jose.
Trip Hawkins had a new idea.
Incorporated in 1991.
Then, loud and clear from Las Vegas, January 1993.
Booth 1234 at the Convention Center.
It smelled like new molded plastic and overheated demo units running Crash 'n' Burn on a loop.
You were the future of entertainment. The convergence.

[Chorus]
Oh, my seven hundred dollar multimedia dream.
The little gold caddy slides out, so clean.
You promised a universe on a single shiny disc.
The 3DO Experience.
Was that the whole risk?
Just a taste of the thing?

[Verse 2]
I held your controller, all six face buttons.
Ready for a revolution that never quite loaded.
And in the humidity of that first year...
your thin adhesive foil logo started to peel at the corners.
A perfect face with a tiny, telling flaw.
A beautiful machine with too few reasons to turn it on.

[Chorus]
Oh, my seven hundred dollar multimedia dream.
The little gold caddy slides out, so clean.
You promised a universe on a single shiny disc.
The 3DO Experience.
Was that the whole risk?
Just a taste of the thing?

[Bridge]
You were the right idea at the wrong time.
Or maybe just the wrong price.
October 4, 1993.
You shipped to the stores.
A monument to ambition.
A beautiful, empty shelf.
You weren't a tool, you weren't a toy.
You were an expensive statement.

[Outro]
Just a demo disc spinning.
A glimpse.
A beautiful, expensive glimpse.
The future... never quite arrived.
Just the experience.