Panasonic

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Panasonic's history begins in 1918 selling duplex lamp sockets. With the exception of National /Panasonic brand bicycles made from 1945-1989, Panasonic has always been primarily an electronics company. Its factories have produced everything from electrical components to consumer electronics and appliances. They have also been known to cater to niche markets by producing specialized electronic equipment such as short-wave radios.

Panasonic is yet another general electronics company that took a stab at the video game industry. However Panasonic jumped on the bandwagon many years after most other electronic companies and had to contend with NEC's PC Engine, Nintendo's SNES, Sega's Mega Drive and Atari's Jaguar right from the start.

In 1993 Panasonic released the 3DO at a whopping price of $699.99 USD. While Panasonic may be known for high quality electronics, this was a critical error but Panasonic's stand was that their system was more than just a video game console – it was a high-end audio-visual system that commanded a higher price. The market disagreed and the 3DO was discontinued just three short years later when the Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation were the top gaming systems.

In 2001 Panasonic gave it another go and released the Q. This was a licensed version of the Nintendo GameCube with the added ability to load and play DVDs, audio CDs, MP3 and CDs and more. This time the starting price was a more respectable $439 USD but considering you could buy an actual GameCube and a DVD player separately for less money it was still priced too high. The plug was pulled on the Q in 2003 giving it an even shorter life than the 3DO.

If history is to repeat itself, we're due to see a new, highly functional and most likely over-priced video game system from Panasonic any time now. However, they do say that "the third time's a charm" so maybe Panasonic will get it right this time and dethrone the Wii. Hmmm....