The part about the 3DO was partly wrong. Initially, the 3DO Company was not going to make any games at all. They were simply licensing out the hardware spec and Operating System (OS) to others to make. The idea was similar to how computers worked - at least outside of Apple.

Their method of funding was to make use of licensing fees. If I am recalling it correctly, games were licensed at $3 per copy but the console license fee was never publicly discussed. I do remember one of the developers discussing that fee and stating it is about 1/5th what Sony was charging (putting PSOne games with at least a $15 license pad to the cost to gamers).

Obviously this plan did not work out as the 3DO Company quickly (about a year after launch) started their own development/publishing arm that was public facing. Studio 3DO was originally intended to build tools and such for licensed developers to make use of (I am sure there was another license fee for those tools).

It was a great idea but it was simply not one that would work with consoles. This was because companies were able to make add-on mods that would only work for their variation - such as the fabled, only shown at one trade show, AT&T modem or the FMV cart that was only compatible with the Panasonic models (leaving out Goldstar and Sanyo's models).

This is why computers work with this model. There is a small standard - ISA, PCI, AGP, etc ports and general size that will fit. Outside of that, anyone can make anything they want that fits those slots.

This is something the 3DO failed to do. That and it was a closed source platform, similar to IBM's early stranglehold on the BIOS and what became known as "IBM PC compatible" which we call today just PC, or more frankly, Windows.

The only other console to come close to this was the Sega Saturn with the various releases Sega allowed (including a graphics card for PC's released by Creative Labs). There was also a 3DO card, I believe, again by Creative Labs.