The 3DO Company (formerly THDO on the NASDAQ stock exchange), also known as 3DO, was a video game console developer and third-party game developer. It was founded in 1991 under the name SMSG, Inc. (for San Mateo Software Games) by Electronic Arts co-founder Trip Hawkins in a partnership with seven other companies, including LG, Matsushita, AT&T, MCA, Time Warner, and Electronic Arts.

When the company was first founded, its original objective was to create a next-generation, CD-based video game system which would be manufactured by various partners and licensees; 3DO would collect a royalty on each console sold and on each game manufactured. To game publishers, the low $3 royalty rate per game was a better deal than the higher royalties paid to Nintendo and Sega when making games for their consoles. The launch of the platform in October, 1993 was well-promoted, with a great deal of press attention in the mass media as part of the "multimedia wave" in the computer world at the time.

Unfortunately the 3DO console itself was priced at $699[1], and the promised "early adopters" never showed up to purchase mass quantities of games. The lack of console and subsequently game sales achieved trumped the low royalty rate and proved a fatal flaw. In October 1995, The 3DO Company sold its next generation console, codenamed M2, to Matsushita and changed its business to develop and publish games for other game consoles and PCs.