NeXT BlackBox3
[related: NeXT, NeXT Computer, Inc., NeXTcube]
Short-lived home entertainment system developed and released by NeXT Computer, Inc. in 1990. The system was notable for its conspicuous lack of playable titles[1]and its ingenious yet highly impractical three-screen display requiring specific placement of three identical televisions. The BlackBox3's main gameplay activities were limited to the center screen. The left/right screens were most often dedicated to weapons caches, health meters and other player status information, and cumbersome and poorly rendered parallax displays of "sideview" content - i.e. passing road signs, cacti, and expanses of sky, grass, or ocean. NeXT's BlackBox3 was developed concurrently with its flagship workstation computer the NeXTcube, a system designed to harness the power of Motorola's room-sized 68882 floating-point coprocessor into a practical and portable size. The NeXTcube was introduced to the general public and industry alike in a ticketed power-point styled KeyNote performance at the Louis M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, California. Despite its unprecedented computational power and sleek, modern styling, the NeXTcube failed to gain any significant market share due to its $16,700 price tag and egregious density [2].
Original NeXTcube computer
NeXTcube BlackBoxxx
href#[MindVox] :: Konami Dream.
- ↑ Unsubstantiated rumours persist that Hideo Kojima was originally contracted to develop a branded and exclusive game for the system entitled Matrix Racer, with Kojima focusing the BlackBox3's formidable computing powers almost exclusively on elaborately varied NPC walking gaits and facial expressions.
- ↑ Remarkably heavy, the NeXTcube's density approaches that of various porous rock and malleable metal, weighing almost 75 lbs at only 1 cubic foot of volume.