Last week a defunct British developer, Empire Interactive, returned from the void with a pledge to revive the 3DO, one of many ’90s consoles which fell into the chasm of history. Today, the company said its plans have come to an abrupt conclusion and it has ended work to rebuild the hardware and remaster its games. It said the “emergence of multiple parties claiming ownership rights over both the games and the console” have sunk the project. It added it did not want to risk “prolonged legal disputes,” which would have likely taken far more cost than any potential 3DO revival would make. Except, as Time Extension has been reporting, the situation is a little more complicated than Empire’s LinkedIn posts make it out to be.

If your childhood spanned the ’90s, you may dimly recall the 3DO, a multimedia games console hybrid your friend’s cousin’s wealthy uncle apparently owned. 3DO was one of a handful of also-ran platforms cut down in their prime by the PlayStation (and possibly the Saturn). Naturally, despite its short history and niche appeal there are enough devotees to attempt some sort of retro revival. But it appears that while new Empire Interactive owner Işık Şekercigil also owns the rights to the 3DO company name, it doesn’t own any of the IP related to its console hardware or games. Those rights are reportedly held by Canadian company Throwback Entertainment, which told Time Extension it had no plans to sell them on.

Either way, it doesn’t look as if the store shelves of Best Buy will be full of new retro 3DO consoles ahead of the holiday season. I mean, even if they were, it’s not as if anyone was elbowing their rivals out of the way to get one when they originally launched, was it.