-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
wtf was Nintendo thinking with the N64 in Japan?
- Thread starter Phediuk
- Start date
With the amount of control sony wanted. Any sane company would have turned sony down.
Last edited:
N64 actually sold about as much as the SNES in the US, even though it didn't feel like it.
Lots of good points in the thread, but one additional thing I always remember.
CD and cart each had advantages you could argue but CD won not just for the space+cost+production time advantages, but because Japanese developers fell in love with FMV and multimedia, exasperating the issue.
A game like Resident Evil is emblematic. None of the actual gameplay it offered could not have been offered on N64 incredibly easily even on a very small cart. But it's really just a basic dungeon crawl game with a high megabyte multimedia experience layered on top. It's like the child of Night Trap and a Zelda dungeon.
Same with pretty much every big game of the era. Devs wanted video, pre-rendered background, hours of video, voice acting, and hours of pre-recorded audio.
Essentially product design changed very rapidly around a preference for limitless space for non-gameplay elements.
CD and cart each had advantages you could argue but CD won not just for the space+cost+production time advantages, but because Japanese developers fell in love with FMV and multimedia, exasperating the issue.
A game like Resident Evil is emblematic. None of the actual gameplay it offered could not have been offered on N64 incredibly easily even on a very small cart. But it's really just a basic dungeon crawl game with a high megabyte multimedia experience layered on top. It's like the child of Night Trap and a Zelda dungeon.
Same with pretty much every big game of the era. Devs wanted video, pre-rendered background, hours of video, voice acting, and hours of pre-recorded audio.
Essentially product design changed very rapidly around a preference for limitless space for non-gameplay elements.
Yamauchi was a brilliant man in many ways but the N64 may be the worst hard read in all of games history.
In 1993 it may not have been completely obvious or cemented in stone that CDs would be the storage of the future for games (back when a lot of the use of CDs was for non-interactive content and enhanced music) but surely by 1995 when the N64 was nearing the end of its hardware development run, it was clear as day.
I think if they had an emergency change to the hardware in early 1995 to add CDs and courted developers it would have stood a chance. But that's not how it went on.
In 1993 it may not have been completely obvious or cemented in stone that CDs would be the storage of the future for games (back when a lot of the use of CDs was for non-interactive content and enhanced music) but surely by 1995 when the N64 was nearing the end of its hardware development run, it was clear as day.
I think if they had an emergency change to the hardware in early 1995 to add CDs and courted developers it would have stood a chance. But that's not how it went on.
Last edited:
I think, at the very least, they should've seen the writing on the wall and merged the 64DD development with the base console and used the 64DD disks as the main game media.
Maybe but those were still expensive. Fighting against standardized storage media cost nintendo big for two generations. I always try to remember that when the N64 was on the drawing board, CD games were shit like sewer shark and night trap barely playable video playback files. There wasn't any Final Fantasy 7 or Metal Gear Solid to show off what could be done by using CD storage.
I think the massive improvement in storage space, albeit not as great as CDs, would've gone a long way to securing the support of third parties. The cartridges just couldn't keep up with the improving technology at the time.
I remember the game droughts on N64 being so severe, I would page through all my GamePro mags and fantasized about how the button layouts would be for various PSX games if they were released on the N64. I was so envious of all the games on PSX! I really enjoyed my N64 once it came into it's own though.
The weird thing, though, is that now that the dust has settled, there are probably more N64 games that are relevant today than PS1 games. SOTN is great, but overall? I'd take Mario 64, OOT, and the Banjo games over the PS1 library. Almost every PS1 game aged really, really, really poorly.
The thing is, Factor 5 developed a a fairly decent audio compression tech called MORT that was not as commonly used as it should have been. (High profile games include TWINE, RE2, and... Tarzan.) You could fit literal hours of dialogue into a 64MB cartridge. Rare used MP3 for PD/Conker, which did result in better quality overall. But the economics were all screwy and Nintendo were greedy and put themselves first when it came to pricing and availability. They didn't seem to give a crap that third party developers really needed technological solutions to N64 hardware limitations. When it was their turn, Nintendo went crawling to Factor 5 because they needed an audio codec for Pokemon Stadium.
as far as I know the Gamecube discs are DVDs, but cut to a smaller size (losing capacity) but the data is stored in the same way, the console itself can actually read regular DVDs (well, the center part of it) if you remove/cut the plastic cover of the console, I remember Gamecube piracy at the time, people used regular DVD-R with their cut consoles (or mini DVD-R which any dvd player can also read)
the GD was actually different, and the Dreamcast piracy was easy because the DC could read music CDs and most games could fit a CD anyway.
piracy was not made easy because of the GD, but CD support and poor copy protection I guess.
N64 piracy was rare, I remember seeing very few pirated carts and it required some sort of adapter to the console I think, while SNES piracy was very common, PS1 was piracy heaven (even if it required a modchip to be soldered it was a very basic chip and I remember it cost almost nothing to get installed).
GC piracy was a lot less common than PS2, DC and XB; I think the mini DVD was a factor, but not the only reason.
n64 cart could prevent piracy but, the cost of the cart was high and it severely limited games and they didn't sell as many consoles, it was a big mistake.
from what I know also Nintendo was very difficult to deal with during the SNES and NES era, but the competition was also not great, so when you add all the advantages the PS1 had with the hardware and being released earlier + being the new player trying hard to lure third parties, yes...
I remember n64 being kind of popular here in Brazil, but, they were not official consoles, so they probably count as North America sales? (the consoles of everyone I know here were US models)
Yeah, I guess this is a bit confusing.
I was hyped beyond belief for the N64. Got one that first Christmas with Mario 64. Plated it loved it. Had fun with a few other titles too but my favorite type of games, RPGs, were nowhere to bee seen. I held out hope and bought Quest 64, for a time I even fooled myself into thinking it was good. A friend of mine in School had Japanese roommate who was heavy into the Saturn. He had these binders he brought filled with hundreds of Saturn games and said I said I could burrow whatever I wanted.
Played X-men Vs. Street Fighter, Saturn Bomberman, Radiant Silvergun, etc and bought myself all the Working Designs RPGs. Unfortunately the Saturn was discontinued about a year later but I invested in the Dreamcast from Day 1. Gave the N64 to my brother and didn't play one again until a few years ago.
I do thank the N64 for breaking me of my Nintendo Fanboy ways. I now own consoles from all of the big 3.
Did you ever get to try out Ogre Battle and Paper Mario? Those were really good rpgs on the 64.
Unfortunately they were to little too late. I had already abandoned the system by that time. I first played Paper Mario about 2 years ago on Wii U virtual console. I have a loose Ogre Battle cart I got recently but haven't really dug into it yet. If those games had come out in the first 2 or even 3 years of the system I might have held on.
Final Fantasy 7 released and was a mega-hit. Roughly a week later, as a result of Square's success, Enix announced they were moving development of Dragon Warrior 7 from the 64DD to the PS1.
Here is a question regarding the Sony/Nintendo debacle I never felt satisfied despite some very good investigative work. Why didn't Sony take Nintendo to court and wreck the hell out of them legally? I have always heard some story that Sony did some shenanigans that would have made it embarrassing had they sued Nintendo, but that always seemed like a weak reason to me.
Oh ok thanks, the comments I had read made it seem like Square screwed Nintendo over with some sinister plan. So Yamauchi was just mad that FF7 was such a huge success then.
Yeah, for the most part. He was mad that Final Fantasy 7 was so successful that it cost them Dragon Quest VII, arguably the crown jewel of third party content in Japan. He never "forgave" Square for it, though as far as I'm aware, he was still fine with Enix.
Monopolistic policy of royalties make his pay-off for Nintendo, moving away the thirdies parties.
When Nintendo 64 was launched, the market of 5th generation was already established by Namco (Ridge Racer, Tekken) and Capcom (Resident Evil, Street Fighter Alpha), and this tendency was latter definetely confirmed by Square.
When Nintendo 64 was launched, the market of 5th generation was already established by Namco (Ridge Racer, Tekken) and Capcom (Resident Evil, Street Fighter Alpha), and this tendency was latter definetely confirmed by Square.
And ever since then Nintendo consoles have been really lacking in terms of RPG's :(
I mean, Gamecube had some amazing games that are some of my favorites, but it had extremely few. Wii had even fewer (and personally The Last Story was the only game interesting enough to buy). WiiU had... nothing? And Switch seems to be a step in the right direction, but I'm not expecting much at all, in terms of non-indie (or indie budget) exclusives.
I mean, Gamecube had some amazing games that are some of my favorites, but it had extremely few. Wii had even fewer (and personally The Last Story was the only game interesting enough to buy). WiiU had... nothing? And Switch seems to be a step in the right direction, but I'm not expecting much at all, in terms of non-indie (or indie budget) exclusives.
It had 2 of my favorite RPGs. Xenoblade X and Tokyo Mirage Sessions.
They ruled the market with an iron fist in the Famicom years. Super Fami was still market leader so publishers couldn't ignore it, but PC Engine being competitive and Genesis making a splash in the US showed some clear cracks forming in Nintendo's domination. As it became more concievable that publishers could swing momentum to another platform holder and succeed without Nintendo, they were all too happy to abandon them as a referendum. And Nintendo stubbornly staring in the face of insurrection and going "Yeah, let's go with expensive proprietary cartridges again even though everyone else is doing something wayyyyy cheaper" really sealed the deal.
Square and Enix were two totally separate companies at the time. Like metallix said, FF7's success helped served as a positive example for sales potential on PS, but Square didn't really have much to do with wooing Enix over directly.
Last edited:
I had a TurboDuo in 1992 and loved my CD gaming. The SNES was my fave console for that generation but Gate of Thunder and other CD games could not be ignored. You're right, though. In 1993 CD-ROM drives were in danger because there wasn't much to do with them. People were actually debating leaving out those CD drives from their new computers and saving the money. It wasn't until Myst was released when people saw the benefits of a CD drive.
Nintendo was probably well aware that optical media was the future but Yamauchi was not prepared to give up the control he had over cartridges. The man was one of the biggest control freaks in the history of this industry.
As much as we complain about Electronic Arts now, they really were instrumental in loosening Nintendo's iron grip on the industry. First with the Genesis and then the PlayStation.
There is allegedly a meeting where Square president Hisashi Suzuki talked with Enix to convince them to jump ship to make an 'Ultimate RPG platform' to boost both companie's software sales.
I can't find quotes right now though though, maybe someone else can.
It wasn't that weird, pretty simple to use. It was a great controller for the 3D games, much better than the PS controller.
The problem with the Nintendo 64 was the late release and some choices (cartridges...).
Square and Enix were both upset by Nintendo's decision to go with carts in the N64, and the 64DD was designed in large part to try and placate those two. They grumbled, because zip disks were better than carts (for the purposes of storage-hungry companies like Square and Enix), but they still were no match for CDs. Couldn't Nintendo at least go with a CD add-on? Nintendo was half-assing it's attempt to satisfy Square and Enix.
Then Sony approached Square and encouraged them to jump ship over to the PlayStation camp.
It was said that Square and Enix's CEOs were having lunch together (as CEOs tend to do, like how MGS:TT was made for the GameCube as a result of Shigeru Miyamoto having a conversation with Hideo Kojima over lunch), and Enix's CEO was grumbling about Nintendo's bullshit, and how he might need to jump ship over to Saturn or PlayStation, and Square's CEO told him about how amazing it was working with Sony, how Sony treated third parties like valuable allies instead of dicking them around, and how when Square and Enix combined their talents on one console it created an "RPG superconsole" which had a multiplication effect and was worth more than the sum of it's parts. He encouraged Enix's CEO to blow off Nintendo and jump ship, preferably to Sony, not Sega.
The announcement that Enix was jumping ship may have been made a week after FF7, but the decision was likely made sooner. The FF7 sales figures probably provided the final confirmation Enix wanted before locking in their course.
Enix was apparently better about not burning their bridges. Enix released Wonder Project J2 and Mischief Makers on the N64, while on the Square side of things, there was apparently a magazine article in Japan where Square directors talked about how much of a joy it was to work with Sony, and how refreshing a change it was from having to deal with Nintendo's bullshit. Yamauchi apparently read the article, and he doesn't like it when you call him out on his bullshit, so he got really pissed.
IIRC, Square's CEO eventually apologized (when he was trying to get back together with Nintendo so he could get in on the GameBoy Advance), saying that he could've handled the breakup better on his end (it goes without saying that Yamauchi acted badly as well).
While the Sony issue cannot be ignored, it's also worth noting that Nintendo's deal with SGI was basically a lemon. The R4300/RCP hardware shipped late, had tremendous latency issues, and was costly enough that an N64+CD combo would have easily been $299 if not $349, shipping still when it did (ie: late).
The great "What If?" here is that if Nintendo and Sony had come to terms, I really question if Project Reality would have continued as is. Options on the table?
- Wait another year and coast on SNES royalties while Saturn is the high end
- Scrap the SGI deal and ship something more or less like PS1 level hardware
- Ship as is, over Yamauchi's proposed price, perhaps by a lot
Shipping as-is would be perhaps the scariest option, because several things that hamstrung the N64 would have made shipping CD games equally difficult. I can say from experience, as expensive as cartridges were, they did a pretty good job of covering over the big technical issues of the console.
The great "What If?" here is that if Nintendo and Sony had come to terms, I really question if Project Reality would have continued as is. Options on the table?
- Wait another year and coast on SNES royalties while Saturn is the high end
- Scrap the SGI deal and ship something more or less like PS1 level hardware
- Ship as is, over Yamauchi's proposed price, perhaps by a lot
Shipping as-is would be perhaps the scariest option, because several things that hamstrung the N64 would have made shipping CD games equally difficult. I can say from experience, as expensive as cartridges were, they did a pretty good job of covering over the big technical issues of the console.
Finally! Found the source about Square convincing Enix to drop Nintendo during the N64 era. I knew I wasn't crazy. It was a note in the incredible article of FF7: An Oral History from Polygon:
Also, about Nintendo wishing Square the best after leaving them lol:
Dunno how, but about the why...
Also, about Nintendo wishing Square the best after leaving them lol:
Dunno how, but about the why...
Last edited:
The brutal reality. As by far the world's #1 game publisher on average for over 30 years, Nintendo is a competitor to all game software companies.
It doesn't really matter if Nintendo treated someone well or poorly, on a macro level you're supporting your biggest competitor if you make their platform more attractive by giving it your software.
Totally questionable, PlayStation was not just about AAA games, it was about variety with all medium/small games available, some of them who are still incredible gems. SOTN is just one of so many good games, especially the 2D ones. I like N64, but there are some people who can't stand a single bit of the extreme anti-aliasing blur stuff. There are some PS1 games without AA that looks still incredible, like Tobal.
Yeah, with regard to your bolded point above: that's been my impression as well (as I mentioned elsewhere), from what I've been able to gather.
I'd be very interested to hear any additional discussion of this point, if you have the time, though you've made the point quite clearly in your post already.
It's certainly noteworthy (and consistent with your point) that Miyamoto does not mince words, and explicitly throws SGI (by name) under the bus:
It was never considered ludicrous. They were 10x as large as Nintendo at the time and a highly respected brand name (in many fields more than they are now) with major media holdings. Magazines like Next Generation were talking like Nintendo would be lucky to survive their entry into the market. The only question mark was whether they understood games - their Imagesoft titles hadn't set the world on fire - but they'd dispelled that 2 years before the N64 launched by coming out of the gate very strong.
This.
The whole revisionist history of Nintendo trying to screw over Sony is ludicrous
Panasonic did before with 3DO and failed miserably. The idea of Sony making the same mistake was pretty normal at the time.
OP
OP
I've always thought this as well. The outcome of the N64 is something that Nintendo has never fully recovered from.
Not to go too far off topic but that's why when people say market leaders can change with a gen reset, I disagree. History has proven otherwise