What if the Nintendo 64 had been CD-based?

[Greg2600]

I just wonder if the games would've looked just as shitty. N64 graphics were terrible. I think they would have been at least as bad as the PS1.

I would have to disagree there. N64 may have aged poorly now, but the graphics were head and shoulders above the PS1. Take any 3D-platformer, it's not even close, N64 characters were actually rounded, unlike the boxy PS1. PS1 games were often slow and jittery, not quite as bad as the 3DO, but N64 games had good framerates. The type of media wouldn't have mattered, if the console used the same graphical hardware.

Wow, Sega almost came in a strong second in the generation. Sony did so much right that anything from Sega - or Nintendo - was never going to beat them, but come on... a CD64 would have been vastly better hardware than the Saturn, and you know Sega wouldn't have insisted on the draconian anti-piracy measures that ended up hamstringing Nintendo.

Sony had a TON of capital at its disposal; Sega did not. The arcade business was up and down, and they barely made much of a profit aside from the Genesis in North America. Saturn was DOA outside of Japan, and that was well before the N64.

Playstation 5 and Switch would likely not exist, Nintendo would probably be the sole console. The reason I say this is Microsoft is having trouble against Playstation, if Playstation did not exist because Nintendo didn't backstab Sony, Nintendo would not have spent several generations pandering with gimmick consoles. Not only would there be Nintendo exclusives, there'd be powerful hardware capable of playing all major AAA games, and all Japanese and indie games.

This iteration of Nintendo would be the best console publisher, it can still happen if Sony and Nintendo merge into one, but this will never happen.

There would have been competitors, there's simply way too much money to be made on video games. Microsoft were well into gaming (on PC) by time Bill Gates decided to go with Xbox. Apple had somewhat of a history there. Sony was going to produce a game console, whether the Nintendo Playstation happened or not.

[YoshiM]

Assuming that load times for an N64 CD would be on par with the Playstation, I think possibly image and the controller would have continued to hold the N64 from reaching the top spot. Software wise I think Sony would probably have pushed more of the "cool" factor as Nintendo was indeed starting to look more like a "kiddie"company around this time. I'm not sure how expensive it was to develop for either a Playstation or the N64 (the interwebs aren't really providing me much info on hard numbers for dev kits, other than 12,000 Sterling for a PSX dev kit that fit into a standard PC. I think the N64 had SGI-like workstations from the get go) but if memory serves the PS1 was easier to program for. On top of that, Sony would have dropped some cash to make sure titles were exclusive to their system, especially stuff that would fall in line with the "cool" factor. I don't know how aggressive Nintendo would have been to get titles on the console but I have a feeling not much would have changed from the line-up of titles. Maybe more but that would still be down to prices and capability to pump out something that could use the N64 hardware on top of dev costs.

While I loathed (and still do) the PSX controller and Dual Shock, its concept paved the way for future systems while the N64's "trident" seemed to be a bane to many a gamer back in the day. That alone might have kept developers from porting fighting games over to the N64. Those that did might have had their N64 games cast with negativity from reviewers due to the layout of the N64 controller. We might have seen more 3D platformers come out than what already had on the system!

In the end, I think the race might have been a little closer but I think Sony's little station would still have gotten the glory. They had the swagger and the desire to be on top while Nintendo was just....being Nintendo.

Just my 1 zenny (not enough time for another) on this.

[Gameguy]

I would have to disagree there. N64 may have aged poorly now, but the graphics were head and shoulders above the PS1.

I remember when the N64 was a current system, as a child, and I hated the graphics. I just wanted to go back to my Genesis and avoid the crappy 3D graphics that were being pushed at the time.

Today, I have some nostalgia for the old limited 3D graphics of the time. Specifically with PS1 era graphics which I didn't really like at the time but now appreciate. I still prefer the look of PS1 games to N64 games, just as a type of visual style. There's even modern indie games made today that mimic the look of PS1 era graphics, but nobody seems to mimic the N64 graphics too much.

[Hep038]

I would have to disagree there. N64 may have aged poorly now, but the graphics were head and shoulders above the PS1. Take any 3D-platformer, it's not even close, N64 characters were actually rounded, unlike the boxy PS1. PS1 games were often slow and jittery, not quite as bad as the 3DO, but N64 games had good framerates. The type of media wouldn't have mattered, if the console used the same graphical hardware.

I always felt the N64 games looked like the screen was smeared with Vaseline. That is just a personal preference.

[YoshiM]

I always felt the N64 games looked like the screen was smeared with Vaseline. That is just a personal preference.

Yeah...but the polys on many PS1 games look like you could shave with them. The softer look of the N64 made the 3D in games where developers actually did a good job in coding looked decent to me. You could tell which devs could work that hardware and who couldn't.