Remember nintendo's arrogance during nintendo 64's release?

[sheath]

That is an interesting idea, finding the average library size of system owners would be great. My retail experience tells me that the average mass market consumer owns less than 10 games at any one time. Actually, most of them buy a system for one game and then buy nothing until something comes along just like it (usually the sequel). They buy and rent other games, but not to keep them or play them very much.

So, I would predict in this hypothetical study that the more popular the console is the smaller the average owner's library. More owners with less games will drive the average down faster than anything else.

[nebrazca78]

We could take a poll on our average size of libraries back then but I'm sure that would be skewed. Lots of hardcore gamers here. I do remember friends that had NES and/or SMS having lots of games, but not as much with Genesis and SNES. Maybe the rising game prices caused people to buy fewer games. Surprisingly I had a lot of friends with Saturns (and only one with a Playstation) but only one of them had a large library of Saturn games like I did. My one buddy that had PS1 did have a shit-ton of games though. I also knew a lot of people with N64 but none with large libraries. My best friends who I hung out with virtually every day after school had N64. We played 007 and Kart until the controllers fell apart but could never find any other games that compared to those two. A lot of people I knew had Dreamcasts but like them I only had a small amount of DC games. I suppose anecdotes are all we have to go on as no one kept records like they do today.

[sheath]

Ten years after the fact people aren't going to remember what they owned on average. Serious gamers will, but the bulk of the sales are not centered there.

The companies themselves should know what the average attach rate was for each console sold, and then the total software sales numbers could allow us to create an average. Actually, dividing the total software sales by the total hardware sales per country/region should give us the most reliable numbers.

I don't have access to anything authoritative sales wise for each console.

[Collector_Gaming]

Too bad Sega didn't have the ability to hang on like Nintendo did...
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yea i agree there

right now would be a awesome time for them.. hell even atari if they wanted to jump in and come out with something.

1995-2005 was horrible to market something unless you already had crap tons of money to back you up
Sega is a big company yes but it was always over shadowed by nintendo no matter what numbers you look at.
Sony jumps in to the game and has lots and lots of resources to back it up due to its very long stretch of entertainment backgrounds. So they hit big and they hit hard from the start
nintendo being a video game giant tries to fight back and barely hangs on (i can remember some articles stating the N64 could be the last nintendo console)

Come 9 9 99 sega releases their last system with out knowing it will be their last.
This was a all or nothing shot for them. and they hit it hard with some really fun titles that came out with it and a very good strategy in marketing it
But once again sony being a electronic mecha of the world and having what seems to be endless amounts of resources and having a very successful run with the PS1
comes out just as hard with the ps2 as they did with the ps1
But nintendo strikes back with the game cube.
and software giant microsoft joins the race with their xbox system.

Sega struggling from saturn sails and now with their dreamcast deemed by reviews and consumers out dated due to its hardware such as the CD rom instead of the DVD rom which was a new and rising fast to be a popular media, soon calls it quits with resources dwindling

Microsoft and Nintendo both put the squeeze on sony which left that trio very even when it came to sales hardware wise and software wise.

PS3 XBOX 360 Wii era arrives
xbox 360 comes out the door hard and is doing pretty well despite its hicups with recalls and servicing malfunctioning systems

Wii with its new unique way of playing games and its family and social oriented games doing pretty well itself.

PS3.. although fan boys will always say PS3 isn't hurt one bit and still kicking the other 2's ass's. They are kinda feeling it.
They didn't come out as hard as they wanted. Their systems from the start were the most expensive of the 3 which was hurting gamers wallets in a starting to fail economy while wii was shown to be cheap and xbox came out with their "Arcade" model which allowed gamers to game on the cheaper levels.
sony is also suffering from half way decent sales from its PSP device which we all know you can't touch nintendo in their own game of portables. Its impossiable. and the new age of smart portable devices that allow you to game even cheaper and more on the go

Sony was basking in glory for 2 rounds. this time i think they are feeling worn out.

So if i was a gambling man and i am.... and i was sega.
i would actually get on the ball and come out with a new system. what ever form of media we will be using on the next wave.

[Rob2600]

N64 pros and cons:

Pros:

-Very nice polygon graphics (texture filtering/antialiasing, perspective correction, real-time lighting, real-time shadows, texture layering, etc.). The N64 was doing sophisticated things no other console could at the time. In PlayStation games, walls and floors would twitch and undulate. In N64 games, everything was solid and nicely lit.

-Practically no loading screens.

-Extremely durable cartridges.

--Nintendo, Rare, and Factor 5 as exclusive developers. Popular franchises with high production values (Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Kirby, F-Zero, Star Wars, Star Fox, Donkey Kong, Pokemon, etc.)

-Great controller (in my opinion)

-Based on review scores from 1996 to 2002, the N64 has the highest good-to-bad game ratio out of any home game console.

-The most popular, top-selling games year after year were N64 games.

-Built-in four player support.


Cons:

-Cartridges were more expensive, both in terms of development and retail.

-Small texture cache required texture repetition or clever workarounds.

-Very little development support from Nintendo and very exclusive access to the N64's microcode. (If I'm not mistaken, the only developers allowed to optimize the microcode were Rare, Factor 5, Iguana/Acclaim, and Boss Game Studios. Maybe Angel Studios and HAL, too.)

-Most developers struggled to produce impressive sound. (Rare, Konami, Factor 5, H2O, and Nintendo were the exception.)

-Unusual architecture that many developers struggled with at the time. (Instead of having dedicated graphics and audio processors with dedicated RAM, the N64 featured an open architecture which was a new concept for programmers back then. Programmers were free to allocate as much CPU and RAM to graphics, audio, physics, etc. as they saw fit, so instead of saying "I wish we had more RAM for the graphics, they could actually take some RAM away from the audio and put it toward graphics. Interestingly enough, they didn't like having that freedom.)

-The entire library consisted of roughly 300 games worldwide and sometimes a couple of months would go by between A+ releases.

-Lack of RPGs, which were becoming popular in the U.S. at the time.

- - -

The best games during the N64's first year:

Super Mario 64
Wave Race 64
Mario Kart 64
Star Fox 64
Goldeneye 007

Those five games alone made the N64 worth buying. Wave Race 64 blew me away and nothing on the Saturn or PlayStation ever came close to that level of detail and smoothness.


Anyway, was Nintendo arrogant during the launch of the N64? In many ways, yes. The lack of A+ third-party support was disappointing, but Nintendo made up for it with fantastic first-party titles. Plus, ultimately there were a handful of really beautiful third-party games such as Rayman 2, Mischief Makers, Mortal Kombat 4, World Driver Championship, Turok 3, The World Is not Enough, All-Star Baseball, and the Star Wars games. In the end, the N64 had fewer games than the PlayStation, but even still, there were plenty of A+ games to choose from in all different genres except RPGs.

To me, Nintendo's biggest mistake was not providing more developers with documentation and access to the N64's microcode. Evidently, the default microcode setting was way too complex, which bogged down the CPU and resulted in lower frame rates. Once some developers were able to customize and optimize it, they boosted performance significantly. I wish that would've happened sooner in the N64's life. In the end, games like Conker's Bad Fur Day, World Driver Championship, and Battle for Naboo showed what the N64 could really do, but developers *should've* been able to achieve those results a year or two earlier if Nintendo had granted more access to the microcode.

[emceelokey]

I don't remember Nintendo being arrogant with the N64 at that time but I do remember it was the first time I saw a full page ad/article for a video gaming system in the newspaper. I remember the picture was was Mario swing Bowser by the tail and it took up 3/4 of the page.

If you want arrogant, look at all of the Sega Cd commercials, that's arrogant right there.

Looking back now though, it was the beginning of Nintendo making bad decisions mixed with good decisions with their home consoles.

N64.) + First controller to come with standard analog controls
- Cartridge based which was pretty much a negative in all aspects but didn't have load times..., Analog stick broke too easily, expansion pak was useless. My biggest gripe with the N64 was that I'm a Killer Instinct fanboy and they couldn't even get the little FMVs for the vs screens or endings in the game when every PSX game has some sort of FMV in it at that time.

Gamecube.) +Nothing really
- Used Mini Disc to try to prevent piracy but try playing Tiger Woods 2004 or whatever. You have to change the disc everytime you want to switch courses. Stupid controller layout and buttons that benefitted only one type of game play, FIGHTING GAMES were shunned because of that.

Wii.) + Motion Controls
- Decision to not implement HD, Ignorance to online gaming. It's essentially a Gamecube with a full sized dvd and motion controls.

Since the N64, it seemed like they had one thing that was a step ahead and then two thinks that were two steps behind.

[JSoup]

I guess I'm one of the only people on the planet that found the N64 controller comfortable.

[Collector_Gaming]

I guess I'm one of the only people on the planet that found the N64 controller comfortable.

nope i did too

but like i said i am left handed so it was easier for me to have my dominant hand using the controller the way it was ment to be

[JSoup]

nope i did too

but like i said i am left handed so it was easier for me to have my dominant hand using the controller the way it was ment to be

You know, it never really occurred to me that the controller was intended for someone left hand dominant, but it makes sense. I'm right handed, but I took to the N64 controller right from the get go, to the point that I sometimes had issues playing PS1 platformers.

[sheath]

The only time I have any problem with controls is when I have to move one of my hands and do anything complex. Joking aside, that includes mouse and keyboard setups. The N64 pad hasn't really confused me. In fact, I have consistently only purchased FPS that allowed for left stick aim and right stick movement up until Transformers WfCT.

I found the N64's analog stick a complete scam, it really isn't more sensitive than decent digital pad controls. The Nintendo DS having a well received Mario 64 proves this.

[tom]

Mostly every Japanese controller is 'the wrong way round' I wouldn't call it left-handed it's just the Japanese way.

Anyway, I remember very arrogant ads in UKs gaming rags....Picture of then Ultra 64, caption 'you have to wait for this', or, 'you can't play this yet'.
Those ads were offputting for starters.

And then, after all this waiting, we get fuzzy graphics.

[Gameguy]

N64.) + First controller to come with standard analog controls

Besides the Vectrex...<cough>

I remember trying to play the N64 when it first came out, I had to be around 8 years old at the time. The controller just didn't fit that well in my hands, it's ok now as I'm grown up but as a kid it was pretty bad.

Between the N64 and the Playstation, I would choose the Playstation. It's not easy for me to say that, for the longest time I hated the Playstation because of the hardware. I've heard that they break down frequently, they're not worth much used, the discs are easy to scratch and have loading times, etc. A few months ago I got a Playstation in a well priced bundle and started to play some games, they're way better than the games I've played for the N64 so now I actually like the system. I don't even have that many PS1 games yet, still less than 10 yet I'm having more fun than I ever had with the N64. I've had several N64s over the years that I picked up cheap but I never found anything worth keeping, I keep selling the systems and games off without much regret.

Still not as good as the Genesis or SNES but the PS1 does have some great stuff too. I doubt I'll own too many PS1 games, but definitely more than N64 games.

[Aussie2B]

I don't really get the left-handed argument since ever since D-pads had been brought into gaming we've been using our left hands to manipulate the D-pad or stick. Unless you guys are referring to games in which the C buttons were for moving, but those always felt really awkward to me (but I'm not left-handed).

Personally, the N64 controller was extremely comfortable for me from day one and still feels great no matter how much I'm using other controllers. I've always found it to be very ergonomic, so I don't know what everyone else's problem is. Maybe it helps that I have small hands? Although it looks like it would be comfortable for large hands too.

[JSoup]

Now I think about it, the left handed argument probably doesn't hold water. How many of us can manipulate the d-pad and two control sticks on PS2/3 controllers without issue, regardless of our dominate hands?

[Rob2600]

I found the N64's analog stick a complete scam, it really isn't more sensitive than decent digital pad controls.

With the N64 analog stick, I could make Mario tip-toe slowly, then tip-toe faster, then walk slowly, then walk faster, then jog, and then run at full speed. That wouldn't have been possible with a digital pad.

Between the N64 and the Playstation, I would choose the Playstation. ... A few months ago I got a Playstation in a well priced bundle and started to play some games, they're way better than the games I've played for the N64

Both consoles had dozens of very popular highly rated games, but for people who hate long loading screens, the PlayStation is automatically ruled out.

Is it just me who's wondering how N64 could have been considered a commercial success? I'm no Nintendo expert but doesn't the U.S. N64 only have about 250 games? If that figure is correct, that's about the same amount of games the U.S. Saturn has and I've never heard anyone call U.S. Saturn a commercial success.

9.5 million Saturn consoles were sold worldwide. 32.9 million N64 consoles were sold worldwide. That means the N64 outsold the Saturn by 3.5 to 1. Also:

Best selling Saturn games = Virtua Fighter 2 (2.2 million) and Sega Rally Championship (1.2 million)

Best selling N64 games = Super Mario 64 (11 million), Mario Kart 64 (9 million), Goldeneye 007 (8 million), Ocarina of Time (7.6 million), Super Smash Bros. (5 million), etc.

That's why the Saturn isn't considered a commercial success, but the N64 is. The Saturn *could* have been more successful, but Sega was very confused and screwed up at the time.

[Gameguy]

Both consoles had dozens of very popular highly rated games, but for people who hate long loading screens, the PlayStation is automatically ruled out.

It does come down to personal preference. I've played Super Mario 64, Goldeneye 007, both Zeldas, plus dozens more and couldn't really get into them. I found Silent Hill for PS1 and enjoy what I've played so far, though I've only played it for under 2 hours total(more than I've played most N64 games). Actually I haven't played that many PS1 games since I've found a console, I have Resident Evil 2 and Metal Gear Solid but haven't touched them yet. I want to find Castlevania SOTN and Skullmonkeys eventually, same with Clock Tower. At least with the Playstation there's actually some games I want to get! I still prefer cartridges because of the load times though.

That being said I still have a complete boxed N64 system with several complete games and a couple of Player's Guides. Perhaps I should think about selling them.

With the N64 I found that to switch between the direction pad and analog stick I had to keep moving my hand, it was kind of annoying that I couldn't control both with my hand in the same place(without awkwardly stretching my hand). I don't have problems switching between them while playing The Suffering on PS2, the layout of Sony's controllers are pretty good overall.

[sheath]

With the N64 analog stick, I could make Mario tip-toe slowly, then tip-toe faster, then walk slowly, then walk faster, then jog, and then run at full speed. That wouldn't have been possible with a digital pad.

I've set up my Saturn gamepad to play Mario 64 in emulation and the entire game is perfectly playable. The same goes for Mario Kart, though I prefer to use my 360 wireless pad for that one. The only thing I can't get to work fully with a digital pad is an FPS like Golden Eye. It's playable, just awkward.

9.5 million Saturn consoles were sold worldwide. 32.9 million N64 consoles were sold worldwide. That means the N64 outsold the Saturn by 3.5 to 1. Also:

Best selling Saturn games = Virtua Fighter 2 (2.2 million) and Sega Rally Championship (1.2 million)

Best selling N64 games = Super Mario 64 (11 million), Mario Kart 64 (9 million), Goldeneye 007 (8 million), Ocarina of Time (7.6 million), Super Smash Bros. (5 million), etc.

That's why the Saturn isn't considered a commercial success, but the N64 is. The Saturn *could* have been more successful, but Sega was very confused and screwed up at the time.

Do you have a source for these figures? I just like to keep that stuff for posterity. I would also argue against the perception that sales figures equates to success of a game console and divert people's attention to the libraries instead.

[RPG_Fanatic]

Are you going to tell me that in the American market the Nintendo 64 had any real competition besides the Playstation 1? No, it didn't. All the other systems you talked about failed miserably. While the N64 did spectacular.

You should have said the Playstation didn't have any REAL competition in the U.S. the N64 sucked face it. Look at the sales figures.

Worldwide sales figures
PlayStation – 102.49 million (Japan: 21.59, US: 40.78, Europe: 40.12)

Nintendo 64 – 32.93 million (Japan: 5.54 million, the Americas: 20.63 million, other: 6.75 million)

[dendawg]

the N64 sucked face it. Look at the sales figures.

Yes...because everybody know sales=quality.

[nebrazca78]

I guess I'm one of the only people on the planet that found the N64 controller comfortable.

I like it a lot too, except for fighting games. Can't beat the Saturn pad at that though.

9.5 million Saturn consoles were sold worldwide. 32.9 million N64 consoles were sold worldwide. That means the N64 outsold the Saturn by 3.5 to 1.

That seems like such a low number of Saturns to have been sold considering how successful it was in Japan. It sounds wrong that Saturn had well over 50% more games than N64 in its worldwide library (that number is concrete) but sold 70% less systems. Unless people who were buying Saturn just really liked it and were buying many more games per system after all...

Also:

Best selling Saturn games = Virtua Fighter 2 (2.2 million) and Sega Rally Championship (1.2 million)

Best selling N64 games = Super Mario 64 (11 million), Mario Kart 64 (9 million), Goldeneye 007 (8 million), Ocarina of Time (7.6 million), Super Smash Bros. (5 million), etc.

Maybe the N64 library has only a few killer apps and a lot of filler? Really when people talk about good N64 games you usually hear the same names over and over without much deviation. I know back when I was buying Saturn games new my brother and I were rarely disappointed and we had 30+ games.

That's why the Saturn isn't considered a commercial success...

Well it was a commercial success in Japan but not even close in the U.S. or Europe.

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