Why did the PlayStation completely obliterate everything in its path?

[Rickstilwell1]

I think the playable demo discs that they started putting out (in 1997?), especially the Official U.S. Playstation Magazine and Playstation Underground Magazine discs also did a lot to help make people interested in the games. Once you tried a couple levels of an upcoming game, you couldn't wait till the full game came out so you could play the rest. It's something I started to miss that I don't think they had anymore in the PS3 generation.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

Thought about this one some more, after the latest 3DO thread. There are several scenarios that could have happened to make the 32/64-bit generation turn out more like the 16-bit generation (two victors) instead of the steamrolling the PS1 did. The reason the PS1 was successful is because Sony did everything right.

The PS1 had 102.49 million sales, the N64 32.93 million, the Saturn 9.26 million, and the 3DO 2 million. That gave Sony a 70% market share for the generation. Between the PS2's 155 million sales, the Xbox's 24 million, the Gamecube's 22 million, and the Dreamcast's 9.13 million, Sony nailed down 74% of the market for its generation.

If the N64 had used CDs, it would have easily sold 60 million units or more, probably ending up neck and next with the PS1.

[Alianger]

-Sega screwed up too much
-Marketing and brand recognition, Sony were big on a global scale
-Nintendo went with carts and lost too much third party support. PS1 piracy got pretty common by the late 90s from what I've read
-Which ended up mostly on team Sony - Square, Namco, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, etc. and Core and Naughty Dog ended up sticking with it
-Gran Turismo
-The demo discs were a pretty big deal too, these were traded around frequently where I lived and got people both playing various games in multiplayer and excited for the full releases
-The pricing probably

From my perspective, a lot of people were still playing SNES in the first couple of years, and PC gaming was getting big too after Doom. Some were obviously waiting for Mario 64, Star Fox 64 and Zelda (personally I was in my early teens and Mario didn't appeal to me at the time but I liked the other two a lot and occasionally played Golden Eye too). It really wasn't clear who was going to win until maybe late 1998 or 1999 over here. I got mine in late 1997 IIRC, which was a great time to get it thanks to FF7, RE2, Tomb Raider 2, GT, Oddworld, Tekken 2-3, etc., and more great games to come.

[calthaer]

I mean granted, the 3rd-party support was great, and I think that is usually what determines a console's fate but looking at a list of PS1 North American launch titles, it wasnt anything spectacular.

Yeah...it kind of was spectacular, considering what else was around at the time. Final Fantasy 7's advertising blitz helped - that game just looked incredible. PCs were were still for nerds, and not everyone had one (or had one good enough to run games).

Most of the good franchises that were on the Super Nintendo, that already had a bunch of brand recognition, jumped to the PlayStation rather than going to the N64. Mega Man X, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear - these might not have been quite as big as Mario or Zelda but they were mainstays of the video game scene since the NES. They were the first franchises to be ported to the SNES when it came out, and the Genesis' lack of those franchises hurt it. Once the PlayStation had them (and the N64 didn't), it was a major coup. Suddenly Nintendo was not the best platform for games - it was only the best platform for Nintendo's games, and everyone else was on a different platform.

Then it started having all sorts of other smash hits, from action games (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater) to fighting games (Tekken) to platformers (Tomb Raider, Spyro) to horror / survival (Resident Evil). The N64 just could not compete, not at all. They had one real Mario game and one Zelda game and some not-really-part-of-the-franchise Pokemon games, GoldenEye, Banjo-Kazooie...and then some of the things that were already on PlayStation. If I recall, Mario Kart, Paper Mario, Perfect Dark, Super Smash Bros., and Majora's Mask came later (1999-ish, rather than the 1996 when the N64 launched) - and by then it was too late.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

Mario Kart 64 was there almost from launch. It was out in Japan in time for the N64's first holiday season in 1996, so people knew it was coming soon to American shores, which it did on February 10, 1997 (still a little over 4 months after the system launch). The other four games you mentioned, yes they were from 1999-2001. Hell, Majora's Mask and Paper Mario didn't come out until the PS2 was already out.

Truth be told, third parties saw the N64 as an afterthought in 1998-2001. There really was no reason to buy it except for the Nintendo exclusives. The third party stuff was compressed and often 20 bucks more expensive than the PS1 version.

I wonder if those game prices played a part in my parents getting rid of my N64 after I'd had it only a few months (Christmas 1998 - summer 1999) and getting me a PS1 instead. We weren't the most well off people in the world in the late '90s and a PS1 provided graphics, sound, and a controller that was just as good as N64 at a lower price with a larger game library. And Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3 were just as good as Super Mario 64, which itself was a masterpiece.

[gbpxl]

Majora's Mask came out the same day of the PS2. I know because it was my birthday

[Hep038]

"That said, most "gamers" chose the N64 or Saturn instead but PS1 bagged the ordinary consumer".

, what? Sorry, but that is not how I remember it at all. Actually the N64 was bought by kids and casual gamers.