/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.6340413]

>By the mid-90s most console developers switched over to CD format, allowing games to be produced with larger file size and higher quality audio
>Nintendo still decided to stick with cartridges, forcing third-party devs to optimize their games to account for the smaller file size, even then the N64 versions of multiplats oftentimes paled in comparison to their PSX counterparts
>Their "solution" for this was to create a disk drive with a maximum file size of 64 MB (for comparison, Crash Bandicoot was 430 MB), which failed before it even hit the US
>Nintendo's president at the time, Hiroshi Yamauchi, firmly believed that the reason why N64 was a failure was because PSX gamers "liked to be alone in their rooms and play depressing games."
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

[Anonymous No.6340418]

The N64 was a huge success in America. Cartridges allowed Nintendo to control what games were on their system, resulting in very little shovelware. Garbage like Superman64 is so legendary because it stands out so much given the platform.

[Anonymous No.6340417]

>>6340413
>they didn't even use half the space in the cart

[Anonymous No.6340439]

>>6340413
The earliest CD consoles had more space than they knew what do with with, so it was manly used for perecorded audio and video. The prerecorded audio tracks were nice. The games that used prerecorded video as part of the games were mostly woeful.

[Anonymous No.6340440]

>>6340418
>N64 Units sold in America: 20.63 million
>PSX Units sold in America: 40.78 million

[Anonymous No.6340449]

>>6340418
Except they sold roughly 1/3 of the PlayStation.
But it was a motherfucking great system at it's day, I had both consoles and man, was I excited whenever I got new games for the N64.
Can't play mine today because the memory expansion bugs the system in the first 2 minutes of gameplay though. All my PlayStations had their laser scanners blown out too so the only things that work from my collection are the SNES and the Atari 2600.

[Anonymous No.6340454]

>>6340439
Even then, by the mid-late 90s they still had stuff like Crash, Spyro, Gran Turismo, FFVII, etc. Games that looked, played, and sounded good

[Anonymous No.6340473]

>>6340413
As pointed out by >>6340418
Despite the PS1 outselling the N64 three fold (though it's worth remembering that Sony sold 30 million PS1 consoles after the PS2 came out and after the N64 was discontinued) Nintendo made money more on the N64 than Sony did on the PS1.

Part of that was that the N64 actually had an extremely high attach rate considering the price of its games, and Nintendo made a killing on cartridge royalties.

And cartridges do have their advantages. I mean Mortal Kombat Trilogy was a shoddy port that was saved on the lack of load times alone.

>Crash Bandicoot was 430 MB
Crash is notorious for its ISO size being deliberately filled up with garbage data in order to deter pirates. The actual game is much smaller than that. Most PS1 games would easily fit on a cartridge if you stripped out the FMV and converted the redbook audio to sequenced audio. The vast majority of Spyro's space are redbook audio tracks.

>the N64 versions of multiplats oftentimes paled in comparison to their PSX counterparts
I'd say half of multiplats were better on PS1 and the other half on N64.

>>6340454
>they still had stuff like Crash, Spyro, Gran Turismo, FFVII, etc
Aside from FFVII, the reason for that wasn't because of CDs, but that the PS1's 3D hardware was actually quite decent compared to the Jaguar, 3DO and the like.

[Anonymous No.6340482]

>>6340413
If either flash ROM tech or optical tech was a little further along by 1996, the N64 would have wiped the floor. It was by far the most powerful machine of its generation but it was hobbled by a severe lack of space just as games exploded with content.

Gamecube discs are nice because the load times are super short. If the N64 had something similar, or if capacities of the cartridges were between 64 MB and 512 MB, it would have been quite something.

>>6340449
>memory expansion bugs
What do you mean by this? What's wrong with your memory expansion?

[Anonymous No.6340484]

>>6340440
>20+ million units pre-2000 isnt a success
imagine being this obsessed

[Anonymous No.6340486]

>>6340413
no loading times, bruh

[Anonymous No.6340489]

Just a reminder that a 2-disc 1 gigabyte game like Resident Evil 2 was squeezed onto a 64 meg cartridge

What fucking kind of blackmagickery is that

[Anonymous No.6340490]

>>6340413
>WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
They were thinking they are Nintendo, and they cannot do wrong. End of story.

[Anonymous No.6340491]

Honestly, based.
I like that the N64 still used carts. In retrospective it's great to have 1 last major console use the format.
At the time, not having FMVs was a big deal, nowadays I really can't give 2 shits about FMVs.

[Anonymous No.6340498]

>>6340482
>What's wrong with your memory expansion?
he's probably using a 3rd party expansion pak lmao

[Father Electronics Couture No.6340517]

They were thinking the exact same thing they were thinking when they made their ill conceived partnership with Philips. "We'll be damned if we give Sony one penny of licensing money"

Nintendo's actions in the 90s following the dissolution of the Sony partnership were exactly like a dumped girl, she immediately got in bed with one of their their ex's rivals to embarrassing results and then even years later she awkwardly avoided even making eye contact with him when adopting the CD medium was the obvious thing to do (that they had been way into before)

[Anonymous No.6340525]

>>6340413
I honestly fucking love that the n64 uses carts. It's gotten to the point where a large portion of older laser based systems are starting to wear down and break. Some of my systems have trouble reading discs, and when they do, they skip during music and fmvs. It's nice to have a system that I can plug in and play without worrying about it not playing properly

[Anonymous No.6340557]

>>6340517
>personifying companies and doing girlfriend comparisons
Damn gramps, I knew you were weird lately since you came out from the closet, but this is getting tarded.

[Anonymous No.6340695]

>>6340489
we've already been over this. fuck off.

[Anonymous No.6340762]

>>6340491
It was great at the time, too. The whole point of consoles is pick up and play. If I wanted to wait 10 minutes for a game to boot, I would have played something on my PC.