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/vr/ - Retro Games

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7955986 No.7955986 [Reply] [Original]

How did Nintendo 64 end up with only 3 games available on launch?

>> No.7955993

nintendo didn't know what they were doing. they were also expecting sm64 to carry their first year like SMW did previously.

>> No.7956021

They had no third party support, by the time it released the PS1 had already stolen the market, the probably were expecting their SNES audience to just buy a N64 automatically regardless of the software available.

>> No.7956029

>>7955986
What game is this? The cover feels so nostalgic, as if I've seen it at a flea market or something before. What is the game play like?

>> No.7956045

>>7956029
Saikyō Habu Shōgi.
It's literally just a shogi simulator.

>> No.7956064

>>7956029
>>7956045
The history of this game is hilarious. Shogi and Mahjong games were popular on the snes in japan. So popular in fact people were willing to pay lots of money for carts with faster CPUs so the computer would complete its turns faster. With the N64 and its faster CPU you would think people would flock to get the game right? Wrong, it was a complete flop and it can be bought for next to nothing at used game markets. It was borderline an Atari E.T situation where they made a ton of carts and nobody cared at all. Crazy how people can love a game genre one year and completely forget about it the next. For comparison there were at least 6 Shogi games released in 1995 that all used the SA1 chip.

>> No.7956074

>>7955986
That was pretty standard. The Famicom also had 3 games at launch, the Super Famicom had 2, as did the Mega Drive and PC Engine.

>> No.7956081

>>7956074
Famicom launch titles:
>Donkey Kong
>Donkey Kong Jr.
>Popeye

Super Famicom launch titles:
>Super Mario World
>F-Zero

Mega Drive launch titles:
>Space Harrier II
>Super Thunder Blade

PC Engine launch titles:
>Bikkuriman World
>Shanghai

Nintendo 64 launch titles:
>Super Mario 64
>Pilotwings 64
>Saikyo Habu Shogi

Who had the best launch lineup, /vr/?

>> No.7956096

>>7956081
I hate to say it, but probably N64. Pilotwings is a lot of fun and I could play Mario 64 indefinitely.
I like Mario world a little more but I don’t care for the 2D f-zero games

>> No.7956101

>>7956081
Sufami

>> No.7956127

It should probably be said that nobody knew how to make 3D console games at that point anyway. There'd have to be at least some time for development outside of tight-nit partners pre-release.

>> No.7956147

>>7956081
N64

SM64 is legendary and Pilotwings is the king of comfy.

>> No.7956161

>>7956127
The PS1 came out in december '94. N64 was june '96. 3DO was october 93.
Plenty of companies big and small had released 3D games on the PS1 by the time the final N64 devkits were shipped. Even for the PS1 itself many devs had started making games on the 3DO and used that experience to get a headstart on developing new 3D games on the PlayStation.

>> No.7956163

>>7956161
Yeah but all pre-1996 3D games on the PS1 were either barely 3D at all (basically 2.5D) or were complete and total steaming ass.

>> No.7956193

>>7956064
Mahjong doesn't really need the extra CPU grunt, especially compared to Shogi.

>> No.7956198

>>7955986
Keep in mind those 3 games were Pilotwings and Mario 64. PS1 and Dreamcast's original Japanese launches were some of the most barren in gaming history. You could not name a single Japanese launch title that came out for either.

>> No.7956263

>>7956081
Ah gee, I can't make that decision, I like most of those games.

>> No.7956282

>>7956198
Ridge fucking Racer was a PSX launch title in nipland

>> No.7956286

>>7956198
>You could not name a single Japanese launch title that came out for either.
PS1: Ridge Racer
Dreamcast: Virtua Fighter 3tb

Wow that was hard.

>> No.7956301

>>7956081
Gradius 3 and Pilotwings were also launch titles for SNES in the US.

For how few great titles the 64 ended up with that opening year was gold

August launch- SM64
February - Mario Kart 64
June - Star Fox 64
August - Goldeneye

>> No.7956492

>>7956286
I played a ton of VF3TB back in the day. It was one of the few fighters that worked well with the Dreamcast controller’s meager 4 face buttons.

>> No.7956649

>>7956081
>Super Famicom
Obviously

>> No.7956694

>>7956282
>a demo sold as a racing game

>> No.7956714

>>7956163
This nigga never played King’s Field

>> No.7956870

>>7956714
I've never played the game, but looking at video, every time I think to myself "Man, that looks really boring."
>enormous labyrinthine stretches of flat and featureless corridors which all look the same and are devoid of landmarks, occasional rooms of higher detail but most of the game appears to be corridors
>enemy AI which only acknowledges your existence once you get within 10ft of them, usually you fight one dude at a time, on occasion as many as three, due to their limited range they are easy to abuse
>all melee combat is done by moving in to strike and then backing off to make them whiff
I understand that Dark Souls eventually evolved from this primordial ooze of a game, and those games look pretty good, but on its own it looks so very dry. On PC you already had Ultima Underworld, Heretic, System Shock, and Doom 2, by 1994.

Does it have a compelling story or lore that you get to take in or what?

>> No.7956960

>>7956081
Both Snes and N64, but I have yet to try out Pilotwing 64

>> No.7957028

>>7956870
>I've never played the game, but looking at video, every time I think to myself "Man, that looks really boring."
Maybe you should play it instead of watching videos. It's an immersive dungeon crawler where exploration is the name of the game.

>> No.7957083

>>7955993
>like SMW did previously.

But the Super Famicom at least had some third party support shortly after launch. N64 was dire.

>> No.7957087

>>7957083
This. The SNES was backed by heavy hitters like Capcom, Konami and Square.

>> No.7957090

>>7956286
>Dreamcast: Virtua Fighter 3tb
>Wow that was hard.

Godzilla Generations
Godzilla Generations
Godzilla Generations
just kidding

>> No.7957135

>>7956081
Eh, Mario 64 is probably the best launch title ever made to date. No respect to Mario World and F-Zero, but it is more revolutionary.

>> No.7957157
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7957157

>>7955986
Why would you need more than 3 games?

>> No.7957203

>>7955986
How did every Sony launch lineup end up worse than the 3 games N64 had?

>> No.7957249

>>7955986
All of their third party developers signed on to exclusively work for the system ended up receiving no help from Nintendo. Most notably DMA Design and Titus.

>> No.7957264

>JP launch
irrelevant.

>> No.7957269

>>7957264
Anon, the N64 launched with only two games in North America.

>> No.7957505

>>7957083
True, though the first party games were pretty damn strong.

>> No.7957524

>>7957505
>True, though the first party games were pretty damn strong.

Mario 64 was the highlight of the console. People bought that alone. Pilotwings was the alternative. Wave Race, Killer Instinct Gold and MKT showed up 2-3 months later. Wave Race 64 was another big hit in itself. KI:Gold better than KI2 in ways, and in some ways worse.

>> No.7957542

>>7957269
That's not even weird though, most consoles in the 90s had only 2 or 3 games on launch, the question is how soon the rest would come.

>> No.7957596

>>7956064
so it's like the match-3 and tetris clones craze

>> No.7957710

>>7955986
They were way behind and had to pull a whole console out of their ass to "only" be like 1.5 years behind the competition that was using the design they originally thought they'd be getting. That whole deal with Sony falling through fucked them so hard I'm surprised they managed to survive.

>> No.7957718

>>7957542
I know, I just thought it was weird to call the JP launch “irrelevant” when there was actually one more title available compared to USA.

>> No.7957738

>>7956081
Snes then n64
Mario64 is a more historically important game though.

>> No.7957750

>>7956081
I'm giving it to Super Famicon just because SMW + F-Zero has more breadth to it in terms of genre coverage. You get 2 kinds of players, or one player can enjoy 2 very different games from one another that are both GOOD games that you could enjoy for a while. N64 is basically SM64 and Pilotwings, and SM64 has to carry it almost entirely because Pilotwings isn't that lasting.

PC Engine's pretty much just Wonderboy in Monster Land which does rule but it's on its own (Shanghai is just a mahjong game). Famicom and Mega Drive launches are 3 of the same genre and 2 of basically the same game, respectively. Incredibly little play variety.

>> No.7957768

>>7957135
The snes titles werent as influential to the industry but as a pair they were fantastic launch titles. F-zero was fun as hell and the speed and fluidity of that game was mind blowing compared to the NES. Not to downplay 3D but every console generation was a huge leap at the time.

>> No.7957807

>>7956694
Its got that cool vaporwave aesthetic tho

>> No.7957813

>>7957768
And F Zero was pretty much a 3d racer except with 2d graphics. And it still plays well today even compared to racing games now
Very impressive

>> No.7957875

>>7957813
>And F Zero was pretty much a 3d racer except with 2d graphics
Most racing games had F-Zero's perspective. "Camera placed behind car" wasn't an innovation. Mode 7 made it look nice on consoles, sure, but it wasn't really a new concept.

>> No.7957895

>>7957875
F-Zero looked completely different from any other "behind the car" racer, which just had a straight road that sometimes curved to give you the illusion of 3D. Mode 7 meant you actually HAD a proper course on the screen with all kinds of crazy twists and turns. It was something extrermely new and different.

>> No.7957906

I’ll be real with you, consoles only need 2 to 3 launch games. First of all, the majority of owners don’t buy at launch. When you buy a new console, you generally only can afford a game or two. As long as a new game comes out every few months, its fine. Most people didn’t buy 300 games for their playstation either

>> No.7958063

>>7957895
>F-Zero looked completely different from any other "behind the car" racer, which just had a straight road that sometimes curved to give you the illusion of 3D. Mode 7 meant you actually HAD a proper course on the screen with all kinds of crazy twists and turns. It was something extrermely new and different.

The difference is that F-Zero uses a 3D playing field, which is basically a flat 3D surface that rotates around. So games did get a sense of being 3D (in a spacial area). The SNES couldn't do scaling sprites through hardware, though. But they were achievable through clever coding or the SuperFX chip.

>> No.7958069

>>7957875
yeah it wasn't a new concept (other than the mode 7), what it was was fun and extremely fast and smooth for a console. It just felt amazing to play. It didn't have multiplayer but you could still sit around watching each other see how far you could get and beat each other's times. The tracks were well designed with gradually increasing challenge and interesting features like jumps and hazards. The controls were perfect for the time (especially the LR bumpers that let you dig to help take corners more tightly).

F-Zero is an extremely underrated game due to the lack of multiplayer (like Mario Kart) and the more sophisticated games that came in the next generation (like Gran Turismo)

>> No.7958108

>>7955986
The PS1 had come out of nowhere and absolute assraped the competition. Devs didn’t want to fanny around with cartridges when they could get more space and content on a disc. The N64 was reportedly a bitch to program for too. Combine that with Nintendo still being fairly draconian with their policies, compared to Sony who didn’t give a shit, as long as it wasn’t porn and you can see why most devs picked the Ps1. Plus it was also likely Nintendo thinking Mario 64 could hold the market for the time being; which it basically did

>> No.7958947

>>7957028
The dungeons don't look immersive at all though.

>> No.7958961

>>7955986
>How did Nintendo 64 end up with only 3 games available on launch?
I don't actually know. The console was delayed a shit ton of times despite the hardware being ready so Mario 64 would be ready. If devs like midway were on board with cruisin USA I don't see why it couldn't have made the launch. Maybe the dream team was still sleeping.

>> No.7958969

>>7956870
>Does it have a compelling story or lore that you get to take in or what?

No. King’s Field appeals only to the types of people that really like those types of 80s to early 90s era first person dungeon crawlers. I’m with you and never got the appeal.

>> No.7959135

>>7958969
Oh, so it's straight up just like Wizardry in most ways? I guess that makes sense for the Japanese at the time.
Are the sequels any better?

>> No.7959159

>>7958947
M8, you haven't even played it.

>> No.7959207

>>7959135
The only one I’ve ever played was King’s Field II which was just called King’s Field in the U.S. The gameplay is pretty much what you described which is running up and smacking monsters with your sword and then backing away. It was far too slow paced and boring to me at the time. I doubt I’d like it now either.

>> No.7959216

>>7959159
There's many games I can just look at and get immersed in.

>> No.7959282

>>7956163
>Ridge Racer
>Battle Arena Toshinden
>Air Combat
>Exector
>J.League Jikkyou Winning Eleven
>Jumping Flash

>> No.7959319

>>7955986

>Saturn JP launch (1994):
- Virtua Fighter (good port overall)
- Myst (Macintosh port)
- Gale Racer
- Tama
- WanChai Connection
- Mahjong Gokuu Tenjiku
>Sony Playstation JP launch (1994):
-Ridge Racer (solid port)
- Gokujou Parodius Da! Deluxe Pack (nice collection)
- TAMA.(like the Saturn)
- A. IV Evolution
- Crime Crackers
- Mahjong Goku Sky: Atsushi
- Mahjong Station Mazin

Real question is, which 5th gen Japanese launch had the best Mahjong game?