Lets take a look at the Nintendo 64, one of Nintendo's most adventurous consoles ever made and how it tried to compete in a world that was quickly passing it by! #nintendo #nintendo64 #retrogaming
I disagree. RARE was churning out a lot of innovative classics (Goldeneye, Blast Corps), Nintendo were just rehashing their existing IPs at the time, and slapping on the -64 suffix. The only notable exceptions I can think of are Pilot Wings and Wave Race.
@@HaggardPillockHD I would say that the games Nintendo was putting out were very good, but that move to 3D was a little awkward. I was speaking of innovation more in terms of hardware stuff. The funtastic consoles were really nice, Pokemon mic was ok, the rumble PAK and transfer PAK were great additions at the time etc. Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64 are two of my favorite games.
Did you live through this era? I'd like someone to really touch on the importance of the "kiddie" label Nintendo was given at the time, which really contributed to fan attitude towards them all the way through GC. It's corny now, but late 90's - early 00's, being "kiddie" in the West was crippling for your image. People who didn't live through it wonder why GC failed so bad, but Nintendo basically ignored the market & doubled down on the kiddie image. People left in droves. I remember reading interviews online & in EGM where Nintendo was calling themselves a "toy company" & telling everyone GC was a "toy." Then they announced it wouldn't have DVD playback like everyone expected, because it was a toy. They showed off a PURPLE lunchbox, giving skeptical fans & impressionable kids even more reason to stay away if they wanted to look "cool" or "mature." The last 2 death nails were revealing a cartoon Zelda (Windwaker) which made those on the fence realize Nintendo was blatantly ignoring their fans entirely, and ignoring the industry's movement to online gaming (something that affected them to this day). Repeatedly telling people online wasn't important to them, that it was too early, and that they believed fans wanted local experiences more, lead to them pushing GBA link cable features over online, setting them permanently behind the curb. Teens & young adults who grew up with Nintendo were feeling kicked to the curb. So they took their money & went elsewhere, leading to a 2nd straight gen where Nintendo allowed a newcomer to overtake them in the market. Nintendo likes to say "we used to chase power but fans didn't want it!" But in reality, Nintendo made a bunch of poor decisions, ignored the market, and told everyone THEY knew better than you about what you wanted... Sorry for the rant, I just remember this time very vividly, along with the online discussions & schoolyard talking points. It wasn't "cool" to be a Nintendo fan at that point in time. I was alone 😅
lol Yeah I lived through this, I chose a N64 over a playstation at the time I couldn't have. both and I was old enough that my parents were "done" buying my consoles so I had to pick. Nintendo "chose" to stay kid friendly and honestly the N64 was both smart on their part but also an example of their ego showing much like how the PS3 almost lost big because Sony was pushing "hard" to win the blu ray vs HD DVD format war. Good move in the end but still a case of ego. I will admit I thought the gamecube was too kiddy at the time and went with the xbox, I eventually got one when it got bundled with Prime and loved the console but everyone pretty much laughed at it your right. Now people pay TONS for games for it!
I loved through this time and was in high school when the 64 was around - you're seriously over-egging the 'kiddie' thing. The 64 had the best wrestling games, when wrestling games during the Monday night wars, Mario was never not cool and Golden Eye was a multiplayer king.
@@xxnoxx-xp5bl I was never into wrestling games but your not the first to mention how good the wrestling games were on the N64 and Nintendo did keep a far more child friendly vibe to it than any of the other consoles so its not necessarily wrong to say they were more kiddie especially with PlayStation pushing things like God of war. It wasn't looking for the same audience really though they did have some overlap. Thanks for swinging by, watching and commenting btw!
@xxno464xx85 Not at all. If you spent any amount of time online or in gaming circles, it was the time of being "mature" and looking cool/edgy. You cant say It wasn't a big thing, as it was already heating up in the Genesis era due to Sega's own ads & Nintendo's PR blunders ( no blood in MK?), but at least they had 3rd party support. Then they got taken to task by Sony in their ads, and PS1 was way more popular than Genesis ever was. Even Crash Bandicoot (a cartoon mascot) had ads joking about this. But by the end of the N64, it was in full swing. PS1 had all the mature, serious games, didn't matter that N64 had PD, Goldeneye, Turok, Conker's, etc. because the PS1 had infinitely more games! Everyone remembers the N64 M rated games, as it had so few games in general. Sony had more games in a month or 2 than N64 got in a year. Nintendo hit every "kiddie" beat, while Sony appealed to the "mature" (or more importantly, the kids that wanted to LOOK mature). I wouldn't be exaggerating to say the LOOK of the GC, lack of mature games, and lack of a DVD player were the biggest complaints I heard over & over & over again. Anecdotally, I had a ton of friends that got N64 at launch, but by the end of the gen, all had either sold it for a PS1 or had a PS1 too. Then with GC, few were interested to pick it up at all after seeing what it looked like, seeing the launch games & knowing no DVD. Then Wind Waker's reveal killed any interest they had on picking one up at a later date. Many of them flew back to Nintendo when Twilight Princess released, though they bought Wii's to play it & skipped GC all together. Funny how sales lineup with the discourse I saw online & the conversations in person. If I'm wrong, why did Nintendo try to course correct & pay big money to make Resident Evil exclusive to GC? People didn't just coincidentally skip GC. Xbox & PS2 got GTA Trilogy, why didn't GC? PS2 got all the T-M rated RPG'S, GC missed almost all of them. Xbox got all the Western T-M RPG's, GC missed almost all. PS2 & Xbox got all the big fighting game franchises, GC got just MK & one SoulCaliber entry. This was before PS & XB had to buy every IP's exclusivity, and at a time where Nintendo admits it was trying to compete directly with these 2.... and yet, why were these games avoiding GC? The "kiddie" reputation. Hell, it was Xbox's first go around, they didn't have the history or relations in the industry Nintendo did, yet still outsold them. They were smart enough to include DVD support and go all-in on online, two things gamers wanted & Nintendo ignored. I'm sorry, but Nintendo gave themselves a label they couldn't shake, made a ton of poor choices & sunk their sales...and It wasn't due to competing directly & chasing power.
@@corey2232 Nintendo has always pushed a family friendly image in its marketing. It's not a label, it's the company's brand - and one of its biggest assets. It's funny that you mentioned the Genesis but neglected to mention how the SNES significantly outsold it. Or that the Wii and Switch outsold everything based on a family -friendly message. The gaming market is split into demographics and niches, like most industries and Nintendo has targeted one aspect of the gaming market and done very well from it. So, if that's been a constant for them, what has been different when they lost ground? You already said it - tech/media. Both the N64 and GC were competing with high-end gaming systems while delivering tech that missed the mark. Nintendo lives and dies on its tech innovations but the 64's carts and GC's media weren't weren't what the public or devs wanted - what do you think causes the lack of grown up games? Nintendo has a family-friendly approach, but does allow some pretty out-there stuff (Look at Chiller on the NES). Ultimately, both the Genesis and PlayStation helped give gaming a more grown up image, but that was in response to Nintendo already owning the family-friendly approach (which hasn't exactly hurt sales since), but that really wasn't what hurt the N64 and GC. The media and resulting third party relationships with the system were much bigger factors.
As someone who directly remembers it, and its competition, at the time, it was quite obvious that, despite the shiny "64bit" moniker, most of the games on the N64 just weren't all that visually,... Good. Some were decent but texture mapping was a real issue for the console, leading to a LOT of quite dull looking, murky polygons. There are a great many Saturn games which looked more visually interesting because they had more detailed textures. And thats the SATURN. As you say, people couldn't justify the expense of the carts when many of the games looked murky, muddy and dull.
See I don't recall much of the Saturn from around this time I had one friend who had it and it had some very pretty games but the library seemed small and its presence in stores was limited due to the way they launched. Most people I knew had a N64 or a PlayStation and though I think how the N64 handled 3d graphics better since thats what it was made for most preferred the PlayStation because it had cheaper games and "more" games. I honestly think all the 3D games from this era look a bit rough as it was the first step into this avenue of gaming and the tech just wasn't really "ready" yet. Thanks for coming by and hanging out btw!
I’ve always had the N64 when my parents immigrated in the US. As old as the console is, I always loved this console and the games that my dad collected over the years, known as Turok it was the pinnacle of my childhood memories and creativity. There were always dreams of expanding the game levels and wondering what was in Level 4-5-6 in my dreams. These memories I will always cherish forever Although most of my friends preferred the Playstation during the late 2000s, I was one of them who would prefer this over that. I was born in 2004 but nothing important this console will always be my favorite console to cherish forever
I think we all have that console , while I loved my N64 the one I latch onto the most is the NES. It was my second console but the one I have the most memories of. The second would be the N64 as I spent far more time doing multiplayer on it than any other console and likely kept it longer than any other console on record for that reason :).
I have pretty strong opinions about the N64. It's easily my least favorite system of that generation by a wide margin, and I feel that as a whole the library has aged worse than any other of the major consoles. That said, the N64 is home to some of the most important moments in gaming. Super Mario 64 is my pick for the best game ever made, and it hit the gaming industry like a meteor, how many games went back to the drawing board after SM64 launched? There is a definitive line in gaming, Pre SM64, and Post SM64. Nintendo taught the industry how to make 3D games with SM64. There's many other crowning achievements for this console too, 4 player support, full support in all games for the analog stick, and the games that are very good, are almost all monsters. OoT, Smash 64, Mario Kart 64, Mario Party, etc... I also have vivid memories of it, I never owned one, but it was a common rental for the weekend when the system was new. One friend would rent the system, and both games, Mario and Pilot Wings. Then a bit later on in the systems life it would be renting the system, 4 controllers, and Golden Eye and/or Mario Kart. In the last half of the systems life everyone that didn't get one for christmas had given up on it and moved on, so the only games played then were still the old ones. At least that's how it played out in my life lol
See i owned one and loved it but ill be the first to admit it had flaws and i missdd out on a lot not owning a playstation but i still have some of my most find memoried of that system playing mario kart in college and tons of other mutliplay games and even mk trilogy andn ki gold. To me it was nintendo all the way till the dreamcast and eventually the xbox
@@geekstorian Certainly the N64 was home to some of the very best games of the generation, and probably at least 8 of the top 10 multiplayer games of the gen. If my parents had got me one I'm sure I would have loved it.
It was a tough time being a Nintendo fan. Imagine if nearly every game & every franchise was exclusive to NOT YOU. Today, 95% of IPs are multiplat, but back then they were all just PS1 exclusives by default. Nobody wanted to develop for such a difficult system that had crazy expensive, low storage carts. You'd wait months for ANYTHING of note to play. "Oh great... another racing game? Ah well, ain't got nothing else new to play. What did PS1 get? 100 new games across all genres? Ouch 🥺"
@@corey2232 Yeah it was a tough time being a nintendo fan. There were a ton of good first party games but third party was a rough go, the architecture alone made it so you couldn't easily port anything over.. Thanks for swinging by the channel Corey!
Fun fact: the apple pippin which was a failed console also could expand its memory(ram) just like the n64 could. Although it could house up to 64mb of ram, it could only address 37mb of it.
More people need to play the Timesplitters games, if they love Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Because the Timesplitters games were made by the same exact people who made those ones, and the games are essentially spiritual sequels to goldeneye and perfect dark, except they use modern FPS gamepad control layout so they're much less fiddly to play with. But yeah even the pause menu of the Timesplitters games looks the same as goldeneye's one with the watch The absolute funnest thing is to do the huge bot matches, death matches, capture the flag, etc, and change every single weapon to remote mines. No guns, no anything else. Every weapon every character spawns with is a remote mine, and every weapon you can pick up off the ground is remote mines too. It leads to utter chaos and it's amazing. Even compared to FPS games of today, like Overwatch, nothing is as chaotic and fun in an FPS game than the old Timesplitters games bot matches. I still go back and play the games today, I use Dolphin emulator on my pc and they run perfectly even though my PC is terrible. So everyone else should try to do the same thing. Especially Timesplitters 2, that's the best one
Cool man i dont think i ever touched the timesplitters series it sounds pretty fun though and teah i knew about dolphin sometimes it maps some stuff kind of oddly mostly because the n64 controller itself was a bit goofy :). Thanks a ton for watching btw!
I couldn't care less if it sold less than PS1 by a significant margin or not, the 64 was still lightyears better. There's a reason why many 64 games are still on most publications' top 10s, and they will be 100 years from now as well.
I can see that viewpoint i loved the system it was my only console that gen and my biggest complaint was how slow it was to ramp up game wise. Still as much as i love it i cant ignore in a video like this the heavy competition around that time and sony was a major part of it. I appreciate you taking the time to watch btw hopefully you enjoyed it :)
The cpu pipeline for the n64 wasn't really revolutionary. Pipelining had already been around for over a decade and other consoles of that same generation had a very similar mips cpu (PS1). The PS1 also has a GTE coprocessor that handled 3d space geometric transformations.
It still was a big part as to why it processed things so quickly the other part that helped it was obviously the cart vs early CD ROM drive technology. Great info btw thank you for sharing and hanging out!
Thanks man glad you enjoyed it! It did a lot of really cool stuff that was pretty advanced at the time its biggest issue was the carts and well people were fed up with nintendo being heavy handed to so they were ready to jump ship lol
The 64 had some amazing titles, but I found that the Saturn and PS1 had much more varied titles that I wanted to play. And didn't they cut back majorly on its intended specs during development?
on the N64 somewhat yes, they wanted to hit around the 200 dollar market price and some of the stuff they wanted to do was really going to push it over. It was still a powerhouse for the time overall it just got overshadowed by the media of the other consoles able to store so much more that they looked far far more advanced a limitation of the Carts they decided to stay with and the unique architecture.
I mentioned two examples, the saturn was there yes but didn't have the same market penetration due to a poor launch and upsetting several major retailers.. Thanks for coming by and have a nice evening..
I nearly missed the SNES/Genesis era growing up, so I grew up mostly on N64/PS1. I've never even considered the hardware specs it used. Big like & sub!!!
nice man thanks for the sub glad you liked it! Yeah the hardware is one of the neatest things about this one in retrospect it was just so radically different!
I remember not liking the N64 when I was a kid for all those reasons. I know many people love this system. For me this is when Nintendo went downhill and hasn't made a decent controller since.
The N64 I agree is sketchy for some it worked for me but I can get that but the Gamecube controller is straight up amazing man its one of my favorites!
This opinion is objectively wrong, the N64 controller was absolutely perfect for the games it was designed for, which were the games on the actual platform, additionally, Nintendo never made a decent controller since? You exposed yourself for trolling because the GameCube controller and Wii U Pro controller exist, so you lost all credibility right there.
I would say Nintendo had market dominance during the 3rd generation but not the 4th. They finally beat Sega at the beginning of 1995 but only after the Genesis was discontinued did they claim the top spot as the only budget console on the market. I would also say Nintendo was in a downward spiral starting with the Virtua Boy and the announcement that the N64 would be cart based. That's just my take on the subject... Addendum- It was Silicon Graphics that reached out to Nintendo after being shot down by Sega. It was Tom Kalinski that really brought the two companies together. ;)
Well chalk another one up for tom ;). I think the console was a solid entry but it clearly lost the consumer. The virtual boy choice before the n64 was mind boggling to say the least i never quite understood that
if the N64 had been CD based, their partnership with Squaresoft would've been maintained likely to today. Also the games would've looked much better as more texture, sprite and other misc graphics would be available. Carts were why most N64 games looked so drab, lifeless and blurry
Ehhh I don't think they looked that blurry but they would have had more room for textures with the larger storage medium to be sure, the sound would have been the biggest improvement CDs were still built around audio then more so than anything else. I think they just thought the CD medium wasn't ready yet and was to slow for access speed. In retrospect not the wisest choice but it is what it is.
Sorry I judged you harshly on your deep dive part 2 of Sega history. I didn't realise you were officially Nintendo affiliated. Geekstorian. I apologise. It was We Create Worlds.
I was 16 when N64 came out and to be honest I actually wasn't really playing videogames at that time. More into girls, sports and just playing the old games I had on SNES. At the time N64 dropped in Sept. 1996 I just got Warcraft 2 for the PC as well. I was more into Playstation 1 as a older teen but my younger sister got N64 and glad she did. The game she wanted was Beetle Adventure Racing and to this day that game is fun to play. I will always feel the Super Nintendo was the best console of all time and the NES, SNES and og Gameboy were Nintendo of old but yeah the N64 I think is peak Nintendo. I know Sony crushed them in sales but overall I think it was peak. I always felt the Sega Dreamcast was peak Sega, N64 peak Nintendo, Xbox 360 was peak Microsoft and Sony PS2 for them. Gaming these days while fun just seems like rehashes, ports, remasters, old games on the go etc. That 1998-2004 era was so dam creative across the board.
I agree in a lot of ways 90s was a crazy time of exploring new idesss and figuring out what the industry was going to be. Id argue in alot of ways at least as far as indies go and how much stuff you can play historically that today is also an amazing time. Given how good emulation is and the number of compilations we have today is also a cery good time albiet with fewer new IPs coning put on the market again outside the indie scene which is very very good these days! Thanks a ton for watching and sharing btw i love hearing stories like this!
I'll admit ...I'd bite. I really enjoyed the console when I was younger and while many of the games haven't aged as gracefully as other consoles I still really enjoy it and would like to have one even if only as a collectable! Thanks for coming by and watching btw it was a pleasure meeting you!
Rumble in your controller, is just stupid. Why do I want someone shaking my controller while I play? Almost like someone, younger brother slightly shaking your controller while you are trying to play a game.
I kinda see what your saying but on some level when its basic rumble i ognore it after a whole. When its uesed “well” like in astos playroom its pretty amazing and helps woth immersion quite a bit so its not bad just poorly used alot at least imo. Thanks for swinging by and checking this one out btw!
I'd argue the playstation did a pretty good job with games like Die hard but it was one of the first ones to fully focus on 3D this early on. Thanks for hanging out btw!
@@geekstorian I'm talking about full 360 camera for true 3rd dimensional games. I don't think the Playstation or the Saturn were capable of full 360 camera panning.
