The real loss in gaming is when this generation of kids started to actually caring about frames per second, making them ignore so many games that are way better than what they're playing.
I think you mean graphics. A higher fps literally gives you a higher ceiling to your playing limit. Less frames = less time to process data. Because Nintendo downgraded the Thousand Year Door to 30fps, it will be harder to time events compared to the much older 60fps the TYD on the GameCube.
@@pootskoot23 Yeah.. if a kid preferred TTYD on Dolphin in 60fps with an HD fan made texture pack over the higher graphics of the 30fps Switch port, that'd be pretty weird. Kids don't even know what frames per second is. Where is Jonathan meeting all these cultured children? Sus.
I can't imagine the amount of research that goes into these. This is the high quality content I subbed for! Ngl I got war flashbacks from the donkey kong 64 gameplay though.
A big part of chucking the DD into the dumpster was the price of producing carts was starting to come down. If I'm not mistaken, the capacity of cartridges at launch couldn't find Ocarina of Time but by the time it launched, they are holding 2-3x more data.
I believe you're right. Nintendo still could have made the DD a relative success if they had wanted to by releasing first party games exclusively for the DD. The dramatic drop in ROM chip prices is what burried the DD. DD disks still would have been MUCH cheaper to make than carts even in the last couple of years of the system's life, especially carts which used the same 64MB capacity as DD disks, but it was no longer worthwhile for Nintendo to follow through with making the disk drive once they realized that it would be economically feasible to release those big games like Zelda on cartridges. They really didn't want to take the risks involved in having to get their customers to buy a disk drive add-on in order to be able to release DD games. With the benefit of hinsdight, I think the disk drive would have been very successful if Nintendo had been able to release it in the first year of the system's life-span, and if they had released exclusive content for the disk drive in that first year. More than anything else, Nintendo was afraid of significantly increasing the cost of the system, or the risk of needing customers to buy a separate disk drive in order to be able to buy games or content released on the floppy disks. Nintendo should have had more faith in their brand power at the time, but they were too conservative with their business strategy... Not that they didn't still make tons of money from the N64... But they could have lost less market share to the Playstation if they had supported 64MB floppy disks from the beginning, or very early in the system's life. 64MB might not sound like a lot compared to a CD, but the capacity of CDs (which was about 10x more) was actually kind-of overkill back then. Most Playstation games would easily fit onto a 64MB disk if you don't include CD audio or pre-rendered video. The 64DD still had load times and seek times around 2 1/2 times faster than CD loading times, which is a major advantage. While CDs certainly allowed for better quality music, the sound quality on the N64 could have also still been a lot better than it was on cartridge based games if all devs had 64MB of space to work with (and for significantly less cost than the cost of even an 8MB cart). If Nintendo had used those floppy disks from the start, they would have attracted more game developers, and the games which did get made would have been able to include more content, higher-res textures, higher quality audio, etc... People would have been more than willing to pay a higher price for that, especially at this point in time, when Nintendo had such a strong reputation. Of course, an optical drive might have been better still (for Nintendo), but it's hard to say for sure, and the load times would definitely have been worse as a result.
@@syncmonism only way for the 64DD to become a success is if Nintendo release it during the first year of N64's life and market the heck out of it by showing software that was taking advantage of the hardware but unfortreully the black suits at Nintendo of Japan were getting cold feet about the 64DD due to the failures of the Sega CD and X32 and Nintendo having problems with the device itself and ROM chips becoming cheaper to make and the reason why Nintendo of America killed the US launch cause by the time it came out 1999(maybe) the Gamecube would be out in 2 years then Nintendo would be force to support 2 systems one last and one current and if Nintendo focus on the Gamecube majority of the time then people who purchase the 64DD would be upset and irritate that they spent "pointless money" and Nintendo would be in a Sega situation. moral to the story Nintendo was to late to the party with the 64DD
I still remember the first time I ever played N64, it was at my godmother's house, her children had one with 3 controllers, Star Wars Racer and Goldeneye, man I had so much fun playing
Finally!! A game doc that actually goes into detail about both the technology and the cultural impact of a system. Usually you only get one or the other. So glad to be a new subscriber!
N64 has proved the test of time. Cartridges last longer than cd’s. My N64 still works like a charm to this day. How many PlayStations have crapped out over the years. CD’s scratch and the lenses would always go bad. I remember owning three ps2’s back in the day because the lenses always went bad
I would say, it’s obviously between the PlayStation and the Nintendo, 64?! For me, the winner is the PlayStation, hands-down, but I also loved and very much enjoyed the Nintendo, 64 !! Never had a Saturn although I wanted one, I’m just glad we ended up getting the PlayStation ! All because it came with Tekken or ridge racer!
How unusual. I remember the late 90s console wars to be very toxic and tribal and that there were very few fans of both Sony and Nintendo. The Nintendo-Sega rivalry from the 16-bit era was also still alive, albeit fading.
@@h8GW for me I've always liked the best of both worlds you could say? Just like today, I like Xbox and PlayStation, although Xbox has been screwing up as of late .. mainly WHERE hardware is concerned.. updates breaking games and stuff.. But Sony ain't doing too good on that front either .. just got a PS five and I'm not really impressed.. still playing the same games I was playing last generation which has been the Witcher three mostly? I just need a better TV I guess.?
I had both as a kid. Started off with Playstation then traded it for an N64. Regretted that choice so much. The used games for the N64 were near double the cost of a new platinum title for the PS1. Gaming went from having loads of choice and being affordable, to slim choice and barely affordable. i remember i sorta ended up hating the thing lol. The nintendos not a bad console by any means but in terms of living with it back in the day, the advantages the Playstation had to offer were a lot better.
In an alternate universe, Nintendo did make the 64 a cd based system. Honestly... Squaresoft & Nintendo had the best games on the SNES! They continued that relationship with so many awesome games
Let's make a console with only 64MB of storage and try to compete with one that has 700MB per disc, and allows hot swapping of said discs. When Sony first announced the PS they literally just said the price and the crowd went wild. Never stood a chance. There were other issues, too. Do you want a box that will disintegrate after a week or a game that comes in a jewel case? Didn't matter much at first but once fps games adopted the standard controls we have today, ps had the clear advantage with dual joysticks. Needed to buy more ram to simply play some games(DK64 and PD) Only complaint that I really have about ps is it only came with 2 controller ports.
I’m actually really excited to cover the GameCube! It’s my favorite console. But I also already made one on the Dreamcast! Check it out and lemme know what you think!
Ad-ons seldom work and have lived on through Kinect and PSVR. The only time a ad-on really worked was when NEC released the PC-Engine CD. That worked pretty well in Japan.
Which is interesting since Add-ons were everywhere in the 90's. I guess it's possible that Nintendo saw the failures of the 32X and Sega CD and decided against it, but it was pretty late when they decided to axe it.
As a die-hard Nintendo fan and owner of the NES and SNES, when the N64 came out I hated it. The controller, the games, the marketing, the graphics. It looked like a baby toy compared to the PSX. It was the first Nintendo console I didn't own.
That's interesting! I started with the Nintendo 64, and moved over to the GameCube so I never had any issues with either of them. Granted I never really cared much for PlayStation or Xbox at that time.
Hello from Canada! Apparently- and hilariously- the N64 dominated in Canada. It sold 1.3M units up here in the north, meaning that more than 1-in-10 households had one. It took until the PS5 for the N64 to become outsold by another console - which itself is wild since I still can’t get a PS5 in-store so I figured hardware shortage would have hindered PS5 sales. Wild times. So I guess where I’m from, the GameCube was the Nintendo’s first home console failure, which is weird since it’s such a beloved system. :) Thanks for the video
They made billions off of the Nintendo 64 over its life-span through game sales, licensing fees, accessory sales, etc.. They lost market share to Sony and didn't make AS MUCH money as Sony, that's not a "loss".
i remeber the exact day i got one which on on dec 25 1997 never forgot the great games i played as a kid like super mario 64 which came with it turok1 and 2 and bomerman clay fighters rush the list gose on
Glad I had a N64 after SNES. So many absolute gems even if the overall quantity was less. Ogre Battle 64, Jet Force Gemini, World Driver Championship.. Wasn't lacking IMO.
On paper it was powerful. I think the biggest mistake was adding texture to early games. Untextured early games on this generation look great and play fast. Then they try to add complex textures and everything bogs down and full of fog.
Great video, lots of technical details on the hardware I hadn’t heard too much about. Thank you! This console was my first (after Gameboy) and will always be my childhood
Lots of details, good stuff, but some mixups on bits/bytes. CD-ROM transfer speed is 150KB/sec. bytes, not bits. The dual-speed CD-ROM that PlayStation and Saturn used was 300KB/sec. Bytes, not bits. No worries, just thought I'd let you know.
The PS1 has more party games than Saturn and N64 combined. A bit of an odd comment. That said I love all three systems a lot and been working on N64 homebrew
Nintendo screwed up so badly with the 64. From the hardware, to the DD, to the choice of sticking with crushes. It all alienated their best third parties. They should had gone with the 3dfx proposal over sgi's.
I remember when i first time playing mario 64. What were they thinking? The whole pixel to polygon thing turned me off from gaming for years. And that controller... i loath the analog stick. I hate it to this day. Mame was kinda starting at the time, that got my attention real quick.
It's funny that possibly the best game of all time came out on the 64, Ocarina of Time. Then you have Goldeneye and Mario Kart 64. When I was a kid in the 90s there's no way you could have convinced me the 64 was a failure. I thought it was the greatest.
@@TheCodeAlwaysWins depends on context. Before that generation they were essentially dominating the market but they didn't sell even close to ps1 numbers on the n64. So from nintendo's point of view, financially, it was a loss.
@@vladv5126 they didn't lose money financially even by a technical definition. They didn't make as much but didn't lose. Besides that my point was that it was a good console and Nintendo still profit on things made during this era.
@@TheCodeAlwaysWins I don't think anyone is arguing against the quality of the N64 but it was the first time that they suddenly weren't the big fish in the pond anymore. They got knocked into second place by a new comer which I'm sure was quite the sobering experience.
The 5th Gen of consoles has always been one of the most fascinating to me so I'm delighted to see such an expertly crafted coverage of the N64, with delightfully nostalgic music throughout and easy-to-follow tech breakdowns. Given the lack of a successful CD based console (until PlayStation would prove to be that), I can understand Nintendo sticking with cartridges (lengthy RPGs also were able to be made on the SNES, so I see that being an issue they didn't foresee) but the 64DD has always baffled me. Nintendo surely saw their competitors over the years attempt these console add-ons with less than stellar results and yet they put a lot of emphasis and game development ideas towards it. I wonder if their output could have been even quicker and some cancelled games even being released if they had just fully focused on the N64. As for my favourite 5th Gen console... hard to say. I love the graphics and 4-player part of the N64 but the PlayStation has some of my all-time favourite games on it such as Final Fantasy IX, Blaze & Blade and Tekken 2. I've also been very curious about the Sega Saturn as well as the more obscure Commodore CD32, but sadly have never owned either. So many companies made a last-ditch effort to enter the console scene with the 5th gen and I love the history of it all.
I agree, you have to think about the N64 in the context of the time. Until the PS1 and the Sega Saturn (to a lesser extent) there hadn't been a majorly successful CD based console. It makes sense in that light that Nintendo wouldn't necessarily see CDs as a must have. In my opinion the N64 did fine without them, sure it limited some aspects of the games, but at the time it was a "you don't miss what you never had" sort of feeling for me at least. Also, I can highly recommend the Saturn, it's a really cool system with some great games and arguably the best controller ever imo.
@@seanmckelvey6618 Agreed; even if the PlayStation and Saturn were to be interpreted as 'successes' from such an early point, Nintendo would have still had the recent examples of the 3DO, CD32, and even Phillips CD-i to warn them off CD based systems. Yeah, I do wonder how much of the data used for CD games were actually for cutscenes and music as opposed to gameplay (which I recall someone at Nintendo saying in regards to the choice of cartridge over CD). The N64 games I played felt quite satisfying in terms of length and content so the storage issues didn't seem a deal at the time. I've sadly never come across a Saturn in store before, but if I do so with money on me, I'll have to a snappy purchase. Thanks for the recommendation.
RPG"s fitting on the SNES was because RPGs back then were not big but if you fast foward during the era PS1 and N64 RPG's and games in general were getting bigger in size, well its true that CD base console flop before the N64 but the SegaCD Add-on didnt flop due to it was bad it flop cause of crap games that gave people no reason to purchase the SegaCd as for the 64DD it was pretty much useless cause by the time it reaches North America and Europe Sony and Sega would release there next Gen hardware which was more powerful then the 64. The Saturn was a decent console which was succesful in Japan but a flop in NA due to its hardware was design for 2D and Arcade games which was popular in Japan but dieing in NA due to gamers wanted to see what can console bring to the Tv besides arcade games and 3D technology was coming the buzz for gaming which PS1 and N64 handle 3D but Saturn did okay with 3D but it had issues with it to.
@@seanmckelvey6618 N64 did fine without CD's but hardware sales prove other if you compare it to the PS1, N64 were done of better if it had use CD's instead of cartidge but Nintendo has PTSD with the memory of the SegaCD failing but yet it failed due poor games that gave no a reason to get plus Nintendo had no experince in CD technology.
Admittedly, the N64 is one of my least favorite consoles I own due to the smaller library of games it has that I would actually play with most being from Nintendo. Had it been CD-based, I think it would have done so much better with more 3rd party support. I still think the Saturn and PS crushed it due to the 3rd party support of great games. I'm more of a retro gamer, especially preferring 2D graphics, and that's where the N64 was lacking games. I sold most of my N64 games not too long ago. I hope Nintendo makes them available again for download or I'll have to rely on emulation or an Everdrive cart to play them again.
It looks as if Nintendo did get what they deserved during this era, I mean, they had a firm grasp with third parties during the 8 and 16-bit era, they were becoming more and more arrogant, and when Sony promised better profits and more freedom to them, they jumped over to the Playstation and never looked back. It's really strange even today as the NES/SNES were home to many franchises such as Mega Man, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Jikkyou Power Pro Yakyuu, Metal Gear, Contra and many more that were mostly exclusive to them, found their way to the PS1 and some to the Saturn as well. If Nintendo didn't have the big hand as they earned from their two previous generations, they'd surely quit the hardware business during this one, specially if they never invented Pokémon, which saved them. I still think the N64 is a good console, no matter if it kept using cartridges over the much better choice that CDs were at that time. For me, though, I put the SAT/PS wayyyyy above it. Even though I really enjoy Super Mario 64 and played Mario Kart with friends a lot, Goldeneye as well, and a bit of Bomberman 64. DOOM 64 rules, though, one of the few games that truly shows that the N64 had the edge depending on the game.
As a kid I thought the N64 was ass and didn’t even come close to the PS1. As an adult I appreciate the N64 probably more than any other console with its fantastic game library
As a kid who got to play both, I HATED the loading screens and cutscenes and lag of the Playstation. On the N64, you could go in and out of doors without interruption, but it was a constant test of my patience to ever go past a loading zone and have to turn around and go back through it on Playstation. Emulated PS1+2 games have caused a lot of people to forget or never discover this fact. The most egregious example was Resident Evil with the transition videos every time you touched a door. Navigating a maze with so many speedbumps is frustrating. N64 games always felt faster and smoother to play because of this. Playing Goldeneye with 4 players and zero loading screens or lag was eye-opening to a lot of people. Seeing 007 bungee jump the second you reached the end of the first level was seamless and smooth, without a loading screen. The N64 was powerful enough to hande the cutscene in-engine to avoid having to have a loading screen that cut to black. For me, this was what tipped me towards Nintendo.
Now you can make a N64 game with almost limitless data because we have cheap and small memory. Like I can make a N64 game using a flash cart that is several gigabytes in size. But back then 64MB was HUGE!!!!
Yeah, maybe the N64 was a bit hamstrung due to the limitations of cartridges and difficulty of programming for it, but when I first got one in 1997 when I was 9 years old, I had no idea what megabytes were or cache or RAM. I just cared about how fun the games were to play. We look back on it with the knowledge we currently possess and the experience of playing the game technology of today, of course it will seem slow and inferior. At the time, though, it was like a supercomputer to us little kids.
I think that's why I love looking back on these older consoles. It's so interesting to me how different the PS1, Dreamcast, Saturn, N64, etc all were yet at the end of the day what really mattered were the games. Helps me appreciate what we have today and the technical leaps that were performed in such a short amount of time.
@@brantisonfire I never really got into Wrestling nor Wrestling games, I'll have to give em a shot! I mainly enjoy 2D and 3D platformers and really any Zelda-like game.
I personally classify the Virtual Boy as just a failure, as it didn’t really compete against anything. The Nintendo 64 was the first home console where Nintendo outright lost against the PlayStation 1.
He means loss like win/loss record. Nintendo was pretty much undefeated against all other competition since the nes debuted 1983 all the way up until 1996 when N64 would lose to PS2.. thus giving Nintendo its first loss ever.
That lengthy section all about the power of the N64 demonstrates why the questions people today keep asking about why Nintendo doesn't push hardware power and the highest range tech specs today are 20+ years too late. Nintendo already tried with the N64 and the GameCube to compete on a strictly hardware power basis. It didn't work. Raw graphical power was not what won the respective 5th and 6th console generations. The PS1 was by far the weakest of the main 5th gen consoles (and the same with the PS2) but it was its additional features like use of CD-ROMs, (DVDs and backwards compatibility with the PS2), et cetera, which won the respective generations. That's why Nintendo has been trying to focus on Blue-Water Strategy, seeking out untapped potentially-essential new features and functionality from the Nintendo Wii and DS onwards. Sometimes it repeats the success of the first two PlayStations like with the Wii, the DS, and the Switch, and sometimes its the WiiU (only 12 million units sold).
Nintendo 64 is surprisingly the most huge historical console ever made, with the 1rst step into real 3d graphics, and the best games ever made, still in 2024. N64 is the best video game system ever.
@@G.L.999 Because I bought a product I didn't like. As such I regret giving nintendo by buying it. Since I regret putting money in nintendo's pocket, i don't see them making money off me as a plus.
@@tical2399 They make more money to continue staying in the hardware race. What's so bad about that? You saying you want Nintendo to fail so that you can poke fun at, laugh at, ridicule, and put down people who buy Nintendo systems?
Hope you all enjoyed the video! Also welcome all new subscribers! If you wanna know more about me I have a website now: www.videogamedocs.com and make sure to follow me on my socials! Have a good one!
Gotta love how Donkey-Kong 64 is ALWAYS the scapegoat for everything “wrong” with the N64. Thus newfound hatred for the game was cute when SnoMan Gaming put out a video about its bad design, but since then, it’s gotten WAY out-of-hand!
I'm going to say this because it just has to be said... STOP ACTING LIKE THE PLAYSTATION BLEW THE 64 OUT THE WATER!!! Yea the Playstation was dope and yes it had lots of games BUT... Nintendo showed the world how to properly do 3D... Nintendo also had the best multiplayer experiences HANDS DOWN... I can't tell you how many hours I've spent playing 4 player modes on Mario Kart 64, Star Fox 64, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and all the THQ wrestling games... we're talking about thousands of hours... Mario 64 totally blew me away summer 1996... It was a real ass adventure
@@VideoGameDocs After rereading your title, you're correct. The Virtua Boy was a failed experiment that didn't detract from Nintendo's market share while the N64 did not achieve the market share needed to be considered a major financial success.
@@grinbrothersThe R-Zone, like all things Tiger, was a bare minimum "console" though. It also was only a single display and didn't last long enough to count for anything.
Finally Nintendo started to get a reality check and be paid back for their mistreatment of 3rd parties for the previous two generations, it's no wonder they had iwata become president soon after given the relationship yamauchi had with developers, they had to have someone who you know is likeable.
I still love the N64. The cartridges are definitely a misstep _in hindsight,_ but they had no way to know for sure they'd straight up _lose_ the big RPG studios until it was too late to change their minds... The _real problem_ is, they never _did anything_ about it. If they'd doubled down and used what talent was still loyal to them to make RPGs which played to the N64's strengths, we could have very well had another golden age of JRPGs... And they might have looked even better than the ones on the PSX! Think about it... Think about something like Wonder Project J2 and its lush, almost Ghibli-esque 2D visuals... Imagine what a 2.5D or hybrid 2D/3D JRPG could look like on the N64. Make the world and story vast, with seamless zero load-time transitions... A release or two like that, and I think they might have won back the dissenters to make great new RPGs for the platform. Part of it is they made the same mistake Sony did... Remember when Sony wouldn't market 2D games on the PlayStation because "3D is the future"? Not every N64 game needed to be balls-to-the-wall 3D! ...but 2D was criminally underserved. It could have become a platform for making incredible 2D games, it could have been like the second coming of the Super Famicom RPG era... RPGs and adventure games could have been amazing with the 2D visuals the N64 could do, but Nintendo would rather everyone make 3D platformers and stuff. (While at the same time being so pissed at Square for their absence depriving the platform of the RPG genre that it basically became a blood-feud... Make up your minds, Nintendo!)
This was the one console I actually begged my parents for and I got it that Christmas. Its also the ONLY ine if my systems that ai never sold wnd bought another of. My reset button is sticking tho and makes playing long games suck.
I don't necessarily classify the Nintendo 64 as a "failure" as it did manage to sell fairly well. While the SNES did sell less than the NES, the NES was the dominant console, and the SNES is commonly regarded as the 'winner' of the console wars against the Genesis. The "First True Loss" is meant to explain how the N64 really fell behind in terms of it's competition, with the PlayStation managing to sell over 100 million units.
The key word here is "loss", not "failure". By all metrics, the PS1 had an absolute victory over the N64 that generation. Plus in Japan even the Saturn outsold it. All facts on the table, the N64 objectively derailed Nintendo's winning streak.
Nintendo was in decline since the 90s and was loosing market share. Genesis crushed snes in north America. Aswell as media representation where Nintendo was not seen as cool. Nintendo should have made a console with the zip drive instead of cartridge which had higher data speed right and faster load times than cds.
Me personally, I just CANNOT figure out where I'm supposed to go in that game, there's not any sort of direction and the whole game is one big backtrackers paradise.
