That's a good point and key distinction.
Yeah PS1 was almost dreadfully easy to hack and pirated games were really popular in parts of South America and the Middle East for example. I don't think pirating was a big thing tho in the biggest markets (U.S, Europe, Japan).
Those things were definitely bigger reasons N64 & Gamecube didn't gain traction compared to PS1 & N64. Those choices caused Nintendo to miss out on a ton of games that were starting to shape gaming, that Sony ended up getting practically exclusively because Nintendo's systems in those eras didn't seem like much of options, Sega was basically on its last legs as a platform holder, and Microsoft jumped in too late to sway a lot of early 3P support from PlayStation.
I'd still want an iQue tho just for the rarity factor.
Alexios
Yeah people might be a bit out of pocket calling the CD "revolutionary" in PS1; the industry was trending CDs even from the late '80s and very early '90s (and some theories have about PS5 today, like using Tempest Engine for graphics work, there were literally Sega Saturn games like Shining Force III that did that with its Yamaha audio processor!!). And N64 absolutely put 3D controls as we know them today on the map, Mario 64 alone became the foundation for modern third-person 3D gaming that virtually every other game of that template has followed since.
PS1 did bring a lot of innovations that gen, especially when it came to simplifying the development process and democratizing game dev pipelines and costs, not to mention innovative marketing (even if they just built off of Sega's Genesis ads, they took that and did it bigger & better). But I think some are sleeping too much on Saturn & N64's innovations that gen, too.