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[SF Kosmo]

N64 was the more innovative system but that doesn't make it the better system. In the end PlayStation's choice of disc media and lower cost of development meant it had more great games.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

No, SOJ killed marketing and support, the 32X was supposed to keep the Genesis moving and was a fast selling add on until that happened. Projections of two million or three in less than 2 years was expected, and the current LTD backs this up which was high in such a short time.

It was made to respond to the Jaguar and was wrecking it. By 96 I see 2.5-3 million easily with support. The consumers clearly wanted it. It was in a few more months going to match or exceed the Sega CD which sold 1.5 million in 5 years, in UNDER two years.

I just don't know how true this narrative works in full hindsight, tbh. Internal projections are one thing but those don't always align with what trends the market actually ends up setting. NEC had internal projections for Turbographx-16 that led them to overmanufacture a ton of units that took them years to sell off, just as an example.

Even supposing a reality where 32X sold well, I think that'd of hurt Sega in the long run, because there would've always been the question of it were forward-thinking enough. It wouldn't have slowed down the PS1's release in the West, but it's theoretically possible Sega could've supported 32X (and a latter Neptune combining it, Genesis and Sega CD) with key third-parties better than they did, and have that managed by SoA and SoE. After all, the SNES still outsold PS1 in 1995 and even 1996 IIRC, so there was clearly a market in the West for 16-bit hardware for 1995 - 1997.

If that meant, essentially, holding off on Saturn for the West until later 1996 with a revision (something like a Saturn "Pro" basically), with some updated specs and more dev-friendly libraries, friendlier production costs, and make the revised unit the default for the Western market with proper launch and marketing...while by that point PS1 would probably be cementing itself as the lead platform, that type of release strategy for Saturn would've helped it perform much better in the West and keep continued momentum in Japan, especially if it's roughly on par with an N64 while that system still went with carts.

Basically a thoroughly supported 32X (and Neptune) wouldn't of done anything for Japan, who had Saturn, but I can see it having done a lot for Sega in the Western markets as a 2nd, legacy option to those not ready to jump to next-gen with PS1 at that time, and buy them time to design a Saturn "Pro" for late 1996 in Japan and the West, and use that Saturn Pro as the base model for Saturn in the West to position it as a strong 2nd to PS1 (meaning it'd basically be battling directly with the N64).

3DO established it as a new standard, instrumental in causing 3D tech and CD drive prices to drop for consoles. CD-i drives was more costly than CD) and while 2 million may not have been relatively mainstream that got a lot of devs to prefer it jumping right to the PS1 (and to lesser extend Saturn) CD was always going to be the future.

The Jaguar made the mistake of launching a cart system without the proper funding. They had some hit games but couldn't mass produce the software and get them into stores due to cost. The stuff people complain about for N64 was already known and established nearly 3 years earlier.

Yeah it is true 3DO helped with adoption of 3D and CD tech in home consoles, though in the case of the latter I think that's giving 3DO a bit too much credit? Even tho they were add-ons, Sega/Mega CD effectively sold more than 3DO, and the PC-Engine CD sold a decent amount as well particularly in the Japanese region. It's not like devs weren't leveraging the CD technological capabilities of those systems pre-3DO. Even Sony (via Sony ImageSoft) was doing this with the Sega CD and that was a learning ground for them in terms of how to develop games for the CD medium (which they directly applied to the PS1).

I think Jaguar's problem wasn't carts specifically but like you said, the lack of funding. That lack of funding also led to parts of the hardware (like certain registers) not being properly connected due to bugs, and Atari simply didn't have the capital to support a lot of quality 1P internal dev or secure a decent clip of 3P content. N64's issues were more due to Nintendo's arrogance and unwillingness to meet several big 3P publishers half-way, so they just refused to prioritize N64 and that led to the big software release gaps in-between 1P software.

Otherwise I think N64 did about as well as a properly-funded 5th-gen cart-based system could've been expected to, in fact it would've done better (probably come closer to SNES/SFC's LTD totals) if it weren't for NoJ's (mainly, Yamauchi's) arrogance towards certain 3P support.

Of course you have to consider what kind of CD Drive Nintendo would NEED.

N64 has features and capabilities that take advantage of the connection between the console and the cart (and also the Expansion pack in some cases), and of course there are often things in a ROM cart itself that help with these.

A standard CD drive would bring in more bottlenecks, impacting what the N64 could do and what hardware tricks it could use.

Unless you got those more complex 6x-12x drives that at minimum would likely cost Nintendo $90+ per unit in a bulk buyout to make it on time for a 1996 launch.

In this case you would be looking at potentially a $329 N64. When the competition was $199 or less during holiday sales.

But if you use a cheaper standard drive then you have additional bottlenecks making the system inefficient.

This same thing applies to those who wonder if the Jaguar should have launched with a CD. While like N64, Jaguar has architectural bottlenecks (more so) both it and the N64 were designed with the carts in mind to push certain capabilities and tricks that would help with game development and execution.

Both consoles would have to be redesigned for a CD drive to be effective or very costly if using a featured premium drive.

People keep looking at this as "slap a CD drive on an N64 or Jaguar" instead of thinking "how does the console architecture work with the carts?".

Very important difference.

Agreed. It's obvious, I think, that cart-based systems like N64 would still probably need carts in some way given other aspects of their design. N64 for example, IIRC had very low bandwidth on its RAM bus, or I might be thinking instead of RAM latency. So that's a design where they obviously had cartridges in mind to balance that sort of thing out, removing the cartridge from the design would fundamentally cripple the system.

While it wasn't particularly fully leveraged, I think systems like the Saturn had a very good solution of cart & CD support. Games like some of the SNK King of Fighters titles used ROM carts along with the CDs to accelerate performance on the platform. You got the best of both worlds, essentially, tho again it wasn't particularly well-supported outside of a few games from SNK and Capcom.

 

[Caio]

Nintendo 64 hardware and controller was more innovative, that's for sure, but I still enjoyed Playstation more, in a whole,
although Mario64 and GoldenEye 007 are still in my heart

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I just don't know how true this narrative works in full hindsight, tbh. Internal projections are one thing but those don't always align with what trends the market actually ends up setting. NEC had internal projections for Turbographx-16 that led them to overmanufacture a ton of units that took them years to sell off, just as an example.

Even supposing a reality where 32X sold well, I think that'd of hurt Sega in the long run, because there would've always been the question of it were forward-thinking enough. It wouldn't have slowed down the PS1's release in the West, but it's theoretically possible Sega could've supported 32X (and a latter Neptune combining it, Genesis and Sega CD) with key third-parties better than they did, and have that managed by SoA and SoE. After all, the SNES still outsold PS1 in 1995 and even 1996 IIRC, so there was clearly a market in the West for 16-bit hardware for 1995 - 1997.

If that meant, essentially, holding off on Saturn for the West until later 1996 with a revision (something like a Saturn "Pro" basically), with some updated specs and more dev-friendly libraries, friendlier production costs, and make the revised unit the default for the Western market with proper launch and marketing...while by that point PS1 would probably be cementing itself as the lead platform, that type of release strategy for Saturn would've helped it perform much better in the West and keep continued momentum in Japan, especially if it's roughly on par with an N64 while that system still went with carts.

Basically a thoroughly supported 32X (and Neptune) wouldn't of done anything for Japan, who had Saturn, but I can see it having done a lot for Sega in the Western markets as a 2nd, legacy option to those not ready to jump to next-gen with PS1 at that time, and buy them time to design a Saturn "Pro" for late 1996 in Japan and the West, and use that Saturn Pro as the base model for Saturn in the West to position it as a strong 2nd to PS1 (meaning it'd basically be battling directly with the N64).

The issue is it was selling out and retailers were about to double orders because Sega didn't start out with high supply for obvious reasons, but SOJ stepped in as supply was increasing.

The 32X would basically have been an entry level Saturn while having access to all the Genesis games, the Genesis itself was dirt cheap in cost but sales were slowing as Sega were starting to hurt themselves and prepare for the Saturn.

It would have been a great bridge given how the US and Euro audience (to a lesser extent) had less interest in launch window Saturn titles than the games coming out on 32X.

As for for Saturn "Pro" that doesn't make any sense. There was nothing wrong with the 32X and Saturn as they were outside Sega's dumb costly panic adjustment and unappealing game library (in the west). Sega needed focus and 32X would have been a great bridge for consumers and developers fo the Saturn, instead of iffy relationships with third party and cutting the 32X early. Resulting in support being lopsided to PS1.

As for NEC, the big problem with them in the west is they were pushing the CD and TG16 at the same time, this meant consumers realising they had to pay two premiums only brought one of the two (the TG16) and not the addon. NEC pushing it as a standalone didn't help either. People who didn't want to pay two premiums but wanted CD games didn't by either, and so you have a bunch of TG16s produced thinking the CD addon would help drive sales and it didn't.

In Japan a decent number of people had TG16s already so the CD was a driver for existing and some new gamers. They also quickly put out a stand alone CD device.

(Also in japan PC Engine CD was doing well, butNEC gut themselves. I'm not entirely sure PCD sold 1 millon world wide unless you also include both versions of the DUO and that's still iffy)

Yeah it is true 3DO helped with adoption of 3D and CD tech in home consoles, though in the case of the latter I think that's giving 3DO a bit too much credit? Even tho they were add-ons, Sega/Mega CD effectively sold more than 3DO,

No. For one 3DO sold over 2 million, we have no idea how much those last few months in 96 sold but 3DO likely sold more in 1996 than any other year as you could get it $199 and lower with free games as the year went on. The Sega CD itself sold 2.24.

But that's irrelevant as the games on the 3DO and how it used the CD tech were completely different from the Sega CD outside FMV ports. The type of games that would become standard on the PS1 and Saturn. It also impressed a heck of a lot of people early on and caused several prototypes for systems to switch to CD. You only have to impress to cause change, not necessarily sell a lot, which neither did. PS1 owes a good amount of its software in the early two years to the 3DO too, and to a lesser extend, so does the Saturn. It was pretty much a transfer. Sony and Sega's early libraries would have been worse off otherwise.

I think Jaguar's problem wasn't carts specifically but like you said, the lack of funding. That lack of funding also led to parts of the hardware (like certain registers) not being properly connected due to bugs, and Atari simply didn't have the capital to support a lot of quality 1P internal dev or secure a decent clip of 3P content. N64's issues were more due to Nintendo's arrogance and unwillingness to meet several big 3P publishers half-way, so they just refused to prioritize N64 and that led to the big software release gaps in-between 1P software.

It was carts, and the low production is why man announced games were cancelled. The costs of producing carts isn't cheap.

There's a difference between Atari only being able to produce 50,000 units of a popular game like AVP, and 500k+ copies on cheap CDs at the same price. CD also gives less risk to third parties. The more complex and big the cart, the more costly it is to make.

Nintendos previous bad history with third parties at that point put them in a bad position to position carts and act as if developers would just walk up to them being greatful Nintendo have them anything. This is apparently what their mindset was.

Agreed. It's obvious, I think, that cart-based systems like N64 would still probably need carts in some way given other aspects of their design. N64 for example, IIRC had very low bandwidth on its RAM bus, or I might be thinking instead of RAM latency. So that's a design where they obviously had cartridges in mind to balance that sort of thing out, removing the cartridge from the design would fundamentally cripple the system.

While it wasn't particularly fully leveraged, I think systems like the Saturn had a very good solution of cart & CD support. Games like some of the SNK King of Fighters titles used ROM carts along with the CDs to accelerate performance on the platform. You got the best of both worlds, essentially, tho again it wasn't particularly well-supported outside of a few games from SNK and Capcom.

A lot of the RAM issues could have been solved with built in sprite solutions which 3D systems didn't really do. Another element that may have been influenced from the 3DO.

The 3DO could do nice 2D but it wasn't a 2D machine, it had the specs for polygonal gaming, but ran 2D games at 30fps and gimped effects. But focusing on polygons primarily made overall costs cheaper, though 3DOs business model didn't pass those savings to the consumer until later.

PS1 and N64 however had a bit more horse power to run 2D in some cases at better frame rates, but still limited overall.

This is why SNK ports even ones outdated had issues running on that era of consoles, or cut animations and frames, or gimped sprite effects, despite them being powerful 3D machines.

2D wasn't focused on with internal hardware for several consoles. The Saturn originally was, although they made some changes fir 3D, they had the intention of the RAM cart from even the earlier days of Saturn preparation.

The Jaguar also was, but you'd have problems pushing more RAM with the architecture bottle necks.

Basically 3D was a sacrifice for 2D until say, the Xbox and in some ways the PS2. This is why a game like a Metal Slug 3 was a retail Xbox game, you could finally run these powerful 2D games arcade perfect on a console for the first time

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

The issue is it was selling out and retailers were about to double orders because Sega didn't start out with high supply for obvious reasons, but SOJ stepped in as supply was increasing.

Well, that's interesting, as it contradicts the prevailing narrative, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. In fact it'd be kind of wild (in a good way) if this was the case because there's a lot of popular myths surrounding older consoles that seem to stick no matter what. I have always looked at the 32X as a massive mistake but if it was actually resonating with the intended markets (the West), then that gives a whole new perspective.

Though I doubt how long-term that would've persisted, that interest, considering a lot of the second wave of games were just Genesis and SNES ports with maybe extra color support. But at the same time, it's unfair to purpose a current market's purchasing taste to a market at the time 32X was commercially relevant; perhaps to them extra colors and maybe slightly better framerates were big selling points (and perhaps definitely so, considering that's what helped out PS4 for a decent while in the early part of last gen).

The 32X would basically have been an entry level Saturn while having access to all the Genesis games, the Genesis itself was dirt cheap in cost but sales were slowing as Sega were starting to hurt themselves and prepare for the Saturn.

It would have been a great bridge given how the US and Euro audience (to a lesser extent) had less interest in launch window Saturn titles than the games coming out on 32X.

Perhaps. It really comes down to what the market was asking for at the time, but a 32X as you mention it would've needed to basically be the Neptune made to market and at a cheap enough price (IIRC it was targeting $199).

It could've, in theory, had been Sega's Series S for the time; since 32X and Saturn shared the same CPU setup it'd of allowed for a training ground up to Saturn software dev proper (basically what Sega intended anyway), but the 32X would've been clearly positioned as an extension of last-gen tech (Genesis/MegaDrive) instead of a lower-spec'd next-gen system (would've helped avoid unneeded conflict with the PS1).

As for for Saturn "Pro" that doesn't make any sense. There was nothing wrong with the 32X and Saturn as they were outside Sega's dumb costly panic adjustment and unappealing game library (in the west). Sega needed focus and 32X would have been a great bridge for consumers and developers fo the Saturn, instead of iffy relationships with third party and cutting the 32X early. Resulting in support being lopsided to PS1.

In hindsight we can say there was nothing wrong with them, but at the time there were clear problems. For 32X, it was a carry-over by some feeling like the Sega CD wasn't fully tapped, and yet here comes another add-on only two years later. Saturn, actually DID have a perception problem in the West as multiple magazines questioned its ability compared to PS1. You can read through a decent number of Next Generation Magazine issues from around the time to see what it was like, as unfairly as it was at many points.

It's arguable that the reason Sega started losing steam with Genesis post-DKC was because of them already splitting focus to yet another add-on (32X), instead of centralizing all the games to Genesis (and, if needed, Sega CD) and using the SVP tech on a per-game basis to push graphics further for games which required it. My idea is that they take that approach and skip 32X altogether, and push back Saturn for a late 1996 Western release instead, while taking that extra time to do a bit of a spec-up for the unit to launch in Japan sometime earlier that year and use that spec-bumped model as the basis for the Western market.

Because Sega should've had the foresight Nintendo did even then, and realize they couldn't have competed directly with Sony due to Sony's size and access to resources and distribution channels. It was just not a battle they were going to win. Nintendo realized this and took a different approach with N64 as a result while rapidly expanding their handheld market (although some of this was also borne out of their arrogance). Sega was too cocky and decided to try taking on Sony directly, probably thinking it would work out since even companies like NEC and Matsushita/Panasonic (even Apple, etc.) were coming out with console devices and failing miserably during the transitional period towards 5th-gen.

Sadly that bravado didn't work out. But at least by targeting for a strong 2nd, they could've afforded more time for further Dreamcast development, and made that system much more of a potential challenge to PS2. Or at least be strong enough to tempt Microsoft to stay out of the market directly (and support Sega instead, possibly even Nintendo, and use them to fight Sony via proxy, which is what they likely intended for some period with the Dreamcast). It's a similar missed opportunity to Atari dropping Panther (and thus failing to establish a then-relevant market presence to gamers of the 16-bit era) to accelerate Jaguar instead.

As for NEC, the big problem with them in the west is they were pushing the CD and TG16 at the same time, this meant consumers realising they had to pay two premiums only brought one of the two (the TG16) and not the addon. NEC pushing it as a standalone didn't help either. People who didn't want to pay two premiums but wanted CD games didn't by either, and so you have a bunch of TG16s produced thinking the CD addon would help drive sales and it didn't.

In Japan a decent number of people had TG16s already so the CD was a driver for existing and some new gamers. They also quickly put out a stand alone CD device.

(Also in japan PC Engine CD was doing well, butNEC gut themselves. I'm not entirely sure PCD sold 1 millon world wide unless you also include both versions of the DUO and that's still iffy)

Actually I've recently seen a doc on Youtube from the channel Creative Cat Productions for the TG-16/PC-Engine going into why it didn't do well in the West and if it did as well in Japan as people think they remember. Absolutely worth a watch; I think a lot of his points are even applicable to the SEGA Saturn in all honesty. A bit of a long watch but I don't think that's a deterrent for someone like yourself (if you haven't seen it already, that is).

No. For one 3DO sold over 2 million, we have no idea how much those last few months in 96 sold but 3DO likely sold more in 1996 than any other year as you could get it $199 and lower with free games as the year went on. The Sega CD itself sold 2.24.

Okay, there may be some truth to the idea 3DO sold more units in a shorter period of time than Sega CD if you launch-aligned them and set their commercial timescales to the same length, possibly. But a lot of those later 3DO sales were done at liquidation prices, to get units out of the distribution and retail channels as quickly as they could. Given 3DO's business model I strongly doubt they were making any profit off those units @ $199 at that time, probably even losing a good deal there.

But that's irrelevant as the games on the 3DO and how it used the CD tech were completely different from the Sega CD outside FMV ports. The type of games that would become standard on the PS1 and Saturn. It also impressed a heck of a lot of people early on and caused several prototypes for systems to switch to CD. You only have to impress to cause change, not necessarily sell a lot, which neither did. PS1 owes a good amount of its software in the early two years to the 3DO too, and to a lesser extend, so does the Saturn. It was pretty much a transfer. Sony and Sega's early libraries would have been worse off otherwise.

Fair points, can agree with this. And there's lots of instances like it in the industry (especially expanding out to microcomputers and arcades) aside from just 3DO.

It was carts, and the low production is why man announced games were cancelled. The costs of producing carts isn't cheap.

There's a difference between Atari only being able to produce 50,000 units of a popular game like AVP, and 500k+ copies on cheap CDs at the same price. CD also gives less risk to third parties. The more complex and big the cart, the more costly it is to make.

Yeah, this is generally true. That's a big reason PS1, Saturn, even 3DO etc. attracted more 3P support than systems like Jaguar and N64.

Nintendos previous bad history with third parties at that point put them in a bad position to position carts and act as if developers would just walk up to them being greatful Nintendo have them anything. This is apparently what their mindset was.

I would blame Yamauchi; some of his quotes from the era are outright wild.

A lot of the RAM issues could have been solved with built in sprite solutions which 3D systems didn't really do. Another element that may have been influenced from the 3DO.

The 3DO could do nice 2D but it wasn't a 2D machine, it had the specs for polygonal gaming, but ran 2D games at 30fps and gimped effects. But focusing on polygons primarily made overall costs cheaper, though 3DOs business model didn't pass those savings to the consumer until later.

PS1 and N64 however had a bit more horse power to run 2D in some cases at better frame rates, but still limited overall.

This is why SNK ports even ones outdated had issues running on that era of consoles, or cut animations and frames, or gimped sprite effects, despite them being powerful 3D machines.

2D wasn't focused on with internal hardware for several consoles. The Saturn originally was, although they made some changes fir 3D, they had the intention of the RAM cart from even the earlier days of Saturn preparation.

The Jaguar also was, but you'd have problems pushing more RAM with the architecture bottle necks.

Basically 3D was a sacrifice for 2D until say, the Xbox and in some ways the PS2. This is why a game like a Metal Slug 3 was a retail Xbox game, you could finally run these powerful 2D games arcade perfect on a console for the first time

There was a user on Era, I forget his name but it started with a K and he had a Sonic avatar from Sonic CD, he did an excellent write-up on how 3D worked on systems like Saturn & PS1, the use of a direct-access framebuffer on Jaguar (first major commercial game console to do so, IIRC), the importance of 2D-specific sprite hardware still for that generation of consoles to do 2D really well (something the Saturn excelled at, at the expense of more complicated architecture design), etc.

He touched on a lot of these points in great detail, worth some good reads if you can find their posts (maybe they're archived?).

 

[umar45]

Admittedly I'm a fan of Nintendo, but no sensible person can deny that they have always been at the forefront of hardware innovation in the gaming industry. Successful or not, they have popularized or innovated while others often build upon the foundations they lay.

• The PS1 controller is a natural evolution of the SNES controller. Two more buttons
• The Dual-shock was Sony's take on the analog stick which Nintendo introduced.
• Camera buttons on the N64 evolved to become a camera analog stick.
• The rumblepack went on to be a staple of controllers.
• Nintendo popularized wireless controllers, which became the standard, the Wavebird was the first time major 1st party company offered Wireless controllers.
• Motion controls, popularized, by the Wii saw interpretation by Sony in the form of the Sixaxis and Move controllers and by Microsoft's Kinect.
• Touch controls of the popular DS families made their way to the WiiU, Switch, Vita, PS4, PS5.
• Playing mobile games on TVs, the Super Gameboy evolved to the Gamecube's gameboy player, PSTV, and now the Switch.

What Sony does well is giving consumers and, in the PS1/4/5 eras, devlopers what they want. There is nothing wrong with that! It is a smart business plan that has served them very well. The CD-ROM was a widely used media for video games before the PS1 and Saturn game along, which they did at the same time, and quite some time after many other CD-ROM based consoles and PCs saw commercial release. The Playstation 1 succeeded in becoming the first globally successful console whose media was solely delivered in CD-ROM. This isn't innovative though. The PS1 hardware wasn't innovative, it was a simply the evolution that would be expected in any generational leap.

Ps2 had motion controls before the Wii

 

[marquimvfs]

There was a user on Era, I forget his name but it started with a K and he had a Sonic avatar from Sonic CD, he did an excellent write-up on how 3D worked on systems like Saturn & PS1, the use of a direct-access framebuffer on Jaguar (first major commercial game console to do so, IIRC), the importance of 2D-specific sprite hardware still for that generation of consoles to do 2D really well (something the Saturn excelled at, at the expense of more complicated architecture design), etc.

He touched on a lot of these points in great detail, worth some good reads if you can find their posts (maybe they're archived?).

That's something I'd like to read. Do you remember some other details to help me searching for it?

 

[polybius80]

That's something I'd like to read. Do you remember some other details to help me searching for it?

if you are interested check this

Questions about Sega Saturn

Good day! Have some questions about Sega Saturn. Actualy I have a lot of them, but I will not ask all already. 1) What advantage was to have two CPUs in Sega Saturn? 2) How big really was the problem with two CPUs with one memory bus? 3) Why did main RAM was split in two parts SDRAM and DRAM...

forum.beyond3d.com

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

That's something I'd like to read. Do you remember some other details to help me searching for it?

I think his name was Krejolic or something like that, but the thread(s) in question, I'd have to search through my bookmarks to find them. Can probably do that tomorrow. P polybius80 's Beyond3D link should also be pretty good reading on the topic though. And then there's Sega Retro's detailed info on pretty much all Sega console hardware, including comparisons with PCs and other consoles of respective generations.

But yeah I can probably find that poster's posts with that info searching some old bookmarks (unless they got nuked for whatever reason).

 

[Sosokrates]

I could never get over the unstable polygons on PS1, it was like it was not designed for 3d.

 

[93xfan]

Psx, its not even comparison imo, psx arrive 94 and in some way started 3d game era, n64 debut in 96 bring better graphics tough with some constraint due lack of cd

Loved my PS1, But 3DO and Saturn were doing 3D and CD gaming first.

It is the generation that play station decided to do dual analog sticks, so there is that.

On the other hand, the original analog stick and trigger and the Nintendo were probably bigger influencers

 

[Editaur]

PlayStation.

It was at the right moment and marketing towards Gen X/Y created a snowball that expanded gaming in general.

 

[Deerock71]

I'm going with Nintendo, because of all the controller innovations Nintendo spearheaded. Sony, to be diplomatic about it, CO-OPTED analog sticks and rumble. If you're being historically accurate, then the ORIGINAL PS1 controller should be pictured.

 

[IFireflyl]

On the other hand, the original analog stick and trigger and the Nintendo were probably bigger influencers

I'm going with Nintendo, because of all the controller innovations Nintendo spearheaded. Sony, to be diplomatic about it, CO-OPTED analog sticks and rumble. If you're being historically accurate, then the ORIGINAL PS1 controller should be pictured.

Nintendo co-opted analog sticks from the XE-1 AP, a controller designed by Dempa and released in 1989.

So the N64 controller improved upon the XE-1 AP, and Sony's DualShock controller improved upon the N64 controller. Co-opting doesn't mean innovation dies, and Sony's innovation with the DualShock controller was more impressive (and long-lasting) than Nintendo's innovation with the N64 controller. Even the Switch Pro controller is modeled after the DualShock controller. The N64 used worse technology for their analog stick as well. Instead of using potentiometers like most analog controller makers, Nintendo decided to use some weird sensor wheel. The system also assumed that wherever the stick was positioned when it turned on was the center. That's a terrible design.

Also, I've said it before, but:

Sony released their DualShock controller with rumble BEFORE N64 released their Rumble Pak. The DualShock controller also had better rumble support because it was built in, and it was more finely tuned so the rumble was more natural than N64's Rumble Pak. Pretty much the only thing the N64 had that was truly innovative was the Z-trigger.

 

[marquimvfs]

Also, I've said it before, but:

Sony released their DualShock controller with rumble BEFORE N64 released their Rumble Pak. The DualShock controller also had better rumble support because it was built in, and it was more finely tuned so the rumble was more natural than N64's Rumble Pak. Pretty much the only thing the N64 had that was truly innovative was the Z-trigger.

The concept of vibration feedback for itself wasn't new by that time, you had arcades and things like that: But, from what I remember, it was Nintendo who started hyping this thing. Not talking about release dates or anything, just pre-release information, previews, etc. And they were loud about it as it seems they invested on it to be the next big thing. Here is the oldest rumble pack mention I manage to recover (Spaceworld 96):

I remeber Nintendo being very slow during the early Ultra 64/N64 days, developing their first party games for much longer compared to most others. So i wouldn't be surprised if other developers decided to do something similar afterwards and still managed to release their version earlier.

Isn't that why Nintendo was holding the Wiimote as a secret and never released any information about it until almost the release of the Wii? I remember them saying they didn't want others to release something similar too early. And it seems they were right, Sony and Microsoft only managed to release their version of motion controls during that gen much later. Although it could be a coincidence.

Like I said, i have no proof, neither i can really know what's happening behind the scenes. And now I'm just wondering, why did Immersion sued Sony for the said tech and won?

 

[sncvsrtoip]

Loved my PS1, But 3DO and Saturn were doing 3D and CD gaming first.

It is the generation that play station decided to do dual analog sticks, so there is that.

On the other hand, the original analog stick and trigger and the Nintendo were probably bigger influencers

sega changed saturn spec to be more 3d capable last minutes when they figured out what playstation is, can't call 3do mainstream when it sold 2 milions, and you can't even compare game base 3do even to saturn not to mention psx

 

[nkarafo]

Yeah, release dates aren't really a good source if you are talking about innovation. Because you never know for how long the innovative thing was worked on behind the scenes.

We also don't know who started working on a thing or who came up with the idea first, because non of us are insiders who worked in these companies 20 years ago.

Announcements and demonstrations come before releases and it's the earliest form of proof we have. Nintendo used to announce and demonstrate all these things way before everyone else but they also used to keep things in the oven for longer as well. Especially in the N64 era Nintendo were slooooowwww. The N64 console itself was also delayed for so long, probably longer than any other console. But the controller itself was already demonstrated years before. So, competitors beating them to the punch with their release dates doesn't tell me anything. Let along beating them to the punch for a few days.... Release dates don't tell the full story.

It's not a coincidence Nintendo kept the Wii controller a secret and didn't show it until it was too late for the competition to do copy and release it before them. Because if someone is going to copy you, they won't wait for you to release your work, they will do it the moment you announce/demonstrate it.

 

[Zero7]

Sony had a motion controller idea for the PS2, but they scrapped it thinking it wouldn't catch on. It was only when they seen the big success of the wii that they revisited the idea for PS3. which of course became PSMove.

I can't remember the full history of it off hand, but it was something like that.

There's always a big difference between who invented something first and who brought it ro market first.

 

[LordOcidax]

The Nintendo 64 by a mile…. Sony Playstation and the word innovation are not friends at all, specially in that era. When is comes to games, that’s another topic.

 

[Deerock71]

Nintendo co-opted analog sticks from the XE-1 AP, a controller designed by Dempa and released in 1989.

So the N64 controller improved upon the XE-1 AP, and Sony's DualShock controller improved upon the N64 controller. Co-opting doesn't mean innovation dies, and Sony's innovation with the DualShock controller was more impressive (and long-lasting) than Nintendo's innovation with the N64 controller. Even the Switch Pro controller is modeled after the DualShock controller. The N64 used worse technology for their analog stick as well. Instead of using potentiometers like most analog controller makers, Nintendo decided to use some weird sensor wheel. The system also assumed that wherever the stick was positioned when it turned on was the center. That's a terrible design.

Also, I've said it before, but:

Sony released their DualShock controller with rumble BEFORE N64 released their Rumble Pak. The DualShock controller also had better rumble support because it was built in, and it was more finely tuned so the rumble was more natural than N64's Rumble Pak. Pretty much the only thing the N64 had that was truly innovative was the Z-trigger.

A quick google search is all it takes to let you know Starfox 64 launched in April of '97 and the original dualshock for PS1 launched in August of 97. As we all know, Starfox included the rumble pack. Sony never beat Nintendo to the punch at anything. Well, with exception of disc-based media.

 

[Gameplaylover]

N64 of course.

 

[BlackTron]

A quick google search is all it takes to let you know Starfox 64 launched in April of '97 and the original dualshock for PS1 launched in August of 97. As we all know, Starfox included the rumble pack. Sony never beat Nintendo to the punch at anything. Well, with exception of disc-based media.

Thanks I came here to say this. I was actually there and Starfox64 was the FIRST console game to support rumble, full stop. I got it day 1 with the rumble pak, and still have the hilarious SF64 promotional VHS they sent out in the mail where a Sony and Sega employee try to infiltrate NOA to steal their tech.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

The DualShock controller also had better rumble support because it was built in, and it was more finely tuned so the rumble was more natural than N64's Rumble Pak.

That’s subjective. That Pak’s rumble was amazing, especially in Banjo-Kazooie when you destroyed a giant crate in Rusty Bucket Bay. Sony’s was more finely tuned, true, but there was something amazingly visceral in the N64’s rumble precisely because it wasn’t integrated.

 

[IFireflyl]

A quick google search is all it takes to let you know Starfox 64 launched in April of '97 and the original dualshock for PS1 launched in August of 97. As we all know, Starfox included the rumble pack. Sony never beat Nintendo to the punch at anything. Well, with exception of disc-based media.

A quick Google search is all it takes to let you know that Starfox 64 was released on April 27th, 1997, and the first PSX rumble controller was released in Japan on April 25th, 1997. It was still called the Dual Analog Stick until it had a worldwide release as the DualShock controller on November 20th, 1997.

 

[IFireflyl]

That’s subjective. That Pak’s rumble was amazing, especially in Banjo-Kazooie when you destroyed a giant crate in Rusty Bucket Bay. Sony’s was more finely tuned, true, but there was something amazingly visceral in the N64’s rumble precisely because it wasn’t integrated.

It might be subjective about which one felt better, but it isn't subjective that the PSX implemented it better. Not having a standalone Pak that could get lost or damaged is infinitely better than having to keep track of of an additional piece of hardware. So not only did Sony release the Rumble feature first, but it was an objectively better implementation (which everyone has copied from Sony since - including Nintendo with the Switch Pro controller).

 

[IFireflyl]

The concept of vibration feedback for itself wasn't new by that time, you had arcades and things like that: But, from what I remember, it was Nintendo who started hyping this thing. Not talking about release dates or anything, just pre-release information, previews, etc. And they were loud about it as it seems they invested on it to be the next big thing. Here is the oldest rumble pack mention I manage to recover (Spaceworld 96):

I remeber Nintendo being very slow during the early Ultra 64/N64 days, developing their first party games for much longer compared to most others. So i wouldn't be surprised if other developers decided to do something similar afterwards and still managed to release their version earlier.

Isn't that why Nintendo was holding the Wiimote as a secret and never released any information about it until almost the release of the Wii? I remember them saying they didn't want others to release something similar too early. And it seems they were right, Sony and Microsoft only managed to release their version of motion controls during that gen much later. Although it could be a coincidence.

Like I said, i have no proof, neither i can really know what's happening behind the scenes. And now I'm just wondering, why did Immersion sued Sony for the said tech and won?

Nintendo talking about rumble first doesn't really mean anything, but as you said, we don't really have a way to know who started working on the rumble feature first. But regardless of who started working on it first, Sony was the first company to release it, and their implementation was far superior to Nintendo's implementation.

As far as Immersion vs Sony, that's not really relevant to the discussion. Sony didn't license certain features that it should have, but that doesn't take away their innovation. Additionally, the parents they infringed weren't even filed until 2000 and 2001, and both of those parents were an extension of a patent filed in 1998. Sony's rumble controller was released in 1997 before those patents even existed.

 

[ManaByte]

Many N64 games, like SM64, OoT, Wave Race 64, F-Zero, and Star Fox 64 are still fun to load up and play. Even with their dated graphics, there's still something magical about Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time.

The same can't be said for many PlayStation games.

 

[Deerock71]

A quick Google search is all it takes to let you know that Starfox 64 was released on April 27th, 1997, and the first PSX rumble controller was released in Japan on April 25th, 1997. It was still called the Dual Analog Stick until it had a worldwide release as the DualShock controller on November 20th, 1997.

For the record, it wasn't as easy of a search. But it does indeed appear as if Sony beat Nintendo to the punch by two entire days in Japan with a controller that included shock value. But that would seem to be merely window dressing since they didn't have any software to back it up yet, and the motors were only included in the Japanese controllers.

 

[Kokoloko85]

N64 had the analogue stick, rumble pack and great 3D games.

Playstation had CD, FMV’s and 3D Jrpg’s like FF7/8/9 and more cinematic games like MGS

 

[stranno]

Nintendo 64 vs Playstation is pretty much like Jaguar vs 3DO all over again. Nintendo 64 and Jaguar had better hardware (both were the first consoles ever with programmable graphics pipeline), but both had gigantic bottlenecks in the memory layout.

Jaguar had no cache for video, and the main RAM destroyed the fillrate when it had to work with the graphics data. Nintendo 64 had the crappy Base Rambus DRAM, with severe latency flaws, only 4K of TMEM for textures (compared to the 256K of VRAM of the Nintendo DS, for example), and some people say that the memory controller could have been boycotted by Silicon Graphics themselves.

With better memory design and disc drive, the Nintendo 64 Reality Processor would have annihilated the Playstation. But, it didn't happen, so who cares.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

Just as far as the 3D tech is concerned:

To this day, I can't stand looking at PS1 polygon rendering and its constant "jumpy" or wobbly errors on surfaces. The N64 felt... real, and tangible, so that even a simple game like Mario64 felt truly 3D and physical to me when it hit, unlike anything I'd seen yet on other platforms.

 

[Umbasaborne]

The playstation paved the way for a lot of the multimedia functionality weve come to expect from consoles today. Its use of cd’s would ultimatley shape the future of the console space as we know it. Nintendos insistance on the continued use of cartridges is one of many factors that led to the n64’s much smaller library. Coupled with the time it took nintendo to get out quality first party releases, the n64 software droughts make the wii u droughts look good. BUT…first party n64 games were undoubtedly more impressive than most games on the playstation. Spyro came close, but the playstation did not have many 3d games on the scale of mario 64, the banjo games, or ocarina of time. The n64 also revolutionized the console shooter with games like goldeneye or perfect dark. While the playstation trumped the n64 in terms of accessible forward looking hardware, nintendo and its 2nd party developers were simply able to do more with the powerful hardware of the n64 than the playstation was capable of. Thats not to diminish ff7, or mgs of course. But outside of the pre rendered backgrounds, cg cinematics, and high quality music due to the cd based format, there was nothing about ff7 that was inherently more impressive than a banjo or golden eye. Not a hater of course, i love ff7, but the actual 3d polygonal parts of that game don't look great

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

The Nintendo 64 by a mile…. Sony Playstation and the word innovation are not friends at all, specially in that era. When is comes to games, that’s another topic.

- Publicly available development hardware with Net Yaroze;
- Dual Shock was the first standard controller for any console with rumble included;
- Eye Toy;
- First console with an HDD and Wi-Fi included in all models;
- Including CD's, DVDs and Blu-Rays as standard media before anyone else in each one of the first 3 generations;
- Playstation Home was way ahead of its time back then on the PS3 and it's still being mentioned nowadays;
- PS VR. They are the only one of the big 3 going big and investing big in VR for years now;
- First ones of the big console makers with a cloud-based gaming subscription service with PS Now, which they have been doing for over 7 years already;
- Playstation Vita had an OLED screen...in 2011. 10 years ago.
- Dual Sense with its adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, etc.

Sounds to me they have brought something new to the table every single generation?
I'm sure i'm missing a lot here as well but saying Sony and innovation aren't a thing is flat out wrong in every way you try to spin it.

 

[Portugeezer]

As much as I liked the N64 at the time with the amazing polygonal 3D graphics (I remember playing friends PSX and thinking everything looked a blocky) and analogue controls, PSX expanded the scope of console gaming to a new audience, which has probably had the bigger impact on gaming.

 

[ManaByte]

A quick Google search is all it takes to let you know that Starfox 64 was released on April 27th, 1997, and the first PSX rumble controller was released in Japan on April 25th, 1997. It was still called the Dual Analog Stick until it had a worldwide release as the DualShock controller on November 20th, 1997.

The PlayStation Dual Analog didn’t have rumble.

 

[Shadowstar39]

N64 invented some great things like rumble and analog sticks but it had so many limitations, and a shit library, outside a few standout titles. PS1 took those things and made them viable.

PS1 single handedly got me back into gaming. I grew up with atari 2600, NES, TG-16, Genesis, SNES, Apple iic, 8086 4color cga - 80386sx 4mb sVGA w/cd rom.
After SNES and my 386 aged I hit a wall with gaming. Road Rash Doom and Might and Magic 5 were the last few games that I bought.
I then didn't game. I was more involved with partying and dating as this is what you do in High school (or at least what i did). Gaming back in the early 90s meant that you weren't getting laid. Period.
High school girls looked down on gaming or any "nerdy" hobbies. I also stopped playing AD&D and went on to smoking tons of pot, dropping hits,etc..

Ps1 pulled me out of a dark path and back into gaming after a hiatus from 95-98 . It was getting a ps1 dual shock edition, Resident Evil, FF7, and Metal Gear Solid for Xmas that I fell back in.

The games that targeted adults and were like nothing else we ever saw.

Games like:
Resident Evil series
Metal Gear Soild.
Suikoden Series
Castlevania SOTN
Legend of Legia
Legend of Dragoon
Grandia
Medieval Series
Deception
Bushido Blade
Tekken
Road Rash 3D
Crash Bandicoot
Tomb Raider Series
Wild 9
Loaded
Twisted Metal
Grand Theft Auto
Final Fantasy VII/VIII
Chrono Cross
Brave Fencer Musachi
Mega Man Legends Series
Wipeout
Diablo
Silent Hill
Vandal Hearts Series
Xenogears
Vagrant Story
Gran Turismo Series


I could go on and on and on. These games were long, tons of games that would take you forever. I got back into gaming with these games and i didn't care about being too "nerdy" anymore.
I loved PS1. I still think ps1 was the best console ever made with its amazing library.

I played n64 at a friends house and loved Zelda OoT and Mario but other games just didn't hit me. There were games like Golden eye that were heralded as amazing. I just didn't see it. Then in 2000 I got a new pc a Pentium mmx w/ Voodoo3, then built my first PC a pentium 3 w/voodoo 5. Games like unreal tornament and Quake 2/3 blew golden eye away. Games like Baldurs gate half-life added another side to the ps1 and both complemented the other. Western pc games and Eastern Console games.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

The 32X would basically have been an entry level Saturn while having access to all the Genesis games, the Genesis itself was dirt cheap in cost but sales were slowing as Sega were starting to hurt themselves and prepare for the Saturn.

It would have been a great bridge given how the US and Euro audience (to a lesser extent) had less interest in launch window Saturn titles than the games coming out on 32X.

This whole idea of a "bridge" is the problem, if Sega had put all its focus on the Saturn it could have pulled in better numbers in the US and Europe (probably not beat the PSX, but at least it would have been there the whole time). Instead they had to split their focus and development resources between two "next-gen" machines released mere months apart. The 32 was a very unreliable piece of hardware as well, so a good number of the units sold were not working anymore before people even had the chance to buy games for the machine.

What killed Sega is Sega of America's focus on FMV on the Sega CD and the shipping of the 32x (not that the 32 itself has no merit, but its existence caused many problems).

 

[Sidney Prescott]

Nintendo 64 is basically what I would say got me in to gaming and I found Super Mario 64 very impressive.

Goldeneye as well was tight.

They are both very influential consoles, but I'd likely lean towards N64.

 

[cartman414]

You mean NES. 2600 sprites animated fast, were clean, and didn't look blurry and pixelated.



Mario 64s controls are only good in an empty space, not while actually going through the mixed stage design, actually platforming.



The N64, Gamecube, and Wii U arguably only sold above 10 million units because of bias. All due mostly to the same states in the same country.

But NES controller is just a downgraded Vectrex controller with one less button and the analog stick replaced with a dpad.

See how that works?


Jaguars best selling games are literally 3 FPS games. AVP, Doom, Wolfenstein. (4 if you include Iron Soldier)


The 32X was working until SOJ killed it.


To bad N64 was the first, nor used analog and used a digital joystick.



That's a strong liquid you're drinking my man.



Uh, CD was quickly becoming the stardard in 1992 and pretty much was the standard in 93. You just had a few titles that were behind as floppy had a large audience and it took time for that to stop being profitable.

Myst alone sold more CD drives than the PS1 did it's first two years.


You mean NES. 2600 sprites animated fast, were clean, and didn't look blurry and pixelated.



Mario 64s controls are only good in an empty space, not while actually going through the mixed stage design, actually platforming.



The N64, Gamecube, and Wii U arguably only sold above 10 million units because of bias. All due mostly to the same states in the same country.

Aside from double quoting, I'm not sure I know where you're going with that.

And regarding the PS Dual Shock being better than the N64, it was crap ergonomically compared to MS and Nintendo controllers. That is, until the Dual Sense.

 

[Tarkus98]

The console that had Kingsfield.

Also ps1 was the first console to properly introduce 3D gaming which was kind of the royal flush for innovation.

Truly loved both consoles and don’t want to downplay the innovations N64 brought to the table, but ps1 was there a couple years before and for that time was truly a step ahead in innovative games because of the console design.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

Also ps1 was the first console to properly introduce 3D gaming which was kind of the royal flush for innovation.

I can't agree with this one. I remember well how much polygonal gaming had started to arrive in prominent ways before the PS1 (for example, games like Star Fox or Stunt Race FX, where custom chips were pushing early 3D graphics on the SNES). When the PS1 hit, it felt like a media powerhouse, but not like anything new in terms of 3D graphics except for incremental improvement with a lot of the jankiness still on display everywhere. But when I first laid eyes on Mario64 at a kiosk, holy hell... it was mindblowing just how real the rendering looked, and that was the moment that 3D gaming truly felt like it arrived for the first time. Subjective, of course, but I honestly don't recall anything wowing about the early PS1 apart from its stellar multimedia and games-as-media capabilities.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Wasnt the PS1 the first to have dual analog sticks?

 

[CobraAB]

Sony had the better marketing for sure.

 

[scalman]

nobody was alive after PS1 launch ,. just look at games library..its just kills all ...
nobody was alive after that .... they tried ... for short time .. still they died ...all of them

 

[IFireflyl]

For the record, it wasn't as easy of a search. But it does indeed appear as if Sony beat Nintendo to the punch by two entire days in Japan with a controller that included shock value. But that would seem to be merely window dressing since they didn't have any software to back it up yet, and the motors were only included in the Japanese controllers.

Window dressing or no, Nintendo wasn't first. That was my entire point. Sony beat Nintendo to the punch with rumble support, their implementation was better, and their rumble implementation has been co-opted by countless other companies including Microsoft and Nintendo (with the Nintendo Switch Pro). So innovation-wise, Sony wins when it comes to rumble/vibration.

The PlayStation Dual Analog didn’t have rumble.

It did in Japan.

Dual Analog Controller - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Only the Japanese version features a vibration feedback function. The European and American versions of the controller do however include circuitry and mounts for a rumble motor, a possible leftover from the Japanese version of the controller, and therefore installing the motor is a simple process. Due to a lack of vibration-compatible games at the time, the European and American versions were not shipped with rumble feedback and, as a result, weigh significantly less than their overseas counterpart, and fall somewhere between the weights of the standard controller and the DualShock.

Not only did the controllers in Japan have rumble support out of the gates, but the non-Japanese versions can actually be opened up and have the motors installed since they included everything necessary for rumble other than the motors.

N64 invented some great things like rumble and analog sticks...

Nintendo 64 wasn't the first controller with an analog stick, nor did they invent the rumble. As I've said multiple times, Sony beat them to the punch with rumble, and Nintendo copied from Dempa's XE-1 AP controller which was the first controller with the analog stick (and it was released approximately 8 years prior to the Nintendo 64).

 

[Wildebeest]

Looking back on it now, we can say that fast load times, advanced 3d graphics and analogue controls are all high-value features. But in 1994 FMV and multimedia were the impressive new innovation and the N64 would have been seen as incremental improvements but missing the key new technologies. (unless you played Mario 64 yourself and felt the total package combined to create a new experience)

 

[OmegaSpirit32X]

Many N64 games, like SM64, OoT, Wave Race 64, F-Zero, and Star Fox 64 are still fun to load up and play. Even with their dated graphics, there's still something magical about Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time.

The same can't be said for many PlayStation games.

Disagree, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid, Crash Team Racing, WipeOut, Parappa the Rapper, and the list could go on. if anything N64 games aged worse. it's only that you have nostalgia for them.

 

[6502]

Window dressing or no, Nintendo wasn't first. That was my entire point. Sony beat Nintendo to the punch with rumble support, their implementation was better, and their rumble implementation has been co-opted by countless other companies including Microsoft and Nintendo (with the Nintendo Switch Pro). So innovation-wise, Sony wins when it comes to rumble/vibration.



It did in Japan.

Dual Analog Controller - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Not only did the controllers in Japan have rumble support out of the gates, but the non-Japanese versions can actually be opened up and have the motors installed since they included everything necessary for rumble other than the motors.



Nintendo 64 wasn't the first controller with an analog stick, nor did they invent the rumble. As I've said multiple times, Sony beat them to the punch with rumble, and Nintendo copied from Dempa's XE-1 AP controller which was the first controller with the analog stick (and it was released approximately 8 years prior to the Nintendo 64).

Did that Sony pad have any compatible games released in the two days before N64 rumble and starfox?

Or did they chuck rumble in a pad then start to work on games whilst Nintendo were launching a complete product?

 

[Invalid GR]

Many guys here tend to forget that while both consoles are considered 5th gen they were released with almost two years difference. PS was released in Japan Dec 1994 and N64 on June 1996.
Two years worth of innovation and research cannot truly be directly compared.
Same thing with PS2 and Xbox. Two years apart is almost like a "Pro" console now days.
Anyway as a person who lived in that era PS was nuts. It had all the games was relatively cheap ( also it's peripherals) and everyone had it or wanted one.
Before N64 was released there was a real buzz because Nintendo was huge back then. Afew months after it's release the buzz was gone. Sure it had some amazing games but PS was a juggernaut and as soon as PS2 was announced N64 was history.

 

[K.N.W.]

To me it depends on how you want to judge them: on the technical side, both were pushing games to new horizons with 3d graphics, more refined control systems and realistic sounds, plus their own quirks, like the first bits ever of 3d open world on N64, and games with a good deal of movie-like animated scenes and dialogues on PS1. So I would say both game machines did a lot for games, as they are nowadays.

On a different side though, PS1 was developed specifically by Sony to ease the life of developers, make porting easier and make sure everybody gets their games. This combined with aggressive marketing, ignited a new gaming passion that it's still burning today. I can't be sure how much, but I think gaming ecosystem would be different if it wasn't for Sony, and I feel like PS1 had a key role in this shift.