efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
granted it's an old piece and I haven't read it again since it was published, but the point of it was supposed to be to catalogue all releases from thrid parties on Wii, so in what way is it cherrypicking?
Nintendos N64 western 3rd Party support was really something
- Thread starter deleted
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granted it's an old piece and I haven't read it again since it was published, but the point of it was supposed to be to catalogue all releases from thrid parties on Wii, so in what way is it cherrypicking?
MisterHero
Super Member
The only reason that image stuck is because Sega, Sony, and MS kept pouring money into skewing their own games and appeal towards older gamers. They took pot shots at Nintendo once in a while too. Sony and MS marketing down a different path, but that was not after Sony's attempt to get rights to whatever CD games Nintendo made, or MS trying to outright acquire Nintendo.
After all these years that "word of mouth" is really just marketing speak. The only significant incident that I can recall regarding "kiddiness" and Nintendo was when they removed blood from Mortal Kombat. But that is ignoring that Sega was already pushing their edginess years before.
SolidSnakex
Member
Well, Sega's attempt at a CD based platform was a major failure. So it made sense that Square wouldn't switch over to them given the success they had with the SNES. Once the next generation platforms started to release it was basically like hitting the reset button as they now had a chance to look elsewhere since everyone was starting on square one. Sega were of course using CD's for their console, but it had other issues. It was difficult to develop for and wasn't that great for 3D. The N64 also wasn't easy to develop for and Nintendo were going to stick it out with carts. Which left Sony. Their console was easy to develop for, it was more efficient at 3D than the Saturn, and it was CD based. It was still a gamble on their part because maybe Nintendo was right and CD's weren't the future, or maybe they were except Sega chose the right option.
The kiddie branding didn't really stick like glue until the Gamecube. During the N64-era the console was actually very popular among college students and older gamers in general because of multiplayer games like AKI's wrestlers, Goldeneye, and Mario Kart. And then you had other games that didn't resemble kiddie stuff at all like 1080, Wave Race, Turok etc. Then came the Gamecube-era where Nintendo released a console that looked like something you'd find in a toy isle and proceeded to pretty much abandon the multiplayer approach that brought the N64 what success it did have. MS basically ate their multiplayer users with the release of HALO. Then later on when Sony, MS and even Sega were embracing online mutliplayer, Nintendo were actively attempting to not get involved with it aside from throwing out an adapter that they never supported.
Many Nintendo fans blame Sega and/or Sony for the kiddie image that the company has, but it's primarily Nintendo's own fault that they have it in the first place. The things they did on their own is why it persists today.
Mega Man's Electric Sheep
Member
The kiddie thing was not a label I heard at my university. We had Mario Kart 64 and Goldeneye tournaments!
TreasureHunterG
Banned
Sega Saturn was outselling PlayStation by some margin in it's initial years in Japan and before FF7 it was almost a tie, with minimum difference between two companies. Saturn had a solid userbase, strongly accepted by most third-parties by that time and a considerable J-RPG userbasel. It was Square support that proved to be vital for Sony to take a stronger lead.
Yes, Sega Saturn had issues regarding 3D graphics on the hardware, but the official reason for why Square left Nintendo was because of CD-Roms and insufficient cart storage space. As far as I know, Square never said anything about Sega Saturn's hardware. Saturn's Japan-only success situation didn't prevented most japanese third-parties to support it, with some exceptions, like Namco and Square itself. So, there's a hole in this argument.
Not true. Sega was pivotal into exposing this. Tom Kalinske made the notorious "Sega does what Nintendon't" in order to antagonize Nintendo's public image and grab it's market. He was aware of Nintendo's censorship policies and used that against Nintendo. They managed to succeed at that. The Mortal Kombat blood censorship made things worse and pretty much confirmed, in a way, Kalinske's marketing claims.
It was only after the creation of ESRB that Nintendo allowed more adult content on games and reduced censorship polices. They got an uncensored Doom with all the satanic references intact and MK with all the blood and fatalities untouched. They even managed to publish a T-Rated game like Killer Instinct. Infamous games like Shadow Man, Conker's Bad Fur Day, BMX XXX and Manhunt 2 were allowed to be made in Nintendo systems without any censorship. Still, the Mortal Kombat 1 censorship had a negative impact on it's public view and the damage was done.
Even with NoA's attempt to fight against this, with many publishing deals and second-party partnerships cattering toward a T-M-Rated crowd, Nintendo was still the kiddie company in the N64 days, while Sony was the "cool" one. Sony was heavily advertising T and M-Rated titles to be the system's flagship titles, in contrast to Nintendo, where it's most famous games were mostly E-Rated titles.
But I agree with you partially. GCN actually made the kiddy image worse. Purple box design, Nintendo's major games with cutesy and colorful aesthetics and minimal support for T-M-Rated games didn't helped at all to change this image.
MisterHero
Super Member
Smash Bros. Melee sold more than Halo 1. They also had Waverace, 1080, Starfox, James Bond, Star Wars, Resident Evil, etc. but some of those games just weren't as good as their N64 counterparts. They had shooters with Call of Duty, TimeSplitters, etc. They even had sports games until everyone let EA and Sega take over the genre.
And Wii, they're most successful home console, released/sold a crazy amount of in-room multiplayer games. NSMB and Mario Kart, both multiplayer-focused, rival sales of GTAV and CoD, and they doubled that on DS. Online isn't the only multiplayer market. I know, a lot of people with PCs on the internet tend to overstate otherwise.
That's not to say Nintendo doesn't have a massive amount of problems (they do), but all-ages appeal isn't one of them. In fact, there are even critics on the opposite side that say mobile is taking kids from Nintendo. So believe me when I say that I'm fine with the kiddie label. It's the kind of marketing that really turns flaccid when the same riva(s) l tries to knock off Smash Bros. or Wii Sports, or horribly mishandles the talent/IP at Rare.
Back to the topic at hand. Starfox 64 was the bee's knees. So were Midway's games (Rush, Gauntlet Legends, BLITZ, etc)
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
The Nintendo 64 didn't have many exclusives from the traditional Japanese publishers, but it did feature several exclusive or premiere titles from Western publishers. But even then, it had Snowboard Kids!
Machinehead
Member
Extreme G is one of my favorite franchises ever.
If things are hard for fans of futuristic racers, imagine how much I suffer, craving for a futuristic bike racing game..
Marketing.
Marketing isn't bound by reality. Just imagination. Say it loud enough, flashy enough, and say it enough times and if you are lucky it will stick.
The first PSX controller most of us got near launch was trash. They did not modify it to the dual analog until after word started seeping out about the Ultra 64 having an analog stick and word started also circulating about Sega wanting to put out an analog pad for NiGHTS.
The original PSX controller was terrible.
Stallion Dan
Member
This is so false. It has a better resolution but everything else was worse.
The backgrounds were lower detail than other versions, which made them look even worse with the higher resolution, the poly count of the models and textures were significantly less detailed than other versions. Pre-rendered cutscenes were poor quality and lower framerate, plus had bits completely cut out.
It has the stick control (which ruined the game like it ruins REmake HD), different blood colours (big whop) and a few exclusive files to read (again big whoop, and many were in RE3 anyway) while other versions have actual new game modes like EX Battle which isn't in the N64 version.
Sound was worse on N64 too.
Objectively it is the worst version.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Not well. Not well at all.
Beetle Adventure Racing, on the other hand, is still fantastic.
Stallion Dan
Member
Was a great controller, the Dual Analogue and later Dual shock just made it even better.
A Black Falcon
Member
Yeah, the N64 had very good Western third party support, that is true. Sure, the quantity wasn't equal to other platforms, but the quality very much is! While many of the system's best games are first party, the N64 third party library is great, and includes some all-time classics, with Rush 2049 at the top of that list for me, of course.
But yeah, in the US the N64 wasn't just a 'kiddy system'. Yes, Nintendo never entirely got rid of that label, but between Goldeneye, Turok, wrestling and sports games, and more, the N64 obviously wasn't "kiddy" either in its library or its audience, even if some Sony fans liked to claim so at times. The N64 was popular with children, but it was also successful with a lot of 'core' gamers in a way Nintendo has not been again since.
I could get into specifics about how much I like a lot of third-party N64 games, but... I did that already: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=473262&highlight=64
A few points though:
- San Francisco Rush 2049 is the best racing game ever made, and the N64 version is my favorite version.
- Other good third-party N64 racing games include Wipeout 64, all four Top Gear games, Extreme-G 2, Hydro Thunder, Stunt Racer 64, World Driver Championship, and more. Racing games are one of the platform's best genres.
- Rayman 2 isn't best on the N64, but the game, one of the best 3d platformers ever, was first developed for the N64, and the N64 version is great, one of the genre's best. Another all-time great is Goemon's Great Adventure, my favorite 2.5d platformer ever. Some more good third-party platformers include Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, Rocket: Robot on Wheels, Space Station Silicon Valley, and more.
-For FPSes, the Turok series is pretty good. Unlike most people Turok 3 is actually my favorite one, but all four games are quite good, ambitious titles. Of course Doom 64 is also very good. Duke Nukem: Zero Hour is also a good game, among others. There are no third-party FPSes quite on par with Perfect Dark, but the best ones are pretty good, even if there are only a relative handful in numbers.
Etc.
As for what happened between the N64 and Gamecube, there were several factors.
1) Microsoft's entry into making consoles was huge. Microsoft's most important release was Halo, and with that they won over shooter fans, both those previously PC-only and those who had loved Goldeneye. Nintendo didn't, or couldn't, match it. MS also pushed the mostly PC-focused Western development base to also support their console, and publishers, starting to struggle because PC-only sales weren't keeping up with the rising costs of development, listened. Over the course of the '00s this badly damaged the US PC game development base, but was a big boost to console development. Nintendo ended up mostly missing out on this, as a lot of games either were for Xbox, or were on the PS360 and not Wii.
2) The two leaders of NoA from the '90s, Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa, retired, and Satoru Iwata decided to take over NoA himself after they left. Instead of trying to hold on to the N64's hard-won success with core Western gamers, Iwata made a doomed effort to match Sony in Japan, and gave up on core Western audiences in favor of Japanese partnerships. That was great, but Nintendo needed both, not one or the other. He made some bad decisions, most notably to drop Rare, and failed to come up with ideas to counter Halo, letting MS take the Western 'core' audience away from Nintendo.
Iwata also separated from their three second-party studios (Rare, Left Field, and Silicon Knights). I've already said how bad a decision selling off Rare was, both here and here. The two American first party studios Lincoln started, NST and Retro, did survive, though both reduced in size eventually -- NST's console team was gotten rid of in the early Wii years leaving only its handheld and other staff (who did Virtual Console work among other things, I believe?), and Retro reduced to only one game at a time, and dropped some staff as a result, early in its life. Of course Metroid Prime is absolutely amazing, but Nintendo needed Rare too!
3) As a result of #1, mostly, and maybe a bit of #2, the GC failed to sell in the US as well as the N64 had. Third parties started out supporting the system reasonably well, but as sales failed to match expectations, by 2003 most Western third parties dramatically cut back on GC support. From that point on the system only got more family-friendly games and the occasional major title, with very few major exclusives or ports. Nintendo's response to this was the less-powerful Wii, and we all know how that went for Nintendo and third parties -- the GC-era losses became permanent, and Nintendo now has entirely lost the core Western base, both developers and fans, at a time when they are absolutely vital for success. And on top of that, as casuals switched from the DS or Wii over to smartphones Nintendo lost a lot of sales.
But yeah, in the US the N64 wasn't just a 'kiddy system'. Yes, Nintendo never entirely got rid of that label, but between Goldeneye, Turok, wrestling and sports games, and more, the N64 obviously wasn't "kiddy" either in its library or its audience, even if some Sony fans liked to claim so at times. The N64 was popular with children, but it was also successful with a lot of 'core' gamers in a way Nintendo has not been again since.
I could get into specifics about how much I like a lot of third-party N64 games, but... I did that already: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=473262&highlight=64
A few points though:
- San Francisco Rush 2049 is the best racing game ever made, and the N64 version is my favorite version.
- Other good third-party N64 racing games include Wipeout 64, all four Top Gear games, Extreme-G 2, Hydro Thunder, Stunt Racer 64, World Driver Championship, and more. Racing games are one of the platform's best genres.
- Rayman 2 isn't best on the N64, but the game, one of the best 3d platformers ever, was first developed for the N64, and the N64 version is great, one of the genre's best. Another all-time great is Goemon's Great Adventure, my favorite 2.5d platformer ever. Some more good third-party platformers include Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, Rocket: Robot on Wheels, Space Station Silicon Valley, and more.
-For FPSes, the Turok series is pretty good. Unlike most people Turok 3 is actually my favorite one, but all four games are quite good, ambitious titles. Of course Doom 64 is also very good. Duke Nukem: Zero Hour is also a good game, among others. There are no third-party FPSes quite on par with Perfect Dark, but the best ones are pretty good, even if there are only a relative handful in numbers.
Etc.
As for what happened between the N64 and Gamecube, there were several factors.
1) Microsoft's entry into making consoles was huge. Microsoft's most important release was Halo, and with that they won over shooter fans, both those previously PC-only and those who had loved Goldeneye. Nintendo didn't, or couldn't, match it. MS also pushed the mostly PC-focused Western development base to also support their console, and publishers, starting to struggle because PC-only sales weren't keeping up with the rising costs of development, listened. Over the course of the '00s this badly damaged the US PC game development base, but was a big boost to console development. Nintendo ended up mostly missing out on this, as a lot of games either were for Xbox, or were on the PS360 and not Wii.
2) The two leaders of NoA from the '90s, Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa, retired, and Satoru Iwata decided to take over NoA himself after they left. Instead of trying to hold on to the N64's hard-won success with core Western gamers, Iwata made a doomed effort to match Sony in Japan, and gave up on core Western audiences in favor of Japanese partnerships. That was great, but Nintendo needed both, not one or the other. He made some bad decisions, most notably to drop Rare, and failed to come up with ideas to counter Halo, letting MS take the Western 'core' audience away from Nintendo.
Iwata also separated from their three second-party studios (Rare, Left Field, and Silicon Knights). I've already said how bad a decision selling off Rare was, both here and here. The two American first party studios Lincoln started, NST and Retro, did survive, though both reduced in size eventually -- NST's console team was gotten rid of in the early Wii years leaving only its handheld and other staff (who did Virtual Console work among other things, I believe?), and Retro reduced to only one game at a time, and dropped some staff as a result, early in its life. Of course Metroid Prime is absolutely amazing, but Nintendo needed Rare too!
3) As a result of #1, mostly, and maybe a bit of #2, the GC failed to sell in the US as well as the N64 had. Third parties started out supporting the system reasonably well, but as sales failed to match expectations, by 2003 most Western third parties dramatically cut back on GC support. From that point on the system only got more family-friendly games and the occasional major title, with very few major exclusives or ports. Nintendo's response to this was the less-powerful Wii, and we all know how that went for Nintendo and third parties -- the GC-era losses became permanent, and Nintendo now has entirely lost the core Western base, both developers and fans, at a time when they are absolutely vital for success. And on top of that, as casuals switched from the DS or Wii over to smartphones Nintendo lost a lot of sales.
A lot of those western games also came out on PlayStation. Actually, I'd like to see someone do a detailed comparison of the first person shooter libraries between the PlayStation and N64. Of the ones that were multiplatform, which were better? Aside from those however, the N64 did get notable exclusives like Turok, GoldenEye, Quake 1, and DOOM 64. Anyways, I think a lot of that was because western third party developers are a lot more willing to do multiplatform games, whereas the Japanese companies were comfortable just publishing their games on PlayStation, and maybe also Saturn in some cases because of how successful it was in Japan.
A lot of this though is really only apparent in hindsight. As has already been pointed out in this thread, the N64 had a seriously low overall quantity of games. That was seen as a failure by pretty much everyone back then. Plus, that was still an era where Japanese games were considered the most important in the console space. The western console action game market wasn't really something that was consciously thought about that much until the Xbox sold almost entirely on it. Iwata and NCL probably thought regaining Japanese developer support with the Gamecube was a more important use of resources, and that's what Nintendo worked to do during the Gamecube years. I imagine the people who consider the Gamecube to be a better machine for third party games are people who generally prefer Japanese games.
Also, serious question: How many racing sims have ever been released for Nintendo hardware?
As far as I know there were basically none on the Gamecube unless you count R Racing Evolution. The N64 had a lot of racing games and I imagine at least a few of them might count as "racing sims," but I don't remember any Nintendo console ever getting anything on the same level as Gran Turismo, Forza, TOCA, or GRID.
A lot of this though is really only apparent in hindsight. As has already been pointed out in this thread, the N64 had a seriously low overall quantity of games. That was seen as a failure by pretty much everyone back then. Plus, that was still an era where Japanese games were considered the most important in the console space. The western console action game market wasn't really something that was consciously thought about that much until the Xbox sold almost entirely on it. Iwata and NCL probably thought regaining Japanese developer support with the Gamecube was a more important use of resources, and that's what Nintendo worked to do during the Gamecube years. I imagine the people who consider the Gamecube to be a better machine for third party games are people who generally prefer Japanese games.
Also, serious question: How many racing sims have ever been released for Nintendo hardware?
As far as I know there were basically none on the Gamecube unless you count R Racing Evolution. The N64 had a lot of racing games and I imagine at least a few of them might count as "racing sims," but I don't remember any Nintendo console ever getting anything on the same level as Gran Turismo, Forza, TOCA, or GRID.
Stallion Dan
Member
Didn't Nintendo, maybe even Iwata himself come out and say they didn't like third parties being multiplatform in their releases?
Tangentially related to this topic, but I don't understand where the idea that the Gamecube had worse third-party support than the N64 comes from. The Gamecube had support from most of the major publishers of that era: EA, Activision, Ubisoft, LucasArts, Capcom, Namco, Sega, Eidos, Acclaim, Midway. The two real notable exceptions are Konami and Rockstar due to the lack of MGS and GTA. But for most part, if a game was multi-console that generation, it was probably on the Gamecube. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made for those games due to the Gamecube controller's lack of buttons and the smaller space on its mini-discs and the lack of online support for the system, but the games were at least there.
As a kid who was Gamecube exclusive for most of that generation, I played plenty of third-party games on it. Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Timesplitters, BG&E, Viewtiful Joe, RE4... Rarely did I see a game and think, "Man, I wish I could play that," only to find out that it wasn't available on the Gamecube. And when I did, it was usually because it was first-party to Sony or MS.
As a kid who was Gamecube exclusive for most of that generation, I played plenty of third-party games on it. Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Timesplitters, BG&E, Viewtiful Joe, RE4... Rarely did I see a game and think, "Man, I wish I could play that," only to find out that it wasn't available on the Gamecube. And when I did, it was usually because it was first-party to Sony or MS.
catpurrcat
Member
Totally agree with the bolded. For anyone who wasn't around in the 90s, you should know the mortal kombat censorship was really really big. For the first time, fans felt completely ignored and let down by a company that generally responded well to fans. A current analogy would be the NoDRM campaign prior to the ps4/xb1 launch.
It was THAT big. Everyone was writing letters to Nintendo, and to magazines. I would go so far to say that actually was the first time we saw weakness, and the college crowd started to move away from Nintendo.
blame space
Banned
Rented starcraft 64 when I was a kid and that shit blew my mind.
I think there was a command & conquer too?
I think there was a command & conquer too?
MisterHero
Super Member
Nintendo and Sega were fighting each other in Congress over who had the more violent games, and neither had an appropriate answer to the situation until the ESRB. Public outrage >>> gamer outrage
So maybe their priorities were in a different area. Just saying
DonMigs85
Member
I had around 2 dozen or so N64 games back in the day, but the vast majority were Rare or Nintendo titles. Still, it really did have pretty strong western support. No Japanese studio ever supported it all that much. Even Capcom was really late to the party.
I was also amazed at the number of games Titus released for it. I think only Acclaim released more than them. Lots of one-hit gems like Glover, Buck Bumble, Rocket Robot on Wheels and Space Station Silicon Valley too.
I was also amazed at the number of games Titus released for it. I think only Acclaim released more than them. Lots of one-hit gems like Glover, Buck Bumble, Rocket Robot on Wheels and Space Station Silicon Valley too.
DonMigs85
Member
I agree, it was perhaps stronger than N64 in that regard. It didn't get a whole lot of 3rd party exclusives like N64, but it at least got a lot of cross-platform games. We even got a good fighter in Soul Calibur 2, which the N64 was sorely deficient in, not to mention a much better RPG library with games like Skies of Arcadia, Tales of Symphonia and Baten Kaitos. Plus, Square returned to the fold.
N64 and GCN had roughly the same amount of 3rd party support.
GCN was doing really well for the first two years in getting most of what PS2 and OXBOX had in terms of multiplatform games but it started falling off as EA and others started cancelling smaller titles first and then bigger ones as they went along.
N64 had a great deal of support but expensive cart costs and the dominance of the PSX eventually had it so only the biggest multiplatform games got N64 versions.
GCN was doing really well for the first two years in getting most of what PS2 and OXBOX had in terms of multiplatform games but it started falling off as EA and others started cancelling smaller titles first and then bigger ones as they went along.
N64 had a great deal of support but expensive cart costs and the dominance of the PSX eventually had it so only the biggest multiplatform games got N64 versions.
Compared to PS1, N64 was definitely more geared towards kids.
A large part of PS1s success was recognizing that gamers were getting older and making gaming an acceptable adult recreational activity. A lot more games began having adult themes with PS1. Although, really, they were more like late teen themes. Anyways, PlayStation 1 attempted to make gaming an adult hobby and socially valid form entertainment, which they finally achieved with PS2.
I still remember when a lot of adults would look down on other adults that played games. If you were in your 30s and played videogames you were pretty much a loser to a substantial portion of society. Also, good luck saying your favourite hobby was playing videogames and getting a girlfriend 20 years ago, unless she was also interested in games, which was far less common.
Then the industry grew to rival movies and became the huge multibillion dollar industry it is today and it became totally acceptable to many people, as it was no longer children's hobby. But I suppose time and money changes everything.
That being said, N64 was awesome. Super Mario, Wave Race, and Pilot Wings fo life.
A large part of PS1s success was recognizing that gamers were getting older and making gaming an acceptable adult recreational activity. A lot more games began having adult themes with PS1. Although, really, they were more like late teen themes. Anyways, PlayStation 1 attempted to make gaming an adult hobby and socially valid form entertainment, which they finally achieved with PS2.
I still remember when a lot of adults would look down on other adults that played games. If you were in your 30s and played videogames you were pretty much a loser to a substantial portion of society. Also, good luck saying your favourite hobby was playing videogames and getting a girlfriend 20 years ago, unless she was also interested in games, which was far less common.
Then the industry grew to rival movies and became the huge multibillion dollar industry it is today and it became totally acceptable to many people, as it was no longer children's hobby. But I suppose time and money changes everything.
That being said, N64 was awesome. Super Mario, Wave Race, and Pilot Wings fo life.
DonMigs85
Member
What stuck out to me most even as a kid then was the N64 sorely lacked good fighters and RPGs. You basically got Ogre Battle, Paper Mario, and... Quest 64? Yechh.
As for the GCN era, I was really sad when Burnout 3 wasn't released for it since it was the only current console I had at the time.
A Black Falcon
Member
While there were a good number of PS1/N64 multiplatform games, a lot of the top third-party N64 games are exclusives, not multiplatform games. The N64 was from before most third parties started releasing almost everything multiplatform. You really see this difference when you compare the N64 to the Gamecube, the latter has mostly multiplatform games from third parties, unlike the N64.
The only FPSes available on both the N64 and PS1 are Duke Nukem 3D/64, Hexen, Armorines, South Park, and (sort of) Quake II. That's it. Forsaken (PS1/PC) and Forsaken 64 are similar, but have entirely different level designs so I wouldn't call them the same. Quake II also isn't identical -- the N64 version has redone, altered level maps.
Of those, the two Acclaim titles, South Park and Armorines, are much worse on PS1 than N64. Armorines is actually a good game on N64, but not at all on PS1 by all accounts, while South Park is mediocre on both but quite a bit worse on Playstation. Quake II is similar quality on both platforms, though the N64 version got slightly better review scores, 81% to 79% on GameRankings. Duke Nukem 3D (aka Total Meltdown on PS1 or Duke Nukem 64 on N64) got better reviews on N64 despite having changes -- the N64 version has censorship and no in-level music, thought it does add 4-player multiplayer. I haven't played either version. The Saturn version scored better than either the N64 or PS1 versions, it should be noted. As for Hexen, it has 4-player multiplayer added on the N64, but none of the console ports are as good as the PC original. The N64 version got slightly higher scores than the PS1 or Saturn ports, but it doesn't have great graphics, or a great framerate in multiplayer either. Hexen was the first 4-player multiplayer FPS on the N64 though, so at the time it was something new...
Of the other N64 FPSes, the only other one with a version on another console is Quake 1, which is also on Saturn. N64 v. Saturn Quake is an interesting comparison, with some points for each version.
That probably is part of it, but a bigger factor was that the N64 sold so much better in the US than anywhere else.
I think Iwata just wanted to win back Japan after the hard beating they'd taken there in the N64... and while trying but failing to win back Japan from Sony (the GC sold worse there than the N64), he either overlooked or didn't put enough focus on the serious threat Microsoft posed. This move determined the direction Nintendo has gone in since.
For N64 racing sims, there are four or five I can think of: World Driver Championship, Monaco Grand Prix, F1 Racing Simulation (Europe only on N64), F1 World Grand Prix, and F1 World Grand Prix II (Europe only on N64). I don't like sim racers though, so that the system is thin on those is just fine with me; its strengths in the genre, including futuristic, arcade, and kart racers, are exactly the kinds of racing games which are the best on my list.
The GC's third-party games were mostly multiplatform, not exclusive, and the system stopped getting versions of most games after the first year. I had both an N64 and GC back then, and really noticed the downgrade in third-party support, both in missing so many major games which were multiplatform but not on GC, and in missing the third-party exclusives that the N64 had had quite a few of but the GC didn't.
For one example of this, a whole lot of GC racing games are 1-2 players only, while on the N64 probably half of the racing games on the system have some kind of 4-player splitscreen mode. But the PS2 rarely has 4 player splitscreen, so PS2-to-GC ports often didn't bother to add it. Some games did, Extreme-G 3 for example, but not others.
But the GC was missing so many games compared to the others! Sure, some major franchises such as Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, and Need for Speed, but in most other franchises either the GC never got the series at all (Grand Theft Auto!) or got the first game, but not later sequels (to mention a few I cared about myself, Burnout past 2, Dark Alliance 2, later-gen Midway titles such as Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, SpyHunter 2 and Nowhere to Run, or Area 51, Lucasarts games after 2002 excepting only Gladius and then of course the Lego Star Wars games, and lots more.).
Lionel Richie
Member
HELL YEAH, those are awesome and this is a great post. Bonus shout out for naming Buck Bumble, which is a great and very fun game that gets a bit shafted when people think back about the N64 library.
It's better than the Dreamcast version?
DonMigs85
Member
Nowadays publishers rarely take gambles on new characters or franchises like that. It kinda died in the PS2/GCN generation, where you still had a few oddball releases like Vexx and Darkened Skye.
HELL YEAH, those are awesome and this is a great post. Bonus shout out for naming Buck Bumble, which is a great and very fun game that gets a bit shafted when people think back about the N64 library.
Everything is mostly shooters now on PS4 and Xbone. It's kinda sad
Havoc2049
Member
While the N64 version of San Francisco Rush 2049 is a great game, the Dreamcast version is better. Compared to the DC, the N64 version of Rush 2049 has that dark and muddy N64 look and doesn't look as sharp.
I was just amused to wander into a thread and find that I was already part of the conversation.
I don't have any special connections. I just remember reading it back in the N64 era (where internet history is hard to come by). I have no problem with people chalking it up to rumor.
Basically, Angel Studios hooked up with Nintendo and their Dream Team, and they saw that Nintendo had a serious problem with trying to prove that carts still had life left in them while everyone was moving on to the greener pastures of CD, and Angel had tech that they felt could compress a CD game down to cart sizes. FFVII was multi-CD, but much of the data was duplicated and wasteful. They thought that if they could take on a major PlayStation game and prove that it was possible on carts, that would be the kind of PR victory for Nintendo that would endear Angel Studios to Nintendo.
Square and Final Fantasy VII were Angel's first choice for this project, but Square rejected the idea because they had just left Nintendo in a huff, claiming that carts were inferior, and they didn't want to participate in an experiment that was intended to prove that they were wrong to leave.
Angel's second choice was Resident Evil (RE2 particularly, because RE2 was multi-CD and seemed larger while it had more duplicated/wasted data than RE1 did), and Capcom/Mikami agreed because they weren't antagonistic towards Nintendo.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
The fuck the Nintendo 64 had Doom and Quake? I thought those were PC exclusives! Every time they're mentioned its in context of PC.
Mihael Mello Keehl
Banned
Nope nope nope. Anyone alive or old enough during the snes genesis era knows how that segment went.. Even worse with N64 vs Playstation IMO.
Adventure Racing not becoming a series is a real shame.
The folks behind RUSH could easily crowdfund a spiritual sequel at least
MrCunningham
Member
Doom was on just about everything back in the day. SNES, Sega 32X, Atari Jaguar, Panasonic 3DO, Sega Saturn (two different versions) and the Sony Playstation (Doom and Ultimate Doom). Seeing Doom on the N64 was nothing special, Midway/ Williams had the rights to release the game on multiple consoles (they published the SNES, PS1 and N64 versions of the game). Though it was a completely original game with the Doom name, so it did make it a unique version of the game to own. Quake was ported to the Sega Saturn as well, and it was a solid port given the limitations of the hardware. There was a version of Quake 1 planned for the Playstation, and it was going to be ported by Lobotomy Software, just like the Saturn game. But it was cancelled for some reason or another. There was a version of Quake II released on the console, instead.
Both Doom and Quake will always be associated with the PC due to modding and online multiplayer. They will always be the definitive versions. But Doom was everywhere. Quake... not so much because it did require a system with decent polygon pushing abilities to make a playable port of the game possible.
davidwhangchoi
Member
all i remember was conker golden eye and killer instinct oh and the shadows of the empire gm, (dont even remember if its 3rd pty)
for gamecube eternal darkness and resident evil exclusives 4,1,0 and the starwars gms
for gamecube eternal darkness and resident evil exclusives 4,1,0 and the starwars gms
A Black Falcon
Member
Objectively probably not, but I like it more anyway. I've done comparisons at length before, such as here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9560832&postcount=584
But to write pretty much the same thing again but with a few things I didn't notice then (like a few more missing visual effects on the N64 ver.)...
N64 advantage - Has an N64-exclusive car-color-choice option. You can choose the three colors your car will be painted in, choosing from several dozen colors for each of the three areas cars are broken up into. On the DC version, all you can do is choose from eight preset combinations of colors, and cannot change the actual colors within each preset.
DC advantages - The DC version runs at a higher framerate (it's good on N64, but better on DC), has 1-4 player splitscreen in race mode (on N64 race mode is 1-2 players only, while stunt and battle modes are 1-4 players), has higher resolution textures, has more visual effects (the DC version has some things missing on the N64: projecting headlights from cars in night tracks, a column of light coming out of the roof of one building, a car reflection on disc under the car in the the car-selection screen, and probably a few more such things), and in a few rare cases greater graphical detail beyond those effects (the Golden Gate Bridge has the vertical connecting wires visible at a much greater distance on DC, while on N64 they appear fairly close to you and farther away you can only see the rest of the bridge, but not those little wires).
Different, which is better is a matter of opinion: The soundtracks. The DC version sounds a lot like the arcade game, while the N64 version has a slightly different sound. most of the soundtrack is similar, but there are some differences. The N64 version has less music tracks, but I like the compositions better, and I've considered the music a win for the N64 version over the DC version ever since I heard the different soundtracks. N64 Rush 2049's soundtrack is one of my all-time favorites. Another 'different, not better or worse' difference is that on the N64 the tracks are numbers -- Race 1, Stunt 2, etc -- while on the DC the tracks have a location name instead -- Presidio, Marina, etc. I think it's fine either way.
Music:
Flier, N64: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3qFeLtM07k&index=8&list=PL790DF20771C5CC04
DC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlW3oRLNd2o&index=2&list=PLn4LsJg-62Ub4Bb63QzfzZ6M4XS653cTw
Basically the DC version is a very good port of the arcade original, and the N64 version is an exceptionally close version that is missing a few things, but still looks and sounds better than almost any other racing game on the system. I only mention those effects and vertical wires because there are pretty much no other polygon-count differences I've noticed between the two versions.
So why do I prefer it on N64? I summed that up in another old post of mine: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=18727808&postcount=318
A Black Falcon said:
Theanine3D
Member
The third party support was the reason the N64 was the last Nintendo console that my friends actually took seriously.
Such a shame that the great FPS support just completely evaporated with its successors.
Such a shame that the great FPS support just completely evaporated with its successors.
MrCunningham
Member
As much as people love to rag on the N64 controller, it was perfect for FPS's with its Z-trigger under the analogue stick, and well placed c-buttons that emulated the arrow/ W,A,S,D keys on a keyboard. Though I suppose you could also say the same about the Dualshock. But the N64 pad always felt "right" to me for the FPS genre. The N64 hardware was also a much better fit for the genre as well.
The Gamecube pad really wasn't made for FPS's, and with the console being so closely released to the OG Xbox, well... Microsoft quickly took up the mantle for the genre. The OG Xbox was the perfect machine for PC developers to migrate over to the console space (and they did in spades). The hardware was built around Direct X, the CPU is x86 based and developed by Intel, the GPU was developed by Nvidia. It really was a PC in a box in relation to the Gamecube and PS2. It took the N64's place for FPS's... Though you could also kind of argue that the Dreamcast made a nice machine for FPS's as well, before the release of the PS2.
I seriously doubt it. That was early around the time NiGHTS and the others were around. Sega deciding to skip dual analog was a serious lack of foresight shared by Nintendo with the Gamecube. It's strange, Nintendo saw forward with going to analog, but completely missed the effects of dual analog.
Sega had their chance, but just chose to skip it.
I don't think Nintendo had a serious issue with 3rd party support until they brought out the Wii. Why they think it's a good idea not to compete with Sony or Microsoft is beyond me. They just need to make capable hardware, that's all there is to it. Nobody would have had any issues with the Wii if it was close to being as powerful as the 360 or PS3. I don't even want to talk about the Wii U.
DonMigs85
Member
Yeah, the GameCube nipple wasn't really ideal for FPSes. It was really only decent for camera control. Plus you couldn't click either stick.
ninjablade
Banned
Sorry I was alive in that era, and he'll no. for one N64 was mind blowing when it's first released from graphics to the controller, first analog controls on consoles. Mario was the biggest gaming franchise, and so was zelda, most people i knew thought zelda was mind blowing, I remember showing my older cousin zelda hyrule field and he though that it looks like real life, Mario and Zelda were not known to be kiddy back then, as mature games were just starting to take off.
neurosisxeno
Member
The problem is almost no game used that until Turok. They always defaulted to either the D-Pad or the Analog Stick for movement. I remember games where the Analog Stick moved you and the C Buttons were to look around--so ass backwards.