Nintendos N64 western 3rd Party support was really something

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.

Yeah, I was disappointing that Doom 64 didn't have a control scheme like that... and I am not sure if Hexen 64 did either. But, strafe/ forward, backwards + mouse look/ turning was still a new concept for PC gaming in 1996, as it was starting to get popularized by Quake that year. So I think it hadn't caught on yet in the console space. Even though Decent and even Terminator Futureshock on the PC were using this control method in 1995. But Turok and onward, you started to see it as an alternative control method in a lot of FPS's on the N64. There were even third person shooters like Jet Force Gemini and Duke Nukem: Zero Hour that adopted it as well.
 
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.

We know Sony specifically were out during that period actively doing whatever it took to get the major players to develop games for the PSone. They got NAMCO to base their arcade hardware off of the PSone even though Sega were obviously the major arcade power at the time. Square were high on the list of priorities because of the power of their franchises, and in particular Final Fantasy. Do we know if Sega were ever trying to go after those developers in the same way Sony was? Also, it's not like Sega were completely clean as far as pissing off devs either. Remember that EA basically had to threaten them with reverse engineered Genesis knowledge so that they could get a better deal when it came to cart pricing.

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.

I'm not saying that things weren't put into motion before them. My point is that the GC is where it was all solidified because Nintendo had very little to shield from the accusations. During the SNES they still had plenty of exclusive titles that weren't perceived as being for kids. The same was true for the N64. As I pointed out, they were publishing games like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. They had exclusives like Turok and AKI wrestlers. These were all games very popular among older games. Then came the Gamecube. A purple console shaped like a cube and with a handle. The in-house published games like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark were gone. The exclusives dwindled dramatically. And it was no longer the multiplayer platform of choice. Which meant that kiddie accusation stuck a lot more.

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.

Yes, it's their most successful console. But it was also one viewed as a console for casual gamers and for kids and families. It didn't do much at all for changing the perception that had been established for when some think of Nintendo.

Online isn't the only multiplayer market. I know, a lot of people with PCs on the internet tend to overstate otherwise. ;)

Of course it's not the only market. I simply said that Nintendo ignored it while Sony, MS and even Sega were diving headfirst into it. You had Yamauchi saying that online gaming was a fad during the GC-era. It's since taken Nintendo two generations since online gaming really started on consoles to really get on board, and they're still struggling. It's another example of Nintendo thinking they know better than literally everyone else only to be proven wrong, which leaves them scrambling to make up time.
 
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.

Because aiming with your left hand doesn't work very well for right handed people, who are the vast majority.

Is like asking a PC player to put the mouse in their left hand and use right for KB.
 
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.

The only first or third person shooter released on the N64 before Turok is Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, you know, so "almost no game used that until Turok" means almost nothing...

As for Doom 64 and Hexen 64, those games don't really need a look up/down command much, so they're fine with movement on the stick. In Goldeneye the default is a pretty bad control scheme, but you can switch to Turok controls. Shadows of the Empire does indeed have bad controls, but it's pre-Turok. Not sure what else is an issue.
 
As for Doom 64 and Hexen 64, those games don't really need a look up/down command much, so they're fine with movement on the stick.

This is true, but having the C buttons for movement/ strafing and the analogue stick for turning would have still benefited the game greatly even if their wasn't look up and down. But Doom 64 was still quite playable how it was.
 
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.
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.

It might depend on the particular people you (or I) were exposed to.

I was a Nintendo fanboy from NES through GameCube. In my experience, Sega was the one who kicked off the "Sega is cool/adult, Nintendo is dorky/childish" thing. Nintendo fought this perception with things like the Super Metroid ad campaign, but they also fed it with things like censoring the blood in Mortal Kombat.

When Sony came along, they managed to one-up Sega in coolness and adult sophistication, but right from the beginning when Killer Instinct was revealed for the N64, I heard a lot of "Wow, what a tryhard. Overcompensating much?" The kiddie image was a cancer in Nintendo's PR, and no matter how hard NOA tried, they couldn't get it to die.

When the GameCube came out, NCL appeared to embrace the family-friendly image, while NOA turned into the Iraqi Information Minister, trying to assure the American public that Nintendo was not kiddie. It wasn't just because the console was a purple lunchbox that people thought it was for children, it was also people saying "See, I knew it, I knew all along that this was what you'd rather be doing."
 
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.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly. "Word of mouth" was definitely a factor in helping drive the perception that Nintendo was kiddy. Gamers have always called Nintendo "kiddy" back in the 90s and early-mid 2000s. Go read any thread on the Internet from back then.

N64 was absolutely known as a kiddie system back then despite having Goldeneye and the premiere wrestling games.

Gamecube was when it really stuck though.

I'm not sure why everybody says it "stuck" with the Gamecube. It seems like the term "kiddie" stopped being a thing after the GC. In fact, the only Nintendo consoles that were called "kiddie" were the SNES, N64, and GC (I don't think the NES was really ever called that since it basically had a monopoly on the market at the time, and the console saw a lot of adult oriented games). I don't see people ever calling the Wii or Wii U "kiddy" consoles.

Why is this not a thread about Blast Corps?

Blast Corps doesn't really count. It's a second party game. :p
 
I'm not sure why everybody says it "stuck" with the Gamecube. It seems like the term "kiddie" stopped being a thing after the GC. In fact, the only Nintendo consoles that were called "kiddie" were the SNES, N64, and GC (I don't think the NES was really ever called that since it basically had a monopoly on the market at the time, and the console saw a lot of adult oriented games). I don't see people ever calling the Wii or Wii U "kiddy"

I think your mixing up, attacks by fanboys, as something being known as kiddie. super nes was only called kiddie against the Genesis cause mortal Kombat had no blood, other wise super nes won that generation, they both had similar games, so there was no real reason to call it kiddie.
 
I'm not sure what you mean exactly. "Word of mouth" was definitely a factor in helping drive the perception that Nintendo was kiddy. Gamers have always called Nintendo "kiddy" back in the 90s and early-mid 2000s. Go read any thread on the Internet from back then.

I think Nintendo gave themselves the "kiddy" image, especially with their strict censorship laws. But, this was long before the ERSB, and there was no universal game rating system put in place, so Nintendo had to create their own guidelines that all other third parties had to adhere too. Nintendo didn't want to disrupt their relationship with retailers in the North American over complaining parents and/or other special interest groups that could create uproars over violent and questionable content. They had to play it very safe when it came to content within their games. That's one of the reason why the Nintendo Seal of Approval existed.

This was a very easy thing for a competitor like Sega to prey upon, their marketing team knew that they could exploit this with the whole "Sega is cool, Nintendo is for the kiddies" aspect. They also knew that a lot of the younger NES generation of children were growing into their teens and looking for something a little edgier than what Nintendo had to offer.

Sega tried to enforce their own rating system called the Videogame Rating Council, so they could release games with more "mature" content in them. This was a system that was open to everyone and was not limited to just Sega consoles. Some companies did adopt this, but Nintendo did not.

During the 1993 senate hearings for violent video games, Nintendo poked a lot of holes through Sega's rating system and even called it flawed. This put the ERSB in motion that supplanted Sega's VRC. It wasn't until 1994-ish when Nintendo dropped their censorship laws and moved over to the ERSB. That's when they became more hands off with third party developers.

But even after Nintendo eased off on censorship, they still had the stigma of being "kiddy", which was easily exploitable by Sony and later competitors. Though me personally, I always thought that Nintendo should be happy with their family friendly image. It's what makes them Nintendo.
 
Rented starcraft 64 when I was a kid and that shit blew my mind.

I think there was a command & conquer too?

Yep, there was a port of the first C&C on the N64. Because if it worked for PC shooters, why not try to get the RTS guys too?
A similar thing happened with the DS which received versions of Age of Empires and Anno - it always reminded me of the N64 situation where PC gamers and console gamers overlapped.

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.

That game was so hard. It was also adorably unique and weird in it's gameplay approach. Sadly the second one was canned into development, but I heard that it's similar to the Starfox 2 situation, where it eventually turned up on emulators..

Why is this not a thread about Blast Corps?

Because Blast Corps isn't 3rd Party. It was a wonderful game though. I'd love to see the idea revisited sometime in the future.

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.

I remember something similar. I have no idea when and where I read it though but I remember that I was upset, because I'd much rather have had FFVII than RE2.
 
I think your mixing up, attacks by fanboys, as something being known as kiddie. super nes was only called kiddie against the Genesis cause mortal Kombat had no blood, other wise super nes won that generation, they both had similar games, so there was no real reason to call it kiddie.

Well, yeah. The term "kiddie" was definitely made up and used by fanboys against Nintendo, but this was a pretty big issue for Nintendo back then. The perception of Nintendo throughout the industry was that they were kiddy. It doesn't really matter that the SNES won, it still had that stigma. The Genesis was seen as the "cool" console.

I think Nintendo gave themselves the "kiddy" image, especially with their strict censorship laws. But, this was long before the ERSB, and there was no universal game rating system put in place, so Nintendo had to create their own guidelines that all other third parties had to adhere too. Nintendo didn't want to disrupt their relationship with retails in the North American market because of complaining parents and/or other special interest groups. They had to play it very safe when it came to content within their games to keep their business model afloat.

This was a very easy thing for a competitor like Sega to prey upon, their marketing team knew that they could exploit this with the whole "Sega is cool, Nintendo is for the kiddies" aspect. They also knew that a lot of the younger NES generation of children were growing into their teens and looking for something a little edgier than what Nintendo had to offer.

Sega tried to enforce their own rating system called the Videogame Rating Council, so they could release games with more "mature" content in them. This was a system that was open to everyone and was not limited to just Sega consoles. Some companies did adopt this, but Nintendo did not.

During the 1993 senate hearings for violent video games, Nintendo poked a lot of holes through Sega's rating system and even called it flawed. This put the ERSB in motion that supplanted Sega's VRC. It wasn't until 1994-ish when Nintendo dropped their censorship laws and moved over to the ERSB. That's when they became more hands off with third party developers.

But even after Nintendo eased off on censorship, they still had the stigma of being "kiddy", which was easily exploitable by Sony and later competitors. Though me personally, I always thought that Nintendo should be happy with their family friendly image. It's what makes them Nintendo.

Good post. I agree with everything you've said. :p

I agree about the fact that it was probably mostly Nintendo's own fault that they had the "kiddie" stigma back then. Sure, "kiddy" was mostly just a dumb term made up by anti-Nintendo fanboys, but Nintendo definitely didn't help with some of the decisions they made back then.
 
Because aiming with your left hand doesn't work very well for right handed people, who are the vast majority.

Is like asking a PC player to put the mouse in their left hand and use right for KB.

You get used to a lot of weird shit when it comes to the N64. Like I can play inverted no problem if it's an N64 game.
 
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

Woah! That's one hell of a collection!

Scimming through your reviews I'd love to revisit this era - there are many games I always wanted to try but couldn't, because gaming on the N64 was a very expensive hobby as a young teen. Sadly, I don't really know a good N64 esque PC controller, which would be somewhat essential for a full nostalgic experience - and Nintendo still doesn't feel like really digging into their N64 vault and getting third parties to participate.
I played through Mario 64 on the Wii VC again a few years back and while the game is still awesome, I felt like it missed something without the familiar N64 controller.
After the SFC30, I'd also love a similar controller, I could use for the N64 VC on Wii U and on PC.

I considered getting a N64 with some games, but since I'm living in PAL country and the N64 was in the middle of the 50Hz dark ages, I don't think I could really go back to games being censored and not running in full framerate.
 
I had a love/hate relationship with my N64 growing up. By then, I had already owned an NES/Genesis/SNES/GameBoy. So I was used to having an abundance of games to at least rent through each of those consoles lifespans(as I only got about three games a year to actually own).

It's funny, because when you consider how few games were released for the N64, there were quite a few gems and some really killer exclusives, even third parties. Though, a lot of those were racing/sports titles and sometimes they would come out in clumps, then a game wouldn't release for months.

If we break it down(including first party games as well). There were only eight N64 games that released in the U.S. in 1996 and only 34 titles in 1997, yes 34.

'98, '99 and '00 were the killer years. Just tons of games released. I had a lot of games to rent during this span haha.

Then 2001 had only 14 U.S. releases and the last and only release in 2002, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3.

Notable third party "console exclusive" games:

All four Aki wrestling games. Seriously some of the best wrestling games ever made, EVER and to some extent have yet to be topped. I recommend importing Virtual Pro Wrestling 2.

Turok Trilogy: The original was a classic. Two was very ambitious and looked gorgeous, but had a horrid frame rate and shit save points. I felt 3 was pretty overlooked, even though it was heavily inspired by Half-Life. Though, I wouldn't say that was a bad thing. It also was one of the first games to have lip syncing, which was pretty damn amazing at the time.

All four Star Wars games. Reviews be damned, Shadows of the Empire was incredible to my 13 year old self and I actually replayed through the entire game again recently and despite the wonky ass/slippery controls, I still enjoyed it. Would love an update of it.

Then we got Rogue Squadron which blew fucking minds and was one of the first games to make optional use of the 4mb expansion pak. Really gorgeous game.

Episode 1 racer was just pure fun if a bit shallow and Battle of Naboo was an overlooked successor to Rogue Squadron.

I'm tired now, so I'm just going to list of other notable third party exclusives for now:

Extreme G (and it's sequel)
Snowboard Kids
The Cruis'n games
Body Harvest
Space Station Silicon Valley
Rush 2
Castlevania (and Legacy of Darkness) Yea, I liked them, fuck you :P
Beetle Adventure Racing
Duke Nuken Zero Hour
Both Goemen games
Harvest Moon 64
Ogre Battle 64

and that's not mentioning games that were shared with the Playstation but were superior on the N64: Quake 2, The World is Not Enough, Rainbow Six, Resident Evil 2(debate-able).

Sorry this is a mess and I'm just rambling now. Despite everything or lack there of, the N64 somehow proved to have some solid third party content despite having so few games and with frequent spans of droughts(especially in the first two years and the last few).

Note: By the end of '99, I had saved up enough money to get a Playstation and a bunch of "greatest hit's titles". It was glorious.
 
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.
Everything is mostly shooters now on PS4 and Xbone. It's kinda sad

Yeah, I feel that way too, it feels like every new AAA game nowadays follow a pattern. I'm sure that doesn't happen with indie games, but in the big publisher space they seem to take less chances and even when they do, it's usually something more avant-garde and serious instead of the quirky 'WTF is this' games of the past.

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.

The C-stick on the Gamecube worked very well for it IMO.
 
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.

WTH... You re so wrong
1. Polycount was larger in N64 version. See here:
http://www.vandal.net/foro/mensaje/...21&usg=ALkJrhgOtQK4rllEJubINyX7dtFCil37LA#302
442 polys for PSX Leon model, 1031 for N64 Leon model.
6yRmlRr.png

s8aZIYB.png


2. Blood color change was OPTIONAL
3. So was control change to a "true analog" setting. If one wishes to play with the tank controls, he can.
4. Extras like the item randomiser offered replayability.
5. Resolution was dynamic, changing from 240x320 to 640x480 depending on the load
http://www.vandal.net/foro/mensaje/880573/hilo-de-detalles-y-curiosidades-de-n64/3#32
 
Didn't Nintendo, maybe even Iwata himself come out and say they didn't like third parties being multiplatform in their releases?

I think I remember both Miyamoto and Yamauchi saying that around 2000 or 2001 in the run up to Gamecube. It speaks to the Japanese mentality of making games for platforms as opposed to the western mentality of making games and then putting them on platforms.
 
Yes, compared to post N64 support it was great!

I remember Extreme G, I didn't like it as a game, but the music was very good.

Gamecube was better. It had really good support, and actually got the same versions of most multiplats as PS2 and Xbox. Then with the Wii everything collapsed, of course.
 
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.

It did have the awesome MGS remake TTS (come at me!).
 
WTH... You re so wrong
1. Polycount was larger in N64 version. See here:
http://www.vandal.net/foro/mensaje/...21&usg=ALkJrhgOtQK4rllEJubINyX7dtFCil37LA#302
442 polys for PSX Leon model, 1031 for N64 Leon model.
6yRmlRr.png

s8aZIYB.png


2. Blood color change was OPTIONAL
3. So was control change to a "true analog" setting. If one wishes to play with the tank controls, he can.
4. Extras like the item randomiser offered replayability.
5. Resolution was dynamic, changing from 240x320 to 640x480 depending on the load
http://www.vandal.net/foro/mensaje/880573/hilo-de-detalles-y-curiosidades-de-n64/3#32

The game models may have been higher polygon in the N64 game, but their textures did take a hit in quality.

Here's a comparison of Leon that I put together:

niEGgRC.png


I did grab the PS1 textures from a google search, but they are accurate. The N64 textures were ripped by me. You can see that a lot of Leon's textures were either redrawn or reduced in quality to work within the N64's texture limitations. Leon's facial textures are much higher resolution in the PS1 game.

Comparison between the two models:

(Both these are being run in am emulator at an HD resolution just to give a clearer comparison.)

There are also a lot less variety in zombie models in the N64 game. Mostly in their textures. The pre-rendered backgrounds are a mixed bag too... in some cases they are equal in resolution to the PS1 backgrounds, but in other cases they would get reduced in size.

I still think that RE2 was a great port on the N64, and it was the version that I owned. But some sacrifices were made to make it work.
 
I think Nintendo gave themselves the "kiddy" image, especially with their strict censorship laws. But, this was long before the ERSB, and there was no universal game rating system put in place, so Nintendo had to create their own guidelines that all other third parties had to adhere too. Nintendo didn't want to disrupt their relationship with retailers in the North American over complaining parents and/or other special interest groups that could create uproars over violent and questionable content. They had to play it very safe when it came to content within their games. That's one of the reason why the Nintendo Seal of Approval existed.

This was a very easy thing for a competitor like Sega to prey upon, their marketing team knew that they could exploit this with the whole "Sega is cool, Nintendo is for the kiddies" aspect. They also knew that a lot of the younger NES generation of children were growing into their teens and looking for something a little edgier than what Nintendo had to offer.

Sega tried to enforce their own rating system called the Videogame Rating Council, so they could release games with more "mature" content in them. This was a system that was open to everyone and was not limited to just Sega consoles. Some companies did adopt this, but Nintendo did not.

During the 1993 senate hearings for violent video games, Nintendo poked a lot of holes through Sega's rating system and even called it flawed. This put the ERSB in motion that supplanted Sega's VRC. It wasn't until 1994-ish when Nintendo dropped their censorship laws and moved over to the ERSB. That's when they became more hands off with third party developers.

But even after Nintendo eased off on censorship, they still had the stigma of being "kiddy", which was easily exploitable by Sony and later competitors. Though me personally, I always thought that Nintendo should be happy with their family friendly image. It's what makes them Nintendo.
This is mostly true, but it didn't only start because of Nintendo censorship; Nintendo's release catalog was a big factor too. Nintendo has always focused first on games for everybody, which to many means "games for kids" since many children like the games. And the marketing reflected this, particularly here in the West; those NES ads all are aimed at young boys. Nintendo's first-party library and marketing is the core of where the "kiddy" image came from. The censorship just added to that.

And yes, Sega with the Genesis and Sony with the Playstation both put a lot of effort into marketing to present Nintendo as childish, so 'if you aren't a little kid you want our system and not Nintendo's, right?'

Also, Nintendo didn't help itself by not releasing some potentially less kid-friendly games outside of Japan -- strategy and adventure games like Famicom Wars, Fire Emblem, Famicom Detective Club, Metal Slader Glory, etc.
 
I think Nintendo gave themselves the "kiddy" image, especially with their strict censorship laws. But, this was long before the ERSB, and there was no universal game rating system put in place, so Nintendo had to create their own guidelines that all other third parties had to adhere too. Nintendo didn't want to disrupt their relationship with retailers in the North American over complaining parents and/or other special interest groups that could create uproars over violent and questionable content. They had to play it very safe when it came to content within their games. That's one of the reason why the Nintendo Seal of Approval existed.

This was a very easy thing for a competitor like Sega to prey upon, their marketing team knew that they could exploit this with the whole "Sega is cool, Nintendo is for the kiddies" aspect. They also knew that a lot of the younger NES generation of children were growing into their teens and looking for something a little edgier than what Nintendo had to offer.

Sega tried to enforce their own rating system called the Videogame Rating Council, so they could release games with more "mature" content in them. This was a system that was open to everyone and was not limited to just Sega consoles. Some companies did adopt this, but Nintendo did not.

During the 1993 senate hearings for violent video games, Nintendo poked a lot of holes through Sega's rating system and even called it flawed. This put the ERSB in motion that supplanted Sega's VRC. It wasn't until 1994-ish when Nintendo dropped their censorship laws and moved over to the ERSB. That's when they became more hands off with third party developers.

But even after Nintendo eased off on censorship, they still had the stigma of being "kiddy", which was easily exploitable by Sony and later competitors. Though me personally, I always thought that Nintendo should be happy with their family friendly image. It's what makes them Nintendo.

This is mostly true, but it didn't only start because of Nintendo censorship; Nintendo's release catalog was a big factor too. Nintendo has always focused first on games for everybody, which to many means "games for kids" since many children like the games. And the marketing reflected this, particularly here in the West; those NES ads all are aimed at young boys. Nintendo's first-party library and marketing is the core of where the "kiddy" image came from. The censorship just added to that.

And yes, Sega with the Genesis and Sony with the Playstation both put a lot of effort into marketing to present Nintendo as childish, so 'if you aren't a little kid you want our system and not Nintendo's, right?'

Also, Nintendo didn't help itself by not releasing some potentially less kid-friendly games outside of Japan -- strategy and adventure games like Famicom Wars, Fire Emblem, Famicom Detective Club, Metal Slader Glory, 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.

Yep.

That's why Iwata's tenure decision to embrace a more family-friendly direction was a terrible idea and Nintendo fell pray for the antagonism created by their competitors. It was a huge lack of awareness from the new direction. Nintendo was already being viewed by the market as a "kiddy" company, which was a marketing strategy from Sega and Sony in order to grab it's market, and that was being toxic for it already. Embracing this strategy was a shot in the foot and negatively impacted Nintendo's image.

I know many people love Zelda: Wind Waker to death and it's one of the favorite games by many Nintendo fans, but the aesthetic chosen, cutesy and cartoony graphics, in contrast to the Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask's, helped to consolide this bias even further. Super Mario Sunshine and Mario Kart: Double Dash didn't helped either, especially after a mindblowing graphic achievement that Super Mario 64 was when came out.

Disbanding western second-parties and publishing deals, shutting down the whole western gaming division, completely change of a western studio original direction (Retro Studios) and removal of it's previous autonomy were definitive for Nintendo's progressive lack of appeal to the western market and consequently loss of third-party support in the region. This was pivotal for Microsoft's rise in the market, they managed to grab N64's western teen-mature crowd.

From the GCN onward, I wholeheartedly that Nintendo was responsible for improving this image. The result is here: Nintendo's library, or even it's remaining third-party support, has a very restricted range of different genres and ages and diversification is severely lacking, something crucial for a first-party and a hardware maker needs in order to succeed.
 
Yep.

That's why Iwata's tenure decision to embrace a more family-friendly direction was a terrible idea and Nintendo fell pray for the antagonism created by their competitors. It was a huge lack of awareness from the new direction. Nintendo was already being viewed by the market as a "kiddy" company, which was a marketing strategy from Sega and Sony in order to grab it's market, and that was being toxic for it already. Embracing this strategy was a shot in the foot and negatively impacted Nintendo's image.

I know many people love Zelda: Wind Waker to death and it's one of the favorite games by many Nintendo fans, but the aesthetic chosen, cutesy and cartoony graphics, in contrast to the Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask's, helped to consolide this bias even further. Super Mario Sunshine and Mario Kart: Double Dash didn't helped either, especially after a mindblowing graphic achievement that Super Mario 64 was when came out.

Disbanding western second-parties and publishing deals, shutting down the whole western gaming division, completely change of a western studio original direction (Retro Studios) and removal of it's previous autonomy were definitive for Nintendo's progressive lack of appeal to the western market and consequently loss of third-party support in the region. This was pivotal for Microsoft's rise in the market, they managed to grab N64's western teen-mature crowd.

From the GCN onward, I wholeheartedly that Nintendo was responsible for improving this image. The result is here: Nintendo's library, or even it's remaining third-party support, has a very restricted range of different genres and ages and diversification is severely lacking, something crucial for a first-party and a hardware maker needs in order to succeed.

I can't believe Nintendo just let Rare go like that. It's weird to think about. Imagine if Sony just let Nintendo or Microsoft (or whoever else) buy Naughty Dog. That's how it would be like. Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. ._.
 
With stuff like the RE2 comparision, I'd love to see any site or anyone on GAF do something like Digital Foundry for older multiplatform games.

Rayman 2, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, Duke Nukem 3D etc. with in depth stuff going from framerate over texture quality, polygons console exclusive stuff... I'd find that really interesting.
 
With stuff like the RE2 comparision, I'd love to see any site or anyone on GAF do something like Digital Foundry for older multiplatform games.

Rayman 2, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, Duke Nukem 3D etc. with in depth stuff going from framerate over texture quality, polygons console exclusive stuff... I'd find that really interesting.

Me too. One of the things I find overlooked whenever people discuss visuals of the generation is the N64's ability to do stuff like lighting, which goes a long way for making up for its lack of texture quality.
 
Right, that game was pretty cool, even if it wasn't for me...

Forsaken was had a really cool N64 version too.

Forsaken 64 is a good example of the previous statement: it had GREAT music, even if the gameplay wasn't for everyone.
 
In comparison to what came after, it seems good. Compared to what came before, it was abysmal.

Squaresoft was basically a free first-party Nintendo developer prior to N64. They took Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger and all their new games with them to PlayStation.

Capcom did the same with Mega Man, Street Fighter, Breath of Fire, etc and new games like Resident Evil.

Konami took Metal Gear with them. EA took Madden, NHL, etc.

The list goes on and on. Nintendo had a near monopoly before the Sony/Nintendo fallout that ended with the creation of the Sony PlayStation instead of the Nintendo PlayStation CD.
 
And you didn't even mention that it had the best version of Resident Evil 2 of that generation with better graphics, analog control options and some extra content (new lore files).

And god damn StarCraft was on that thing lol.



That's a perception issue. The Wii library has a ton of quality third party titles. It just happens to be titles that for the most part flew under the radar because they didn't align with enthusiast trends of cinematic narrative action games.

Or got stuck in Japan. The Wii's third party stuff was is probably the best it's been on a Nintendo home console since the SNES since the switch is mostly ports or low end multiplats. Very few ground up releases and exclusives are actually being made on it thus far.
 
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Yes, compared to post N64 support it was great!

I remember Extreme G, I didn't like it as a game, but the music was very good.
I loved extreme-g all the loops and hills in the maps were awesome. They should have expanded more on it. Unfortunately for me extreme g 2 didn't do it justice.
 
I wish they would remake Rogue Squadron in VR, especially after that taste of the VR mission in Star Wars Battlefront. Admittedly I didn't get a N64 until the PS2/ Original Xbox/ GameCube era, I was Christmas shopping for my brother at EB Games and saw a stack of N64's for sale for $10.00 each. The one on the top was all in its original packaging mint as if someone had played it once and put it all back in the crisp box with all the Nintendo pamphlets and invitations to join Nintendo Power. I grabbed the box and an employee to confirm the price then everyone in the store dog piled the stack, none in the original boxes though except for the one I grabbed and I still have that N64 that I use.

I slowly built up and collected what I missed over the years as I grew up playing on friends N64's and had opted to buy a Playstation, obviously GoldenEye, MarioKart 64, Zelda: Ocarina Of Time and Star Wars Shadows Of The Empire were my first pickups. I recently did purchase Rogue Squadron winning it in an online auction and once it arrived and I got a chance to play it I was really surprised at how good it still looked, which probably means back in the day it was mind blowing.

Overall for my Nintendo stuff, my N64/ GameCube collections are the "thinnest" but out of those gens there are some real gems too the missing 3rd party support was notable as those were more Sony heavy gens for me personally.
 
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