It didn't get the first one. You correct me and that makes me a troll account? Gtfo
Nice troll account.
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Original Xbox - Nintendo 64 spiritual successor?
- Thread starter Jubenhimer
- Start date
- Opinion Retro Platform
Jubenhimer
Member
It was an interesting dichotomy within Nintendo that generation because while NCL (Japan) had convinced themselves that the N64 didn't need third party support, Nintendo of America put a lot of effort into getting whoever they could to support the N64. I think that's reflected in the third party lineup for the system, because support from Japanese publishers was pretty non-existent compared to support from Western publishers. And while the PlayStation was still leagues ahead in terms of support worldwide, the N64 fared better in terms of western support than people give it credit for.
Ironically, the Xbox did a lot better with Japanese support than the N64 did, with companies like Capcom, Tecmo, Sega, and Konami regularly supporting it (PS2 was still the leader obviously, but the Xbox wasn't too bad on this front either) and it had even better western support than the N64 as well.
Nintendo games often sell crazy numbers though, due in part to how tightly integrated their software and hardware are with each other. I can't say anything about the N64 in this regard, but third parties have seen success on Nintendo hardware even after the SNES. Nintendo games doing so well doesn't necessarily mean third parties sell badly. It really depends on the success of the system itself.
Xaeroxcore666
Member
Dreamcast had also lotta musthaves and actual killer apps which made history. DC has 16 games with 90 or above metascore vs 16...the same number for N64!!! But DC lived less than half the lifetime of N64 on the market...So go wonder what could had achieved if it would had lived at least 1 or 2 years more... And yes, before you say it, ik now Ocarina is Number 1, but Soul Calibur is 2nd, or Third, not sure why when you look the whole list now PS1 Pro Skater 2, which has 98 metascore, is not showing...By the way, some of the PS1 titles above 90 metascore are also available on DC, and improved to be the best versions from that era, like THPS2 itself , THPS1, RE3, Street Fighter Alpha 3...So, no random titles.Exactly, that was wonderful time with every console having their own very distingtive high quality exclusives, n64 had plenty musthaves on its own, mario64, re4, goldeneye, perfect dark, banjo-kazooie, banjo-tooie just to name a few, we talking well above 90meta of quality, not ur random 85metascore title
Look, it´s the 12 yrs old Sony fan roaming around....
PeteBull
Member
I loved dreamcast here, i kinda knew its gonna fail so i never bought it myself, instead i played it fanatically durning summertime when i borrowed it from my buddy(he got my ps2 instead, so both of us benefited greatly ;p ).
cinnamonandgravy
Member
my first thought was no
and after reading everything, its still no
and after reading everything, its still no
Xaeroxcore666
Member
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Oh man, I completely forgot about the Goemon games xD. Probably because last time I tried playing one, the robot boss fight pissed me off to the point I stopped playing, and I've tried blocking out the memory (this was Goemon 64).
In USA:
Xbox (OG)'s top 10 doesn't have the same overlap.
You could draw some parallel between GoldenEye 007 and Halo (multiple games) and say Star Wars shifted toward the american console (Knights of the Old Republic I&II and Battlefront I&II were hits), even though Star Wars Rogue Squadron II was also successful on GC but that's it.
There is no parallel with Super Mario 64/Donkey Kong 64, Mario Kart 64/Diddy Kong Racing, Zelda, Smash Bros, Star Fox and of course Pokemon.
EDIT:
As for Sega mass exodus post-Dreamcast, Sonic and Super Monkey Ball franchises found home on Nintendo platforms.
IMO you can't just go by Top 10 lists or expect exact parallels of SM64/DK64 etc. to the Xbox, and then use that to dismiss parallels.
I'd still say a strong through line of both systems is the Western support they received; I'd actually say the Dreamcast benefited a lot from the N64 in that respect, and of course the Xbox benefited from Dreamcast given it was such a spiritual successor in many ways.
I think SEGA simply didn't want to bet the farm on one given system that gen because even tho Dreamcast died before PS2 really took off (with its library), they probably still thought that gen could've played out closer than it did sales-wise between PS2, GameCube and Xbox. A lot of people did, in fact.
That, and there wasn't a genuine multiplatform engine with wide support available that gen until RenderWare hit the scene, but SEGA (and most Japanese devs) didn't use RenderWare; they went with proprietary in-house engines and those engines were seemingly platform-specific. It might've actually been even more unique than that, as in specific games just had their own engine environments bespoke to them that'd maybe get re-used in parts by other games, or maybe not.
Stuff like RenderWare or even multi-game reusable in-house engines just feels like it was a quite Western thing during the late '90s and early '00s.
Well, not by itself that's for sure. PS2, Wii, DS and PS3 contributed a hell of a lot too.
But yeah, OG Xbox did contribute a lot to gaming, same with 360. Everything just started slowly falling apart with Xbox once 8th gen started, and it's basically a dead console brand this gen, or in a zombie-like state at best.
Not a good idea to measure a console's impact simply by its sales numbers. Or a game's, for that matter. Sales only tell one part of the story.
Yes those other Nintendo systems had Western support, but they were always outshined by Japanese devs since Japanese devs actually supported those systems heavily. That wasn't the case for N64, so in that vacuum the Western support got some room to shine on the stage, as it were, than in gens before that.
Yep; due to the absence of high-profile Japanese support, Western 3P had a lot of room to shine on N64 that they didn't get on PS1 because, usually, on PS1 a Japanese 3P would outdo them in the genre spaces typically present on console at that time.
Like sure, a Western 3P would've put out a better console FPS, but FPS on console was quite niche during 5th gen in terms of being one of the "big" genres, unless you were on N64, and even that was only a bigger genre post-GoldenEye, not prior.
SEGA, IIRC, were actually the best-performing 3P on GameCube, thanks largely to Sonic. But that makes a lot of sense considering the audience crossover despite the 16-bit rivalry.
Obviously a top 10 best selling games list is composed of just 10 games, a small size compared to the entire library even for the anemic N64 library, however they are the most representative games that pushed the adoption of the console.
In fact, unit sales wise, those 10 games represents about 28.6% of all N64 software sales in U.S. based on NPD estimates so if one of the parallel exposed in the OP is how both N64 and Xbox OG were strongly carried by the U.S. market I'd say an analysis of the leading software [in the U.S. market] is of significance.
PC games later ported to N64 represent a small subset of the N64 library.
Rareware offerings on Xbox (OG) pales compared to the one on N64 and I'd even say it's weaker than what Nintendo platforms received that generation.
Xbox (OG): Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Conker: Live & Reloaded.
Gamecube: Star Fox Adventures.
Game Boy Advance: Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, Sabre Wulf, Donkey Kong Country 2, Banjo-Pilot, It's Mr Pants and Donkey Kong Country 3.
Best selling/most popular Rare game of that generation: Star Fox Adventures.
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NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
Interesting opinion, but the differences outnumber the similarities.
All-American system with very forward-looking hardware features vs the last bastion of cartridge-based living-room consoles.
Very powerful and developer-friendly vs powerful on paper, but severely bottlenecked.
Excellent support from both western and Japanese devs vs the poorest support a mainstream standalone console ever had.
Controller that established a defacto standard for the next 25 years vs the most bespoke, maligned first-party controller ever made.
OG Xbox would have been such an easy sell, even to the casuals, if not for three big problems:
- Microsoft's laser focus on the US market, with complete ignorance and disdain for the rest of the world.
- the ridiculous price of the thing. It launched at €479 in Europe (for reference, the GC launched at around €219), which priced it out of the majority's pockets and made a very bad impression that the quick price cut couldn't cancel.
- that little elephant in the room called the PS2.
In comparison, the N64 was simply a bad proposition for casuals, and even for many gamers. The controller was unfathomable. The games were outrageously expensive, in an age when the PS1 had radically brought down the cost of software (and was piss easy to pirate game for). There were simply not enough games, and too many genres and devs almost completely neglected the system. Also, it wasn't cool, except maybe for its audacious design. It was the age when consoles were about being cool, and Dreamcast and Xbox understood it perfectly, while Nintendo didn't get the memo.
All-American system with very forward-looking hardware features vs the last bastion of cartridge-based living-room consoles.
Very powerful and developer-friendly vs powerful on paper, but severely bottlenecked.
Excellent support from both western and Japanese devs vs the poorest support a mainstream standalone console ever had.
Controller that established a defacto standard for the next 25 years vs the most bespoke, maligned first-party controller ever made.
OG Xbox would have been such an easy sell, even to the casuals, if not for three big problems:
- Microsoft's laser focus on the US market, with complete ignorance and disdain for the rest of the world.
- the ridiculous price of the thing. It launched at €479 in Europe (for reference, the GC launched at around €219), which priced it out of the majority's pockets and made a very bad impression that the quick price cut couldn't cancel.
- that little elephant in the room called the PS2.
In comparison, the N64 was simply a bad proposition for casuals, and even for many gamers. The controller was unfathomable. The games were outrageously expensive, in an age when the PS1 had radically brought down the cost of software (and was piss easy to pirate game for). There were simply not enough games, and too many genres and devs almost completely neglected the system. Also, it wasn't cool, except maybe for its audacious design. It was the age when consoles were about being cool, and Dreamcast and Xbox understood it perfectly, while Nintendo didn't get the memo.
nial
Member
It's still notable enough and bigger support than what PS1 received.
Yeah, I don't care about Rareware (outside of the DKC trilogy), so I don't really care about what's considered "good" from them.
The vibes are still there and I don't see the point of denying it.
touchfuzzy
Member
I don't think something that has an actual successor (the Gamecube) can have a spirtual one. Hence why the Xbox is likened more to the Dreamcast.
Are you sure? Because I find your statement to be impossible.
PS1 eat alive N64 in term of third-party support (on any latitude).
The "vibes" are still there because you don't care about the vibes.
Yet N64 outsold both DC and XB OG (the controller wasn't "unfathomable" enough it seems).
N64 brought as a standard the analogue stick and four local multiplayer. Not bad.
Nintendo also continued the hypertrophic growth of its first-party games on N64, in fact if one observes carefully it would notice that many popular Nintendo games on Switch have their roots on N64.
The other stark difference between N64 and DC/XB OG is that the former earner good money for the console maker while the latter two incurred in billions of losses.
Someone didn't get the memo.
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nial
Member
I thought it was pretty obvious I was referring to the matter of PC ports.
They're there because no other console from their respective gens had as many, if any, Rareware games.
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NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
The N64 was much more affordable at launch than the OG Xbox. It came out a generation before, when Nintendo's star was still shining bright, and it brought some authentically revolutionary games to the table. In spite of all this, it got trounced by the cooler console that had all the games.
N64 outsold Xbox because Xbox was up against the PS2. We can only speculate how well Xbox, GC and DC could have done if their competitor wasn't the PS2. But it was. Any PS2 competitor would literally have to release one revolutionary exclusive after another to actually compete, and it still probably wouldn't have come close. Against anything else but the PS2, it's likely that OG Xbox would have fared much better - numbers for Gen 7 suggest this.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
But you are, then, agreeing with the take that the U.S was a major market for both? Because that's something I think we can agree on.
And that being the case, even if most of N64's Top 10 was carried by Japanese games, that doesn't invalidate the claim that Western support was particularly strong on the platform relative the total library size, and had more room to shine vs. other platforms like PS1, where Japanese support was incredibly strong vs. N64, particularly for 3P.
N64 wasn't seen as cool? Then how come it competed fairly well in the West with PS1 through a big part of its lifecycle? There were quite a few times where N64 actually outsold the PS1 for given months through 1996, '97, 98, '99 and '00. PS1 still won most months, but I'd say N64 was quite more competitive against PS1 in Western markets than, say, XBO was with PS4. But, I'm just going off interpretation and impressions, don't have any sales numbers to check on verifying that belief.
Also you can't underestimate the boost things like Pokemon did for N64's perception. It definitely lacked in mature games compared to PS1, but it having home versions of games in the biggest gaming/card game/anime/merchandise phenomenon of the late '90s (or at least one of them) definitely gave N64 some "cool" prestige. Same with games like GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark, and Conker's Bad Fur Day.
The N64 only some well in the US, it did horrible in Europe. IMO if was the US failure of the Saturn that gave the N64 a chance. It was two horse race, cool people bought the Playstation , babies got the N64 from their moms and grandmas.
At 32 vs 100 million it wasn't even close.
I thought it was pretty obvious I was referring to the matter of PC ports [in the post you've quoted].
I don't think you know the full breath of PS1 library if you think N64 received more port from PC than PS1.
I listed every Rareware game released during the PS2/NGC/XB/GBA era.
Rareware biggest impact on XB OG that gen was the announcement of the acquisition itself more than the games which as already said were just a couple and not meaningful for the console.
nial
Member
Okay, you won, I just don't care enough to be invested on this, lol.
Trogdor1123
Gold Member
Don't think I really agree (on some parts). Games cost too much to cut out major markets now days. It's just to much of a risk for most games.
EverydayBeast
ChatGPT 0.001
N64 was cool, Xbox tried to replicate pc gaming online.
nkarafo
Member
The N64 also had to compete with the original Playstation at it's peak. Sure, PS2 sold even more than that but the market was also growing since overall sales of all consoles during 6th gen is higher VS 5th gen.
The N64 also had to deal with a lot of bad press and word of mouth due to the usage of cartridges. For a lot of people this was the sole reason not to get the console. Being a big name in the industry probably didn't help as much because by the time the N64 got released Sega was already getting destroyed by Sony. And the N64 was too late in the party so at that point, the big name in the industry was Sony and Nintendo was the underdog.
So all things considered, i would say the N64 had a harder time than the og XBOX. Yet it managed to be more successful because, like you said, it was releasing one revolutionary exclusive after the other.
That's the same difference ratio as the N64 VS Saturn sales btw.
More like casual/non-gamers bought the PS1. Sony marketed it to said people and managed to make video games more mainstream, for better or worse.
The N64 still managed to sell to a large crowd since 32 million wasn't bad, it was as much as the Genesis worldwide and that was Sega's most successful console ever.
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I think it cultivated the FPS multiplayer audience the N64 had a niche for, those that liked Goldeneye, Duke Nukem and Turok found at home with the Xbox. I would say a lot of the OG Xbox buyers were Sega refugees, the original Xbox itself felt like an evolution of Sega and whilst many compare it to the Dreamcast, I think it touched base with the MegaDrive crowd when you consider the 'attitude' marketing that both of them shared.