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[Trilobit]

This thread was a lot more heated than I anticipated when clicking on it.

N64 mostly defined the way free roaming 3D will work with Mario 64. Tomb Raider's controls are too stiff and limited, even pre-defined. It feels like a 3D Prince of Persia. Mario 64 on the other hand really feels like a 3D Mario, with a much higher freedom of movement, smoother and more precise controls, etc. I know Nintendo didn't invent analog controls but they were the first who did them right for a free roaming 3D world.

Then you had things like WaveRace (which i still don't think has been bettered), Zelda with it's big landscapes (at the time) standardizing the way you lock at enemies in a 3D world, Goldeneye making all sorts of innovations for console FPS games and inventing dual analog controls for the genre (even though very few noticed), etc.

N64 wasn't the first 3D console obviously but some of it's games improved and standardized a lot of things for 3D games.

I'm amazed by how much Nintendo got right from the start. OoT doesn't just control excellently, it also tells its story wonderfully and depicts a rich and atmospheric world. SM64 nails the controls with an incredibly advanced moveset, maybe the most advanced of the Mario games, and stellar platform challenges. MK64 provides great challenge from the NPCs, but also a terrific incorporation of multiplayer modes. I still remember how perfect it felt to hold the z-button and then launching a shell at some unsuspecting friend in battle mode. Not to mention the variety in level design.

It's honestly baffling thinking about it. They just knocked it out of the park time and time again in their first foray into 3D.

 

[nkarafo]

It's honestly baffling thinking about it. They just knocked it out of the park time and time again in their first foray into 3D.

That's true. Almost every attempt of going from 2D to 3D was very successful.

Super Mario 64? Nailed it.
Pilotwings 64? Nailed it.
Starfox 64? Nailed it.
Legend of Zelda? Nailed it. Twice.
F-Zero X? Nailed it.

They also succeeded at making original N64 titles:

Wave Race 64
1080 Snowboarding
Paper Mario
Super Smash Bros.
Animal Crossing

My only objections are Mario Kart 64 and Yoshi's Story.

I was never a huge fan of Mario Kart 64 personally and IMO, it was surpassed pretty quickly by Diddy Kong Racing. Also, later Mario Kart games are undoubtedly better in every way (except for the music in some instances). While with other games like Zelda or Mario it's still arguable. IMO, F-Zero X is better than GX and i don't think anyone disagrees Starfox 64 hasn't been bettered by later entries or even similar 3D rail shooters.

Yoshi's Story is.... fine. It's also extremely beautiful to look at. But Yoshi's Island is on another level. It's almost as if Nintendo became so good at designing 3D games that they forgot how to make 2D ones.

And i guess they were too busy making all these great games, they didn't have time to make a 3D Metroid game. Prime was great on GC but i would love to see what Nintendo themselves could do on N64, given how good all the other games turned out.

 

[PurePlatinum]

Gotta be Perfect Dark right?

 

[Redneckerz]

You speak as if your opinion is accurate.

The N64 was NOT impressive, relative to where technology was already heading at the time (3D).

The N64 was impressive to Nintendo gamers, that only stayed in their ecosystem.

That's the honest truth.

Literally did transform and lighting before the PC space but sure.

You and Nevermind (Why is that honk not axed?) clearly arent aged 30 or later because you never did witness that generation.

Console War Honks in full effect.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

There was a racing game called Top Gear Overdrive that looked excellent. Our boy wonder Ezra Dreisbach (of Lobotomy Trilogy fame) was the coder behind that title, and his brilliant skills are on full display.

Beetle Adventure Racing was always a personal favorite. I loved the multiple pathways on each course and varying environments. Wasn't there a dinosaur somewhere, or am I thinking of something else? Anyway, I loved how nicely this one looked.

Conker's Bad Fur Day always looked wonderful to my eyes, the pinnacle of Rare's 3D platforming, at least visually. The gameplay took a backseat to the story, a trend that would explode in the future, but at least here the jokes are really funny. I still think the "Great and Mighty Poo" song number is riotously hilarious.

Nintendo 64 has some genuine strengths, like the z-buffer and perspective correction that provide the supremely stable 3D polygon worlds (wheras PlayStation and Saturn often struggled with stumbling around drunk to varying degrees). On the downside, the cartridge format and the severe hardware bottlenecks resulted in very simplistic art designs: simple polygon environments, watered-down texture mapping, extremely chunky character designs. And so it all comes down to the skills of the artists, and your own personal nostalgia. If you played Goldeneye, Zelda or F-Zero to death, you'll love those. But I suspect that, by this point in time, N64 has become one of those "you had to be there" things.

PS: Don't wish to start any console wars, but Panzer Dragoon Zwei absolutely stomps Starfox 64 to pieces. They're both great videogames, but it's not a close contest.

 

[Drell]

Nintendo 64 has some genuine strengths, like the z-buffer and perspective correction that provide the supremely stable 3D polygon worlds (wheras PlayStation and Saturn often struggled with stumbling around drunk to varying degrees). On the downside, the cartridge format and the severe hardware bottlenecks resulted in very simplistic art designs: simple polygon environments, watered-down texture mapping, extremely chunky character designs. And so it all comes down to the skills of the artists, and your own personal nostalgia. If you played Goldeneye, Zelda or F-Zero to death, you'll love those. But I suspect that, by this point in time, N64 has become one of those "you had to be there" things.

Choosing these tiny and expensive 8 MB cartridge (in 96) should be part of the hall of shame of the video game decisions ever made by a big company such as Nintendo.

 

[Lionel Richie]

Conker's Bad Fur Day always looked wonderful to my eyes, the pinnacle of Rare's 3D platforming, at least visually. The gameplay took a backseat to the story, a trend that would explode in the future, but at least here the jokes are really funny. I still think the "Great and Mighty Poo" song number is riotously hilarious.

I don't really agree here about the gameplay taking a backseat to the story, I remember replaying CBFD when Rare Replay came out and marvelling at how ahead of its time it was on a lot of shit you do in the game. Granted, I don't remember what my keen observations were lol so it wasn't probably anything groundbreaking, but I do remember feeling like oh yeah this kind of game would get perfected in the following generation.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

Conker's Bad Fur Day used a 64MB cartridge, and ~45MB of that is estimated to be the audio. Insane.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Choosing these tiny and expensive 8 MB cartridge (in 96) should be part of the hall of shame of the video game decisions ever made by a big company such as Nintendo.

Three reasons why Nintendo 64 used cartridges instead of discs:

1. Using CD-ROM would have meant paying royalties to Sony. Obviously, Nintendo was not about to do that--Yamauchi-san would never allow that in a million years.

2. The use of a disc drive would have raised the cost of the hardware, and it was absolutely critical that Nintendo 64 could meet that $149 mass market price point without taking losses (Nintendo always sold hardware at a profit). That's why the N64 motherboard is stripped down to the bone, like Matt Damon's rocket capsule in The Martian. Such are the challenges when going against a $60 billion electronics giant.

3. Nintendo made their money manufacturing cartridges. That was their real business model (note how they returned to carts with the Switch). Sticking to that storage format meant a reliable income stream at a time when Sony was smashing the videogame industry apart like Godzilla on a bender.

 

[Haint]

The really late-gen Factor 5 Rogue Squadron game in the expansion pack high-res mode almost rivaled early Dreamcast and PS2 games.

 

[kevboard]

The really late-gen Factor 5 Rogue Squadron game in the expansion pack high-res mode almost rivaled early Dreamcast and PS2 games.

they wrote their own microcode for it and developed a completely new engine because they thought their previous engine wasn't good enough lol... and that engine already pushed the N64 hard. that new microcode allowed them to render thousands of particles at once without dropping frames.

 

[BlackTron]

Three reasons why Nintendo 64 used cartridges instead of discs:

1. Using CD-ROM would have meant paying royalties to Sony. Obviously, Nintendo was not about to do that--Yamauchi-san would never allow that in a million years.

2. The use of a disc drive would have raised the cost of the hardware, and it was absolutely critical that Nintendo 64 could meet that $149 mass market price point without taking losses (Nintendo always sold hardware at a profit). That's why the N64 motherboard is stripped down to the bone, like Matt Damon's rocket capsule in The Martian. Such are the challenges when going against a $60 billion electronics giant.

3. Nintendo made their money manufacturing cartridges. That was their real business model (note how they returned to carts with the Switch). Sticking to that storage format meant a reliable income stream at a time when Sony was smashing the videogame industry apart like Godzilla on a bender.

All else being equal, it should be easy for Nintendo to win being the existing dominant force. They weren't equal, because Sony was kinder to publishers and had better storage. Both of these issues were in Nintendo's control, so they made mistakes.

They probably had a very long list of reasons to make the choices they did. But one reason not to would be "we want to succeed". Nintendo could only sell carts to publishers bothering to sell games on them.

Easily their most impactful mistake of all time. Changed the gaming timeline. Empowered Sony, started pushing Nintendo into the blue ocean strategy that transformed their identity.

 

[BlackTron]

The really late-gen Factor 5 Rogue Squadron game in the expansion pack high-res mode almost rivaled early Dreamcast and PS2 games.

It came out in 1998, not that late. As mentioned earlier in the thread, I don't think it's much of a looker either. A few levels do stand out, like the first one, but it's nowhere near a DC or PS2 game.

 

[Haint]

It came out in 1998, not that late. As mentioned earlier in the thread, I don't think it's much of a looker either. A few levels do stand out, like the first one, but it's nowhere near a DC or PS2 game.

I remember Best Buy had the desert level on a demo station running in the high-res mode and it looked way beyond any other N64 game I'd ever seen or played. Admittedly 90% of it was probably the resolution, high res modes were super rare and super impressive in the days of 240p and sub-240p. I'm pretty sure they still had that demo running when Dreamcast released in America and it struck me as quite comparable to all but DC's best AAA titles, and seemed quite competitive with shit like Smuggler's Run on PS2. Dreamcast was obviously out in 1998 in Japan so that was a very late-gen N64 game in my view, N64 was dead to me when DC released in NA and was horribly outdated after seeing all the Japanese DC media for a year.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Three reasons why Nintendo 64 used cartridges instead of discs:

1. Using CD-ROM would have meant paying royalties to Sony. Obviously, Nintendo was not about to do that--Yamauchi-san would never allow that in a million years.

2. The use of a disc drive would have raised the cost of the hardware, and it was absolutely critical that Nintendo 64 could meet that $149 mass market price point without taking losses (Nintendo always sold hardware at a profit). That's why the N64 motherboard is stripped down to the bone, like Matt Damon's rocket capsule in The Martian. Such are the challenges when going against a $60 billion electronics giant.

3. Nintendo made their money manufacturing cartridges. That was their real business model (note how they returned to carts with the Switch). Sticking to that storage format meant a reliable income stream at a time when Sony was smashing the videogame industry apart like Godzilla on a bender.

4. Miyamoto himself, during an interview, declared that the CD-Rom wasn't a good medium for video games because of slow loading times. And while it may seem laughable back then, when storage space meant you could put everything and the kitchen sink into a single CD, I guess time has vindicated him. Among the reasons most people would never go back to even last-gen consoles there's the fast loading times provided by SDDs.

Conker's Bad Fur Day used a 64MB cartridge, and ~45MB of that is estimated to be the audio. Insane.

I say this often. CD-Rom was mostly a solution to a problem that didn't really exist at the time. Most devs didn't know what to do with all that space, and the solution was to fill it with low-res MPEG video and audio. Apparently, the entirety of FF7 could easily fit on a single CD - it's the CG scenes that bloated it up to 3 CDs.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

The great advantage of CD-ROM was cost. To manufacture a physical cartridge cost publishers around $10, which translates to $30 added to the retail price--note how cart prices in the late 16-bit era were hovering in the $70-$90 range. In addition, the time to manufacture those cartridges meant that you had to guess the public reaction's to that title. If you ordered too many carts, you ended up losing a lot of money. If you ordered too few carts, you left a lot of money on the table. It was a terrible gamble and nobody was happy about it.

Oh, and did I mention that companies like Nintendo were the sole manufacturers of cartridges on their systems, and you had to go through them in order to publish any software? I can't remember if Sega did the same thing, but they turned out to be just as dictatorial and Napoleonic during the Genesis era. That was one reason why software publishers, especially in the West, embraced Sony so completely.

Meanwhile, CD-ROM cost only $1 to make, and the rollover time was a matter of weeks, not months. That meant you could order new print runs to meet customer demand, and not have to gamble half the company everytime Christmas rolls around. Additionally, because of the far lower manufacturing costs, retail prices came down dramatically. Sony brought PlayStation retail prices to $40, which was another of their many brilliant decisions. Even Sega was able to sell Saturn games for $50 or less, and I remember back in 1997 seeing games selling for as little as $35--why didn't I grab Saturn Bomberman when I had the chance?! Augh!

 

[Trilobit]

My only objections are Mario Kart 64 and Yoshi's Story.

I was never a huge fan of Mario Kart 64 personally and IMO, it was surpassed pretty quickly by Diddy Kong Racing. Also, later Mario Kart games are undoubtedly better in every way (except for the music in some instances).

I still think MK64 is excellent still. It has also the only good Battle Mode out of all the sequels. I've tried BM on DS, GC, Wii and Switch and not a single one has nailed the levels and feel of the N64 one.

 

[Hudo]

If you ever make a thread asking about the best graphics on PS1, I will probably say Vagrant Story.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

As an expert on console history and strategy, I say that using cartridges wasn't a mistake, but Nintendo needed to reassess its royalty policy. Sony charged lower royalties; that alone would have been enough for Nintendo to win the generation.

The really late-gen Factor 5 Rogue Squadron game in the expansion pack high-res mode almost rivaled early Dreamcast and PS2 games.

It's comments like these that end up turning Nintendo fans into meme.

 

[Mownoc]

Banjo Kazooie and Diddy Kong Racing are up there.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

Nintendo 64 has some genuine strengths, like the z-buffer and perspective correction that provide the supremely stable 3D polygon worlds (wheras PlayStation and Saturn often struggled with stumbling around drunk to varying degrees).

Do you want to know the truth? Nobody cared about the supposed strengths of the Nintendo 64.
"Better graphics" is just an alternative name for textures and lighting effects, and from the moment the N64 delivers those low-resolution green or brown textures covering 90% of everything displayed on the TV screen, it's difficult to talk about graphics or art. Crash Bandicoot 3 has a simple design but looks better than any N64 game due to its colors and textures. Therefore, the ideal approach is to compare N64 games with other N64 games, but without ignoring how average Joe viewed things at the time.

 

[Drell]

Three reasons why Nintendo 64 used cartridges instead of discs:

1. Using CD-ROM would have meant paying royalties to Sony. Obviously, Nintendo was not about to do that--Yamauchi-san would never allow that in a million years.

2. The use of a disc drive would have raised the cost of the hardware, and it was absolutely critical that Nintendo 64 could meet that $149 mass market price point without taking losses (Nintendo always sold hardware at a profit). That's why the N64 motherboard is stripped down to the bone, like Matt Damon's rocket capsule in The Martian. Such are the challenges when going against a $60 billion electronics giant.

3. Nintendo made their money manufacturing cartridges. That was their real business model (note how they returned to carts with the Switch). Sticking to that storage format meant a reliable income stream at a time when Sony was smashing the videogame industry apart like Godzilla on a bender.

I've already wrote 1 or 2 time about this subject on this forum so that's the reason I didn't develop my thought but I will again:

I know there were multiple reasons for Nintendo to not use CD-Rom for the Nintendo 64. That said, CDs wasn't the only option. They've been bragging, even before the N64 launch, about the 64DD. Its storage medium was a very nice compromise between cartridges and CDs with 64 MB of storage and the possibility to have multi-disk games while still having faster load times than CDs (slower than carts though).

In a world where they began their 5th gen with these Zip-like disks as their main storage medium, they would still get mocked for not choosing CDs, Square would still make FF7 for PS1, but devs would've have had a better time on this machine. When you see how angel studio compressed RE2 on 64 MB back then, you can easily immagine a lot more PS1/Saturn games being ported with FMVs being the only thing sacrified. And again, for devs willing to do and pay more, there was the option for multi-disks games. And that would've been in 96. Maybe the size of these disks could've multiplied. Cartridges went from 8 to 64 MB, maybe these disks could've gone up to a 512 MB by the end of the gen, approaching the size of a CD.

And so, I think they should've used this medium as the main one for the console form day one. That checked points 1 and 3 by being independant from Sony and a source of royalties for Nintendo. Then there's point 2 and that's true that, since Nintendo's strategy was and still is to make profite on each machine from day one, the inclusion of the 64DD's drive on the base console would've made it more expensive and they would've to sell it a lot more expensive still following their no loss strategy. But seeing how the Switch 2 sells these days with close to no games, I'm sure that bet could've worked.

But in the end, the fact the 64DD was an add-on, constantly hyped by Nintendo themselves even before the console was released checks your 3 points. It allowed them to sell a cheap base console from day one and from there, update to a better proprietary format than tiny cartridges without having to pay Sony. But they completely fucked it up by delaying it endlessly.

 

[BlackTron]

But in the end, the fact the 64DD was an add-on, constantly hyped by Nintendo themselves even before the console was released checks your 3 points. It allowed them to sell a cheap base console from day one and from there, update to a better proprietary format than tiny cartridges without having to pay Sony. But they completely fucked it up by delaying it endlessly.

I think you're right that it needed to be there from day one. Otherwise we get a Sega add-on situation that fragments the base. Sure, maybe there was more up-front risk, but one could argue that what they did was even riskier, especially when PS1 had a head start.

They already did the expansion pak thing, but at least that was just an inexpensive RAM upgrade that came with some games. And was still frowned upon. An entire bolt-on expensive disk drive would be devastating.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

I think you're right that it needed to be there from day one. Otherwise we get a Sega add-on situation that fragments the base. Sure, maybe there was more up-front risk, but one could argue that what they did was even riskier, especially when PS1 had a head start.

They already did the expansion pak thing, but at least that was just an inexpensive RAM upgrade that came with some games. And was still frowned upon. An entire bolt-on expensive disk drive would be devastating.

Nintendo knew that the western market was much less keen on add-ons compared to Japan. And the Famicom Disk System experience had already taught them that fragmenting the userbase with mandatory additional hardware wasn't a good move unless you ultimately went all in with the new format, like NEC did with the PC-Engine which went full CD at one point.
But they had delayed the N64 long enough already, and they needed a good launch price to compete with the PS1.

The choice of going with cartridges wasn't wrong for 1996, but it showed a baffling lack of foresight on Nintendo's part. They were so fixated with gameplay first and foremost, that they seriously didn't imagine that people would be swayed by FMV and VA to the extent they did. They underestimated how much people wanted games to be like movies, and how eager people were for video games to look "mature" and realistic.

 

[Sethbacca]

The great advantage of CD-ROM was cost. To manufacture a physical cartridge cost publishers around $10, which translates to $30 added to the retail price--note how cart prices in the late 16-bit era were hovering in the $70-$90 range. In addition, the time to manufacture those cartridges meant that you had to guess the public reaction's to that title. If you ordered too many carts, you ended up losing a lot of money. If you ordered too few carts, you left a lot of money on the table. It was a terrible gamble and nobody was happy about it.

Oh, and did I mention that companies like Nintendo were the sole manufacturers of cartridges on their systems, and you had to go through them in order to publish any software? I can't remember if Sega did the same thing, but they turned out to be just as dictatorial and Napoleonic during the Genesis era. That was one reason why software publishers, especially in the West, embraced Sony so completely.

Meanwhile, CD-ROM cost only $1 to make, and the rollover time was a matter of weeks, not months. That meant you could order new print runs to meet customer demand, and not have to gamble half the company everytime Christmas rolls around. Additionally, because of the far lower manufacturing costs, retail prices came down dramatically. Sony brought PlayStation retail prices to $40, which was another of their many brilliant decisions. Even Sega was able to sell Saturn games for $50 or less, and I remember back in 1997 seeing games selling for as little as $35--why didn't I grab Saturn Bomberman when I had the chance?! Augh!

And all of this doesn't even include the opportunity cost of games lost that could have come to the console but didn't because of the storage medium. Remember the early FF7 N64 previews in magazines back in the day? Imagine if that had actually come out on N64.

 

[Team Andromeda]

The great advantage of CD-ROM was cost. To manufacture a physical cartridge cost publishers around $10, which translates to $30 added to the retail price--note how cart prices in the late 16-bit era were hovering in the $70-$90 range. In addition, the time to manufacture those cartridges meant that you had to guess the public reaction's to that title. If you ordered too many carts, you ended up losing a lot of money. If you ordered too few carts, you left a lot of money on the table. It was a terrible gamble and nobody was happy about it.

Oh, and did I mention that companies like Nintendo were the sole manufacturers of cartridges on their systems, and you had to go through them in order to publish any software? I can't remember if Sega did the same thing, but they turned out to be just as dictatorial and Napoleonic during the Genesis era. That was one reason why software publishers, especially in the West, embraced Sony so completely.

Meanwhile, CD-ROM cost only $1 to make, and the rollover time was a matter of weeks, not months. That meant you could order new print runs to meet customer demand, and not have to gamble half the company everytime Christmas rolls around. Additionally, because of the far lower manufacturing costs, retail prices came down dramatically. Sony brought PlayStation retail prices to $40, which was another of their many brilliant decisions. Even Sega was able to sell Saturn games for $50 or less, and I remember back in 1997 seeing games selling for as little as $35--why didn't I grab Saturn Bomberman when I had the chance?! Augh!

Spot on

While CD-ROM's made the systems more expensive at the start you saved so much money over time for both publishers and also consumers., Which is another reason the 32X was so dumb with its use of carts

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Do you want to know the truth? Nobody cared about the supposed strengths of the Nintendo 64.
"Better graphics" is just an alternative name for textures and lighting effects, and from the moment the N64 delivers those low-resolution green or brown textures covering 90% of everything displayed on the TV screen, it's difficult to talk about graphics or art. Crash Bandicoot 3 has a simple design but looks better than any N64 game due to its colors and textures. Therefore, the ideal approach is to compare N64 games with other N64 games, but without ignoring how average Joe viewed things at the time.

The Crash games always looked great, lots of geometry, nice lighting, no visual glitches…

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Spot on

While CD-ROM's made the systems more expensive at the start you saved so much money over time for both publishers and also consumers., Which is another reason the 32X was so dumb with its use of carts

Wonder what the design would have been like if it also went with CD?

If you had a MegaCD II probably would have looked like the CD twins were spit-roasting the MegaDrive II.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

That's true. Almost every attempt of going from 2D to 3D was very successful.

Super Mario 64? Nailed it.
Legend of Zelda? Nailed it. Twice.

These set the standard that their respective genres would follow for decades.

 

[nkarafo]

The Crash games always looked great, lots of geometry, nice lighting, no visual glitches…

It's easier to make Crash look good compared to, say, Banjo because Crash has a fixed, on-rails camera. Which means the developer can choose what is drawn on the screen at all times and optimize accordingly. And not only that, they can set the scenes however they want and make the game look good all the time.

In free-roaming 3D games like Mario 64 and Banjo, it's the player who chooses what the game draws on the screen, which means the developers have no control or direction so they can't optimize the same way, they always have to leave some breathing room because who knows what the camera is going to have to show for the game to draw.

 

[Midway-AGNC-]

What I really appreciated about Nintendo during that era was how closely they worked with Western developers. It wasn't just about outsourcing projects — through these partnerships, Nintendo filled aesthetic and thematic gaps that their in-house teams typically didn't explore.

Rare is the most obvious example. Sure, games like Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo-Kazooie, and Donkey Kong 64 followed Nintendo's traditional design sensibilities, but the studio also brought a strong Western flavor to the system with titles like Blast Corps, Killer Instinct, Jet Force Gemini, GoldenEye 007, and Perfect Dark. Then there was Conker's Bad Fur Day, which completely subverted the "Nintendo is for kids" image — something Nintendo itself wasn't too enthusiastic about, which partly explains why the game became such a cult rarity.

Other partnerships were just as fascinating. Left Field Productions handled sports titles like NBA Courtside and the excellent Excitebike 64 (still one of the best racing games on the console, in my opinion). Factor 5 consistently pushed the hardware to its limits with the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron games and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, showcasing the N64's technical capabilities.

Then there was Silicon Knights, originally developing Eternal Darkness for the N64 before moving it to the GameCube — one of the most atmospheric and unique titles Nintendo ever published. They also maintained a close relationship with Iguana Entertainment (of Turok fame), and many of their staff later went on to form Retro Studios, which became one of Nintendo's key Western partners in the 2000s.

Angel Studios also deserves mention for their fantastic Resident Evil 2 port, which was a technical marvel at the time, as well as DMA Design, the creators of Body Harvest and Space Station Silicon Valley — games whose ideas would later evolve into Grand Theft Auto III. Meanwhile, Midway collaborated with Nintendo on the Cruis'n series, and Paradigm Entertainment delivered a great job with Pilotwings 64.

One of my biggest criticisms of the Satoru Iwata era is that it largely dismantled this network of Western partnerships, leading to a homogenization of Nintendo's creative output. The company became increasingly inward-looking, focused on a smaller pool of internal franchises and stylistic directions. That diversity and pluralism that once characterized Nintendo's ecosystem — where multiple cultural perspectives shaped its lineup — slowly faded away. It's something I genuinely miss, especially now that Nintendo's portfolio, while still polished, feels far less varied and experimental than it once was.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

What I really appreciated about Nintendo during that era was how closely they worked with Western developers. It wasn't just about outsourcing projects — through these partnerships, Nintendo filled aesthetic and thematic gaps that their in-house teams typically didn't explore.

Rare is the most obvious example. Sure, games like Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo-Kazooie, and Donkey Kong 64 followed Nintendo's traditional design sensibilities, but the studio also brought a strong Western flavor to the system with titles like Blast Corps, Killer Instinct, Jet Force Gemini, GoldenEye 007, and Perfect Dark. Then there was Conker's Bad Fur Day, which completely subverted the "Nintendo is for kids" image — something Nintendo itself wasn't too enthusiastic about, which partly explains why the game became such a cult rarity.

Other partnerships were just as fascinating. Left Field Productions handled sports titles like NBA Courtside and the excellent Excitebike 64 (still one of the best racing games on the console, in my opinion). Factor 5 consistently pushed the hardware to its limits with the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron games and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, showcasing the N64's technical capabilities.

Then there was Silicon Knights, originally developing Eternal Darkness for the N64 before moving it to the GameCube — one of the most atmospheric and unique titles Nintendo ever published. They also maintained a close relationship with Iguana Entertainment (of Turok fame), and many of their staff later went on to form Retro Studios, which became one of Nintendo's key Western partners in the 2000s.

Angel Studios also deserves mention for their fantastic Resident Evil 2 port, which was a technical marvel at the time, as well as DMA Design, the creators of Body Harvest and Space Station Silicon Valley — games whose ideas would later evolve into Grand Theft Auto III. Meanwhile, Midway collaborated with Nintendo on the Cruis'n series, and Paradigm Entertainment delivered a great job with Pilotwings 64.

One of my biggest criticisms of the Satoru Iwata era is that it largely dismantled this network of Western partnerships, leading to a homogenization of Nintendo's creative output. The company became increasingly inward-looking, focused on a smaller pool of internal franchises and stylistic directions. That diversity and pluralism that once characterized Nintendo's ecosystem — where multiple cultural perspectives shaped its lineup — slowly faded away. It's something I genuinely miss, especially now that Nintendo's portfolio, while still polished, feels far less varied and experimental than it once was.

Excellent post.

DS, Wii, 3DS, Wii U… safe to say I wasn't fond of the Iwata era at all.

 

[BlackTron]

The choice of going with cartridges wasn't wrong for 1996, but it showed a baffling lack of foresight on Nintendo's part. They were so fixated with gameplay first and foremost, that they seriously didn't imagine that people would be swayed by FMV and VA to the extent they did. They underestimated how much people wanted games to be like movies, and how eager people were for video games to look "mature" and realistic.

Even if they said "ha, how could anybody need that much space for any game" completely oblivious to CGI cutscenes, it was an even dumber foresight lapse not to predict how much difference the cost would make to publishers, which is what REALLY sealed it in my opinion

 

[Midway-AGNC-]

Excellent post.

DS, Wii, 3DS, Wii U… safe to say I wasn't fond of the Iwata era at all.

Same here. I really tried to like it because I used to be a hardcore Nintendo fanboy, but it was clear to me that the company completely changed its identity and strategy once Iwata took over. Some people enjoy that new direction, and that's fine, but for someone like me — who grew up with the NES, SNES, and N64 and was deeply attached to that older philosophy — watching Nintendo shift so drastically was frustrating. It started feeling like the company I loved just wasn't the same anymore.

It's no surprise that many longtime Nintendo fans eventually moved on to Sony, Microsoft, or even PC after that change in direction.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Even if they said "ha, how could anybody need that much space for any game" completely oblivious to CGI cutscenes, it was an even dumber foresight lapse not to predict how much difference the cost would make to publishers, which is what REALLY sealed it in my opinion

Oh, they knew. It's just that their president was a draconian greedy bastard who thought the big devs wouldn't go anywhere without Nintendo, and that they'd all ultimately come back crawling to him. He saw how much control Nintendo could lose by going through with the Nintendo PlayStation and said "fuck it, no concessions and no leeway. It'll be my way or no way."
His lack of touch with the reality of the market outside Japan probably played a role in that decision.

Anyway, I think I've derailed the thread quite enough. Sorry about that.
I should play some N64 games on my Mister and my CRT instead.

 

[Sethbacca]

Same here. I really tried to like it because I used to be a hardcore Nintendo fanboy, but it was clear to me that the company completely changed its identity and strategy once Iwata took over. Some people enjoy that new direction, and that's fine, but for someone like me — who grew up with the NES, SNES, and N64 and was deeply attached to that older philosophy — watching Nintendo shift so drastically was frustrating. It started feeling like the company I loved just wasn't the same anymore.

It's no surprise that many longtime Nintendo fans eventually moved on to Sony, Microsoft, or even PC after that change in direction.

They lost me after the GC era. I bought a Wii but it was a 2nd system by that point.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

I was never a huge fan of Mario Kart 64 personally

mario kart 64 is best mario kart

 

[Ishma3L]

mario kart 64 is best mario kart

It really is.

 

[BlackTron]

Oh, they knew. It's just that their president was a draconian greedy bastard who thought the big devs wouldn't go anywhere without Nintendo, and that they'd all ultimately come back crawling to him. He saw how much control Nintendo could lose by going through with the Nintendo PlayStation and said "fuck it, no concessions and no leeway. It'll be my way or no way."
His lack of touch with the reality of the market outside Japan probably played a role in that decision.

Anyway, I think I've derailed the thread quite enough. Sorry about that.
I should play some N64 games on my Mister and my CRT instead.

I mean, "they knew", but as Nintendo's top decision-maker, Yaumachi is exactly the man who didn't know that actually mattered...I'm sure people who work for Phil feel like what they are doing is retarded all the time, not that it saves them.

 

[nkarafo]

mario kart 64 is best mario kart

It really is.

Later Mario Kart games have way more tracks thanks to the "retro" courses. The AI rubber band is really noticeable and very annoying. It has the most boring Rainbow Road.

How is it better than Mario Kart DS or 7 or 8?

Genuinely asking.

 

[calistan]

What I really appreciated about Nintendo during that era was how closely they worked with Western developers. It wasn't just about outsourcing projects — through these partnerships, Nintendo filled aesthetic and thematic gaps that their in-house teams typically didn't explore.

Rare is the most obvious example. Sure, games like Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo-Kazooie, and Donkey Kong 64 followed Nintendo's traditional design sensibilities, but the studio also brought a strong Western flavor to the system with titles like Blast Corps, Killer Instinct, Jet Force Gemini, GoldenEye 007, and Perfect Dark. Then there was Conker's Bad Fur Day, which completely subverted the "Nintendo is for kids" image — something Nintendo itself wasn't too enthusiastic about, which partly explains why the game became such a cult rarity.

I remember talking to the director of Earthworm Jim 3D on a press trip many years ago, and while excusing the sorry state of his game, he said that one of the reasons Rare games were much more technically impressive than everyone else's was because they had early access to tools, documentation and other direct assistance that third-party developers did not have.

 

[Gambit2483]

I remember being extremely impressed with World Driver Championship...especially the Replay mode. It seriously rivaled Gran Turismo afair

 

[Ulysses 31]

Easily Turok 2 in "hi-res" mode but that ran terrible.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

mario kart 64 is best mario kart

I would love to agree, but I just can't get into it anymore. I wasn't a fan of MK64 when it was new, but I warmed up to it a decade later when playing on the Project 64 emulator and learning about the turbo-boost powerslides. Today, however, I find these karts almost completely unplayable. The drifting is hidous, the turns feel completely backwards, the crashes and spinouts are far too slow, and the track designs are either really, really good or really, really awful.

I will freely admit that I'm now used to the controls and car physics of the later MK games (although there's quite a difference in physics between, say, MK Wii and MK8 Deluxe), but I just can't drive these carts anymore. MK64 is almost certainly my least favorite of the series, and I'm not sure what, if anything, is going to change that.

PS: I still haven't played Double Dash--it's the only Mario Kart I haven't played--and it's driving me completely bonkers. I do love the tracks whenever I play them on the later games.