Obviously, Sony would have still won, but the N64 would have performed better, most likely. You have to remember that no CD wasn't the problem itself, but a symptom of a larger problem. Nintendo was very arrogant back then. They thought they were better than everyone else. They weren't really good to their 3rd party devs/pubs in terms of tech support or giving them good deals on cartridges and a cut of the profit. They could make deals with companies and just pull out the day the announcement of said deal. It's why many jumped ship to Sega, either completely or with multiplats, the second the Genesis started picking up steam. Unfortunately for Sega, they felt threatened by the PS1, so made their own bonehead moves with the Saturn, that ultimately turned off retailers and 3rd parties, in an attempt to get a headstart.
So, them thinking they didn't need CD was a part of an overall arrogance. They were Nintendo. They had been using cartridges for two gens, so they could continue to use them. In the end, the PS1 was just the better platform for 3rd parties, regardless of CDs. Had a much better controller, too.
Edit: Also, a disc-based N64 doesn't necessarily mean FF7 would have been an exclusive on it. It could have very well have been mulitplat, or Sony could have made a better deal for a share of the profits from said game. Remember that Sony published the game in all regions outside of Japan, so took those costs on themselves. This was a time of great Nintendo arrogance, I would bet they would think they didn't need Square's games to succeed, so wouldn't have cut them such a great deal.
Last edited by thismeintiel - on 13 August 2019
