Alternate history: N64 goes with CDs instead of cartridges

[curl-6]

DonFerrari said:

curl-6 said:

Nintendo bought a 25% share of Rare after being impressed by their proposal and demos for a pre-rendered game, and that gradually went up to a 49% share over time.

I don't think it's very likely DKC turned them away from CDs though, I think that was probably more their fear of piracy after how big a problem that was for them on the NES, and the failure of early CD-based consoles like the 3DO.

Cartridges of SNES and N64 were pirated as well, and one of the promises of CD was that it would prevent piracy due to the high cost of the burners (we know it didn't work out later). But think about Nintendo arrogance, if they could do that much on a 16bits cartridge and Sega CD and 3DO weren't much better looking they didn't need CD at all.

They weren't just worried about players pirating games, the bigger concern for them was actual developers creating and selling unlicensed software; this was a huge problem on NES, but was largely solved on the SNES by comparison. I think it was less a matter of arrogance and more paranoia.