Nintendo's least successful consoles all have one thing in common

[SammyGiireal]

DarthMetalliCube said:

TheMisterManGuy said:

In terms of sheer quality, Absolutely. But as far as quantity and variety is concerned, it's easily one of Nintendo's worst showings. Take Rare out of the equation, and you mostly have Mario games, SNES sequels, and a few sports games. Sure Super Mario 64 and OoT were revolutionary, but Nintendo's overall N64 lineup was lacking in variety and quantity compared to their other systems.

Rare almost singlehandedly carried the N64 and basically solidified them as my favorite developer outside Nintendo in the 90s. Without them the library would have been a Wii U-esque dessert. Rare was actually the initial reason I made the jump to the Xbox line when 360 came out. 

Of course, most Xbox fans know it didn't really work out (although I did somewhat enjoy Kameo and even PDZ wasn't horrible, was sort of their last gasp for me). Regardless, got super into Gears, Bethesda games, and other random third parties on 360 anyway and never really looked back. 

But anyway yeah ultimately much of it just boils down to the quantity, and the relatively lack of appeal of many of the games that WERE there. Rare was fantastic but they were largely carrying the 2nd/3rd party weight themselves.

Aside from the Primes, what exactly did GC have that the N64 didn't? The N64 delivered many more games than the Wii U. The N64 failed because of the cartridge format. It alienated 3rd parties, its first partly line up was stellar.  Rare counts as first party.