Well that is true but Nintendo agruably reached their peak with the N64 in terms of their own games. Had 3rd party support been better (FF VII / Resident Evil etc) and had it used CDs, would things have been drastically different?

In 2 childish words: "OMG YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 Of course it would of helped. Garnering Square's support for major projects would of immensely helped out. It would of taken Japan, done better in the US, and made some ground in Europe. IMO, the sales would be around 80,50,15 for the N64, PS1, and Saturn.

Remember the big games: Japan had no big games except for Mario 64. Outside of that, every major J-game was Saturn or PS1 (for the most part). In the US, there were plenty of west-centric titles in Turok, Goldeneye and such. They helped the N64 still get a staggering 20m units sold (which is good by any standard, IMO).

IMO, had Nintendo not been snooty, and put a CD-rom in there, devs would of stayed on the Nintendo platform, and I would of greatly benefitted, getting my precious FF4 on N64.

Don't forget the memory limitations.  Here is a nice article about the N64 (feel free to check out the other 6 reasons for Nintendo's failings):  http://www.gamesradar.com/us/wii/game/features/article.jsp?articleId=2007040911262588028&releaseId=20060308165433320026&sectionId=1003&pageId=2007040912232261074

Too bad too, because before the N64 I thought I would be a Nintendo fan for life.  I much preferred the SNES to the Genesis (despite Sonic and some others).  I followed Square for the most part, as I would think any RPG fan had to do.  I missed OoT because of this, so I look forward to playing that on the VC.

It is just sad to read how stupid nintendo was back in those days...

however, the n64 was still a damn great console to me, mostly due to my age back in those days. It was my first console I really used (I had a snes, but just dk 1 to 3 and super mario world and allstars on it) and it had enough games for a boy my age.

You...missed Ocarina of Time? Dude, a gamers who doesn´t know what Ocarina of Time is, is like a musician who never heard of the Rolling Stones/Mozart/Koji Kondo (he´s better than the Stones plus Mozart together, believe it ) or like Spielberg never heard of Citizen Kane... this game is a masterpiece, it´s addictive from the first to the last minute, it´s unmatched in atmospheric till this day, it has better gameplay than Wind Waker or Twilight Princess, the boss battles are better than in any other videogame of the N64 era, it´s graphical artstyle is still impressive - even compared to games like Gears of War the game looks full of life, the characters are wonderful drawn, the story isn´t the best but gives you the posibility to do everything from the point you left the first temple. It´s like Lord of the Rings but better.

play it! NOW! God damn*t PLAY IT!!!

(sorry for getting crazy... but daaaaamned...)

 You just showed why the PS3 won't recover, Sony isn't cool anymore, and before N64 Nintendo dominated two generations, and PS3 has a much higher price tag