| attaboy said: Crash Bandicoot was considered worse than Nights Into Dreams and Mario 64, the PS1 hardware was considered weaker than both, and the controller was considered a clunky SNES knock-off. |
Pre launch maybe, but once they were side by side PS1 was obliterating the Saturn.
Don't know about US marketing, but in Europe they nailed it. But Sega and Nintendo treated Europe like satan's spawn and deemed us fit to be thankful for whatever scraps they decided to give us a couple of years after the Japanese and US releases.
That draw distance! For the bargain of £399!
Or this for £299.99...
Sony's games were generally much better optimised for PAL markets. We got far more "full screen" releases. Daytona USA's PAL release was almost widescreen the visuals were so squashed.
The N64 faired better against the PS1 technically, however the usual Nintendo delays meant it hit the market significantly later than the PS1 which by now had already pretty much relegated the Saturn to irrelevance and big name games started hitting the PS1 exclusively (Tomb Raider 2 etc). The N64 launched at £249.99 and had to have a price cut within months to compete with the £199 PS1.
On top of this, N64 games were between £49.99 and £69.99 due to the cartriges and Sony had just introduced a budget game lineup for older titles with it's Platinum Range. The first properly organised "budget" console range in Europe with games at £19.99 meaning the PS1 was also striking a chord with families as being a much more affordable proposition.
Sony got far more right with the PS1 than a lot of people give them credit for, it wasn't just their opponents making mistakes, their relationship with 3rd parties was far more humble and this delivered big exclusives, they delivered hardware at a much more affordable price than their competitors and adopted the razer blade strategy for videogames. It's no wonder the PS1 became the most successful system of all time.
RIP Dad 25/11/51 - 13/12/13. You will be missed but never forgotten.
