What if Super Mario 64 was a failure?

[Mr Puggsly]

Soundwave said:

Mr Puggsly said:

Soundwave said:
It would have been terrible for the N64, but maybe better for Nintendo as a whole because it likely would have meant the N64 would have died earlier, thus they would have been forced to released a optical disc format console like several years earlier and may have been able to stem their losses.

In your scenario Mario 64 was the only N64 game that mattered.

The system had so few releases especially early in its life cycle though that removing Mario 64 would've been catastrophic. Your launch title then becomes Pilotwings 64 and nothing else until Wave Race 64. The system would've sputtered like the Sega Saturn did. 

N64 at launch was indeed slim. But many other titles helped boost N64 games over time. Like Mario Kart, Goldeneye, Smash Bros, etc.

N64 would have sold less units without Mario 64. But it wouldnt have sold as poorly as Saturn. Gamecube still sold 20 million and it really didnt have any iconic games like N64.