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foxtail on 29 September 2015
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foxtail said:

To add to that Rare also had a giant head start on the N64 because their previous experience with SGI machines.  They had 2 SGI workstations before but during the development of Donkey Kong Country they were allotted large sums of money to buy more Silicon Graphics workstations (SGI Indigo 2, Challenge L/XL) that they used for their advanced rendering techniques that required intensive processing power.  With the help of Nintendo they were also one of the first studio's in the UK and Europe to invest so heavily in the expensive SGI workstations.

Rareware's prowess and skill with with the SGI machines impressed Nintendo greatly and was probably one of the reasons Nintendo chose Silicon Graphics (SGI) to develop the graphics processor for the Ultra 64.  Development of Goldeneye started on Silicon Graphics Onyx machines before the N64 was finalized.  The infamous Final Fantasy VI 3D demo was also done on a  Silicon Graphics Onyx machine.
disolitude said:
Man I love Tom Kalinske. Such a cool cat. 

Se lets recap:

1. Sega talked to SGI first and turned them down, hence they went to nintendo to make n64

I would also like to dispute the claim that Sega talked to SGI first because Nintendo already had a working relationship with SGI.  

sources - are linked where available

Here's a look at Rareware and Nintendo and their previous experience with Silicon Graphics (SGI) and how Sega fit in the timeline:

  • Rare's Tim Stamper recently posted pictures of their first SGI machine (nicknamed VOSTOK) which was a SGI Power Series IRIS 4D/310VGX.

    

  • The 4D/310VGX was released in the early part of 1991 with a price of 55,000 UKP (United Kingdom Pounds).
  • Rare was assumed to have bought this machine sometime in 1991 or 1992
  • According to David Wise, Rare could initially only invest in 2 SGI machines in the early 90's (the above 310VGX being the first)
The following two dates are important to note:
  • On Mar 13, 1992 - Silicon Graphics announced that it was buying MIPS
  • On May 28, 1992 - At CES, Nintendo displayed a Real Time Mario generated on a Silicon Graphics 420 VGX Workstation

Real Time Mario demo at the 1992 CES

  • The Mario demo was done on a Silicon Graphics Workstation courtesy of SGI and must've taken Nintendo some months to make.

This means that means that Nintendo and SGI had some sort of working relationship prior to SGI's buyout of MIPS in March.

So, SGI may have been shopping the chip around but were almost certainly talking to Nintendo at the same time.

  • In August 1993 Nintendo/Silicon Graphics announce details about Project Reality to the public, which was well under way.
  • In parallel, sometime in 1992/93 Rare shows it's working demo of a boxing game with fully SGI rendered graphics to Nintendo.
  • In March 1994 Nintendo announces that Rare would make games for the Project Reality video game system.
  • In October 1994 Nintendo buys a 25% stake in the developer Rare (later increased to 49%)
  • In November 1994 Donkey Kong Country is released

  • According to the ex-head of software at Rare (Martin Hollis), Rare had also amassed around 50 SGI machines by 1998 and by contrast had around 3 in 1993 before Nintendo's investment.