Best Year Ever: Nintendo vs. PlayStation vs. Xbox

[Jumpin]

Ka-pi96 said:

Jumpin said:

1998 was far from the best year for Nintendo. If anything, that was within Nintendo's dark ages, which lasted from the launch of the N64 until the launch of the DS Lite. 1998 was when Nintendo fell into distant second behind Sony.

Wah!? :o

They've had their ups and downs sure, but calling that whole period the 'dark ages' is a bit harsh don't you think?

I don't think so, it was a period marked with bad hardware decisions, huge software droughts, and a significant decline in fandom. At the same time, PlayStation was sweeping in and steamrolling Nintendo in sales and software support. Nintendo lost all their most important second/exclusive third party support during this period: Square, Enix, DMA/Rockstar, Rareware. Parties that went from close exclusive supporters to no longer supporting Nintendo consoles. Nintendo was seen as passé through this period. They began to reverse this around the time of the GBA SP, but it wasn't until the DS Lite that things were clearly turning around to brighter days. So everything in between the end of the SNES and the DS Lite was a really dark time for Nintendo fans from the NES and SNES era.