Soundwave said:
I guess I should quantify "cool" as being the must have "it" game for teeangers/college aged kids. Like imagine Nintendo having GTA or COD exclusive ... like that's sorta what it was like, as hard as that might be to picture for people here who weren't around at that time. I remember even hardcore Playstation gamer types who wouldn't be caught dead playing Mario sucking it up and having to buy an N64. I remember very clearly a buddy of mine saying in frustration "fuck now I gotta buy an N64 for Bond". Even Barbara Broccoli, who's family owns the James Bond movie rights cites this game as been integral to making the new Bond popular with a new generation. It also probably saved the N64 from an early death, for those who don't remember, due to development problems virtually all of Nintendo's fall 1997 lineup basically was delayed (Zelda, Banjo-Kazooie, F-Zero 64, etc.). They had to pull Diddy Kong Racing out of nowhere, but even that wasn't ideally because Mario Kart 64 had just launched a few months prior. GoldenEye came out of nowhere and carried the N64 well into 1998 until Nintendo could get their act together and start getting games like Zelda: OoT out. If it wasn't for this game, the N64 might've really suffered badly in those long months between September 1997 and November 1998. Rare really saved the day. One wonders how differently perhaps the GameCube might've gone had Nintendo secured the Bond rights for life, I believe when they bought the rights to GoldenEye they were given the option to basically have the license forever, but they opted not to spend a little extra money to do so, lol. |
Turok, Star Fox, and Yoshi's Island all came out 2017. I am definitely not saying any of these games would have been as big (mostly because they weren't, lol), but to say the N64 would have been dead until holiday 2018 is a bit much.
