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h2ohno on 14 February 2017
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bdbdbd said:
Ljink96 said:

That was a film with some CGI in it the actors weren't computer generated, just some props and dinosaurs....pixar's toy story was the first FULL length fully 3D animated without any real world assets...Final Fantasy VII was the first video game to do something on that scale...ever. They were the first to make CGI cutscenes a thing in video games. We're talking about the impact that FFVII had on the gaming industry as a whole because of what Square introduced with it. I'm a 3D graphics major, most of my professors and colleagues note Final Fantasy VII-IX on the PSone and Toy Story for the reason they wanted to get into 3D. That game changed the gaming industry, we still see its effects today, and it would have make the 64 more popular than it was.

take a look at this, 

It really shows how new the tech was and for FFVII to be utilizing similar tech around the same time just for a videogame....that was groundbreaking.

Toy Story and FFVII may have been technically more advanced, but I considered Jurassic Park more impressive. 

I don't know if N64 had been more popular if it had CGI animations in it's games. There were lots of people like me, who prefer animations done by the game engine, but on the other hand, a number of popular PSX games were advertised with their animations. In the end, this wasn't the problem N64 had, so it's doubtful it had made a difference.

It would be nice if more people realized the difference between pre-rendered CGI animations and actual in-game graphics, but that usually isn't the case.  And the way the prerendered scenes allowed for a more cinematic camera at the time was a big advantage.  People flocked to the PS1 in large part because it had more 'cinematic' games like FF7 and MGS.  Had the N64 had those cinematic games in addition to the multiplayer and exploration games it would have been much more popular.

The N64 was actually outselling the PS1 before FF7 came out.  But once FF7 hit the PS1 took off like crazy.  Imagine what would have happened if FF7 had launched instead on a system that was selling more to begin with.