N64 Was A Sales Beast And Should Have Won Its Generation

[NightDragon83]

VGPolyglot said:

NightDragon83 said:

N64 was a beast in the NA market... for most of the 5th gen PS1 vs N64 was on the same level as Genesis vs SNES here during the 16 bit wars.  The N64 launch was the biggest console launch ever up to that point in NA, and that was with just 2 games at launch, neither of which were packed in.

Sadly, its long and frequent software droughts and the fact that the console never really took off in Japan the way PS1 and even the Saturn did with a more Japanese-centric library sealed its fate.  By the end of '98 PS1 was the clear leader and the N64 could never catch up even with its stellar lineup of AAA 1st and 2nd party titles.

PS1 might have had the larger, more diverse library overall, but like Nintendo's old mantra, I'll take quality over quantity any day.

But how important is that really? Most people when buying a console decide it based on the number of games they want and how much they want them, not based on the percentage of games released for the console that are good. And, 102.5 million people vs 33 million people decided that the PS1 had the more appealing library.

And a good chunk of those 102.5 million people were in Europe, where games like the Gran Turismo series were huge, and in Japan where major JRPG releases in the FF and DQ mainline series practially carried the console all by themselves (DQVII is the PS1's best selling game in Japan, where about 95% of its total sales came from).