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Lawlight on 11 July 2017
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Soundwave said:
LMU Uncle Alfred said:

It may have been an inevitability, but somebody had to start the 3D console era first and then run with it.  But more than just the hardware, developers were stepping up their games in other areas as well and consoles and video gaming had started to be looked upon as more mature with the PS1.  Developers wanted to try and see how far they could push everything from the looks of it.  

Story telling was getting better with FFVI, but past some select moments in FFVI out of the games you mentioned, the writing still needed padding out.  There were too many moments that were in a hurry to get to the next scene and rush the narrative along without really having the impact that some of the games on the PS1 had: Xenogears, FF7,9, and Metal Gears Solid come to mind the most.  No Sony didn't invent any of that, but neither did Nintendo (besides maybe Earthbound, but that game didn't bring many people interested into it unfortuantely)  in the SNES days.  That was pretty much just Square.     Then Metal Gear Solid was born and brought a new standard of voice acting that had never been heard before.  We could actually feel heavy emotion now with voice acting rather than hearing stuff like "Set us up the bomb!"  Resident Evil 1, 2 and 3 brought about the survival horror genre and completely redefined horror in video games.

All of this leading up to more cinematic games as the generations went on.  They're the AAA games we see now 3 more generations in from the influence the PS1 brought, take them or leave them.  As far as I can see, those games are going nowhere.  Nintendo still has their market as well, but it's different and usually isn't at the forefront .  The Wii was an explosion of a casual trend that died down, but Nintendo did have an idea they might have been able to run with further. We'll have to wait and see how the Switch does in the long run.

There is quite possibly no Squaresoft, Capcom, or Konami period without an NES. 

Game. 

Over. 

Everything about the modern game business stems from the bedrock established by the NES. 

There is no Final Fantasy VII without a NES coming first. There is no Metal Gear Solid. There is no Playstation as Sony likely wouldn't have been involved in the business period. 

FF7, MGS would've just been on Sega Saturn if there was no Playstation and they'd have been basically the same games. Without an NES, I'm fairly doubtful Squaresoft for example even exists come 1997. Final Fantasy on the NES/Famicom was even titled as such ("final") because they thought it was going to be their last game. 

Without the NES I think what actually would've happened is the game market would've remained largely dormant for many more years until Windows PC revitalized it, but the market you are talking about in this alternate history would be radically different. There would be no Nintendo as you know it, but also no Capcom, Square-Enix, Konami, etc. as you know it either. 

The games and series' that would be popular today would be radically different, you're probably talking abuot a world where people don't know what Final Fantasy or Metal Gear even is and Mario is just some minor character akin to Pac-Man. 

I've already explained to you why you are wrong. Both Konami and Capcom were big in arcade back then. Without the NES, they would have gone to the Master System. Ditto with Final Fantasy.

And without the PS, those games would not be on the Saturn because it was too hard to develop for and Sega was already going down.