Alternate history: N64 goes with CDs instead of cartridges

[DonFerrari]

d21lewis said:

danasider said:

GC didn't have DVD. A special edition that was tons of money and only in Japan (through a partnership with Panasonic) brought DVD to GC, but the ones in America and in 95% of GC had proprietary mini discs. Again, a huge mistake on Nintendo's part, because to get the type of media in games like FF10, they'd likely need 4 or 5 mini discs. Resident Evil 4 required 2 and that doesn't have nearly the amount of video and sound in something like FF10.

But the GC also was a marketing failure because of its toylike appearance compared to PS2's media center friendly image (that and PS2 was up there with the best DVD players out).

In contrast, N64 was actually a huge hit on release. It failed because it had a drought of games after launch, and it lost a lot of its big partnerships...much of which was due their use of cartridges.

I agree with everything you said except that the PS2 was one of the best DVD players around. With the original, i would argue that it was the WORST DVD player around--but also one of the cheapest. We would constantly rent movies only to find that they wouldn't with the PS2 and then have to go back to the video store and get the VHS version. And don't get me started on porn! I eventually bought a real standalone DVD player. I got tired of...being left unsatisfied. The dvd update disc made things a lot better but it was still hit or miss. 

I think it did produce blacker blacks than the Xbox DVD player (based on an article I read back then comparing the two) but the compatibly issues killed it for me.

That is strange, porn movie cds on PS1 run very well. But well, they were codded for PS1.