Alternate history: N64 goes with CDs instead of cartridges

[DonFerrari]

curl-6 said:

DonFerrari said:

Cartridges of SNES and N64 were pirated as well, and one of the promises of CD was that it would prevent piracy due to the high cost of the burners (we know it didn't work out later). But think about Nintendo arrogance, if they could do that much on a 16bits cartridge and Sega CD and 3DO weren't much better looking they didn't need CD at all.

They weren't just worried about players pirating games, the bigger concern for them was actual developers creating and selling unlicensed software; this was a huge problem on NES, but was largely solved on the SNES by comparison. I think it was less a matter of arrogance and more paranoia.

So we want to believe Nintendo had a great relationship with 3rd party at the same time worried about unlicensed SW they may have put? That is above paranoia. Even great non-Nintendo games didn't sold as great as Nintendo, so an unlicensed game would probably earn peanuts (unless you are talking about shovelwares damaging the image of the system). NES had those shovelwares without Nintendo seal and public could differentiate from the ones with seal.