Absolutely. If N64 had CDs, it would have maintained Nintendo's dominance. Going cartridges was literally the most damaging thing Nintendo EVER did, and the company never recovered from it.
1. Playstation games looked better because of CDs - this is because N64 games were using 3D polygons, and it simply was no where near as compelling as the pre-rendered backgrounds and full motion video cutscenes featured on Playstation games.
2. Playstation games sounded WAY better because of CDs - N64 games were still using MIDI music, while Playstation games were using full CD redbook audio. In many ways, the N64 audio was less impressive than the SNES. But Playstation was capable of this:
3. N64 games were much more expensive than Playstation games because N64 used cartridges. When N64 launched, every game cost about 50% more than Playstation games. And it only got worse, Playstation games seemed to drop in price over the years, but N64 games got more expensive until the point where the most expensive ones cost 3X more than Playstation games.
4. Playstation got WAY more games because of CD - it was easier for third parties to develop for. Many companies were driven out of the N64 because the space available on cartridges was simply too limited. The existing development teams were constantly struggling (including DMA) with delays. So fewer companies were releasing games on the N64, and those that were had a slow output. There were 6 games at launch, and Sony was touting 200 games available. A year later the number of games had only increased to about 40. Sony was then touting over 500 games on Playstation - that's double what even released on N64, lifetime, in the west.
In short, N64's lack of CDs is why Playstation was able to see such huge success. Nintendo voluntarily gave up about 90% of the third party software.
warning ramble
The N64 droughts were so bad that whole months passed with no games, and I don't mean the guys in the "I'm abysmally depressed because of no games on Switch!" when these are just people who ignore 99% of game releases, I am talking NO games, not even 1 release, for over a month in row. Outside of launch, only 6 new games released during the first 6 months of the consoles existence. This is all because Nintendo went with cartridges instead of CDs.
If Nintendo HAD gone with CDs, the lineup would have been far more robust, games would be cheaper for the consumer, and full motion video, redbook audio, and pre-rendered backgrounds would be possible. RPGs would have never left, and it's likely stuff like Final Fantasy and Resident Evil would have been Nintendo franchises. Also, I wonder if DMA would have had all the development trouble they did with the N64, maybe GTA would have also been a Nintendo franchise.
As a Nintendo fan, the N64 generation was frustrating, to say the least. The lack of RPGs was horrible, and that is the main reason I bought a Playstation. It wasn't really until GBA that Nintendo began to get back into the RPG swing. Even in Japan RPGs were really sparse on Nintendo consoles - especially compared to the SNES (and RPG fans in my age group will remember importing RPGs - there was a particularly big Fire Emblem and Dragon Quest fanbase for imports - using a translation document to play through them... honestly, with Fire Emblem, the biggest struggle was trying to figure out what all the UI meant). But anyway! Nintendo changed a lot from SNES to N64, and it's largely because of the large volume of devs that wanted CDs.
Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, Castlevania, and other games that were almost synonymous with Nintendo (even though they did have a few side games and B-level ports on other consoles) were all on Playstation. So, I'd say Playstation was as mainly successful because of the LACK of CDs on N64. It allowed Sony to basically become the SNES sequel, and then take it to the next level.
If you consider the library of the N64 and Gamecube, they aren't like those of any other Nintendo consoles or handhelds, the large volume of Japanese games wasn't there. It would have been had N64 gone with CDs.
/ramble
Last edited by Jumpin - on 02 September 2020I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
