If the N64 had a CD-ROM Drive, would've Nintendo won the generation in sales?

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Slownenberg said:

Segata_Fran said:
For those saying PS1 games looked better because of CD... Sony's console has also a higher polygon count on screen and higher/sharper res textures as far as I know. Also, it was a lot easier for developers to jump into in terms of licensing (on top of being cheaper), plus Sony's marketing targeted a more mature and wider audience (games with more cinematic approach cought the attention of adults that were never interested in games before). It kind of remind me of what SEGA did in the 16bit era.
I agree it could've been a very different scenario if N64 had CD, and is a nice "what if' for a nintendo fan to dream of, but I'm glad a company was able to take nintendo and their tirannycal rules down (SEGA came close a few years before).

Playstation resolutions were terrible compared to N64. The only thing PS1 was better at with in-game graphics was that technically it had a higher polygon count, but what it could do with those polygons was crap compared to N64. PS1 textures were super pixelated and looked abysmal compared to N64 textures, PS1 graphics were super glitchy and the jaggies on polygons were far more pronounced than on N64, PS1 particle effects were also far inferior to N64. I don't get why anyone tries to say PS1 games looked better because in reality they looked far worse. N64 was significantly more powerful than PS1 and it was very obvious graphically. Yeah PS1 had FMV and cgi cut scenes simply due to the fact that it had room for those things on disc while N64 didn't on cartridge, but those aren't in-game graphics. N64 graphics blew PS1 away in every regard.

Anyway, to answer the question, I don't know if Nintendo would have won that generation if it had CDs but it certainly would have been a hell of a lot closer. Third parties were still very happy to go away from Nintendo's bad policies regarding them, even without getting the extra space CDs allowed on PS1. So PS1 may have still have more games, but Nintendo would have kept some key games like the Final Fantasy games which would have been huge. N64 had such a slow release schedule that would be unthinkable these days. Literally like a game or two would come out most months. If they had gone with CDs they would have had a far more regular release schedule, had a library full of 3rd parties though likely still lacking behind Sony, would have kept some major series like Final Fantasy, and of course still have the best games of the gen that N64 did get like Mario, Zeldas, MK, GoldenEye, etc. People are saying N64 would have cost $100 more with a CD drive...is that really true? It's hard to imagine taking out cartridges and adding in a CD Rom drive would add $100. Let's say $50 is more reasonable, which still would have put N64 in a good price range.

With CD's N64 would have had everything going or it - most of the absolute best games of the gen from Nintendo and Rare, best graphics by far, would have kept Square in Nintendo's corner so N64 would have been the RPG console instead of PS1, a much heavier release schedule full of 3rd parties though possibly still not quite as full as PS1, ability to create larger games and include FMV and cgi cut scenes which became a fad that generation. Can't say if it would have beaten Sony, but PS1 would have gotten far fewer sales and N64 would have gotten probably at least double the sales it did so I think it certainly would have had a chance to beat PS1.

I say it hinges on sports games. Sports games were huge and in that a lot of people want to buy the system that has the best sports games (something that still holds Nintendo systems back). Most of the good sports games went to PS1. N64 still had more and better sports games than say Switch does today, but anyone who loved sports games had a PS1. With CDs its very possible N64 sports library would have been on par with PS1's, and when you factor in the better graphics and 4 player N64 had I think it's very possible sports fans would have bought N64 in droves instead of Playstations, which could have been the deciding factor and made N64 beat out PS1, perhaps but a good bit.

It did not have higher polygon count - of course depends on the game, but N64 was roughly twice as powerful when it comes to polycount, and also the hardware effects were much better. PS could stream textures from CD (N64 could do this too, but there wasn't space on cartridge to do that) and N64 had incredibly small texture cache, which is why N64 graphics were blurry.