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

[Leynos]

DarthMetalliCube said:

Soundwave said:

That makes no sense. The media matters when it prevents likely hundreds of games from being on the platform. 

If Nintendo had used CD-ROM the N64 would not have had any droughts and likely doesn't lose Squaresoft or Enix as there isn't much incentive for them to leave.

Sony has no chance if they weren't allowed to basically poach all of Nintendo's NES/SNES support and that only happens because of the format choice. 

Saturn had CD Rom. Hell 3DO, CD-i, and Neo Geo CD did. why weren't they successful?

Not that media format wasn't a factor, but it's a vastly overrated one. 

Sony was poised for victory regardless. Sega had completely shot themselves in the foot by the mid-90s and Nintendo's lack of software, steep prices, and harsh third party restrictions set the conditions for another company to swoop in and disrupt the industry.

Maybe the dominance wouldn't have been as significant but they still would have come out on top - between the low price for their hardware, far looser third party restrictions, and the massive quantity and diversity of the library. Third parties were looking for a console that they could play a larger role in and have more leverage and Sony offered that with the Playstation. Nintendo did not. 

Saturn had the most fucked launch in console history. They launched it the same day they announced it (Saturnday) and for $100 more than PS1 and the same year they launched 32X. Saturn also had 2 processors to worry about and was insanely difficult to work on. Saturn also had SEGA of America in shambles as SOA and SOJ not getting along finally blew up after several years.  Saturn was criticized for having a cartridge slot and not BC with Genesis. Saturn's SOA president prevented RPGs coming west and outright said it's not SEGA's future. He left hundreds of games to stay in Japan. Saturn didn't use polygons it used quads making it extra difficult. Saturn vanished from most store shelves in the US by late 96-97.

Neo-Geo CD was a niche product as was any Neo-Geo system. It was just ports of AES games which were 2D games. CD-I was a POS and was $700 in 1990.  3D0 same issue as CD-i just in 1993, peak 16-bit er. Latter two also had just fucked hardware and no standards esp when it came to the size, who made it. Controllers. Square who was basically 2nd party to Nintendo jumped to PS1 because of CD-Rom.  Many 3rd parties did. 32MB-64MB compared to 650MB. Big difference. Remember all those RPGs on 3-4 discs?

Last edited by Leynos - on 04 September 2020