@The_Liquid_Laser: You're missing one important point: N64 launched 1,5 years later than PSX. The publishers had already games out on PS before N64 was out.
Sony did where NEC failed; PC-Engine did well in Japan, where it had one year headstart before Megadrive released, but it's overseas release was delayed so much, that it was released outside of Japan later than Megadrive. Sony released it's system rather quickly worldwide, and did something where Nintendo and Sega had failed; gain foothold Europe. If you compare the sales numbers, in Europe PS outsold all the Nintendo and Sega home consoles combined, that were released before it. And for the other regions, you can count on all the Nintendo and Sega systems combined until NDS, and PS would still surpass them in sales.
When you compare SNES and N64, N64 lost 4 million in sales combined in NA and Europe.
It's really hard to see any scenario where Nintendo could have won the generation, because Sony won mostly in regions Nintendo did not want or could not sell games in. Even if N64 had all the big hitter 3rd party games, PS would still had ports for them, because of other regions that Sony was pushing it's sales and Nintendo was not. Sony could also sell it's consoles and games everywhere where they sold Sony's TV's, whereas Nintendo would need to establish business relations and retail channel - that they eventually did with NDS and Wii.
If N64 had reached the sales of NES in Nintendo's core markets, and Sony had lost total of 30 million in sales in these markets, Sony still had won, because eventually the 3rd party games had been ported on PS.
Ei Kiinasti.
Eikä Japanisti.
Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.
Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.
