What Nintendo systems has Switch already surpassed for you?

[Soundwave]

Slownenberg said:

N64's problem was it barely had any games. There were constant game draughts and like one or two games a month was the norm. Now yes it had the absolute best, industry defining games, but the lqck of quantity and diversity made it a hard sell for many people compared to PlayStation. I had N64 and personally I'm very glad i had it and not PlayStation else i would've missed out on a significant part of gaming history and would have had a hell of a lot fewer afternoons with friends piled into my basement for gaming. Two of my friends in the neighborhood had PS and our home was by far the normal place to go to game. Only real regret of not having PS was missing out on the RPGs.

Third parties straight up hardcore abandoned Nintendo on the N64, but if you wanted the absolute best game experiences you had to get N64.

GameCube fixed what caused all the developers to leave Nintendo (got rid of cartridges), but it was too late at that point. They found their home on PlayStation and the PlayStation brand was already huge. Nintendo did bring back a lot of AAA third party support with GC (only to then lose it permanently by going with innovation over graphics with the Wii) but a lot of it was multiplatform, so you could go to any system for those games. That was the one generation where all three systems were close enough in power to make it easy to port between them all so there were plenty of games on all three systems. But PS2 got the majority of the third party exclusives.

And Nintendo and Rare that gen, unlike with the N64, were not putting out a bunch of industry defining experiences. Sure you had great first party games on GC, but it wasnt a top lineup we still marvel at today like N64 had. Prime and Melee stand out historically but thats not close to what stands out on N64. So while GameCube got a lot more games the standouts didn't stand out nearly as much. Plus you had Xbox competing for the title of party system (which N64 easily had taken) with Halo, Halo 2, and Xbox live. Nintendo sort of found themselves cornered suddenly between the third party monster PlayStation and the new multiplayer/online Xbox.

GameCube did not have the bad game droughts, but if you already had a PlayStation 2, which most people did, You were only going to get a GameCube if you were a big Nintendo fan.

Also many of Nintendo's main IP on GC kinda got looked down on conpared to the nostalgia and groundbreaking experiences from the N64. MK:DD, in it's day, was considered much worse than MK64, though I think certainly personally and maybe generally now DD is considered the better game. Sunshine was looked down on and only later on did people start viewing it in a somewhat improved light. Wind Waker was lambasted for going with cel shaded graphics rather than giving people a realistic looking Zelda on the first system when fairly advanced 3D graphics were available, but WW was gorgeous and later on people gave WW its due and it is now a beloved game. There was just a lot less buzz on many of Nintendo's big games and poor critical reception which only was reversed after years had passed. Meanwhile Xbox had Halo 1 & 2 and Playstation had just about everything.

N64's library should be have had all the Final Fantasy games (exclusive too), Dragon Quest VII, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 1/2/3, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tekken 2/3, etc. etc. to go with Mario 64, Zelda: OoT, GoldenEye 007. 

Nintendo was insane and needed to be talked out of the 64DD also being a dumb idea. Just keep the cartridge slot so Miyamoto can have his Mario 64, and the CD drive can then keep your 3rd party business. CD drive costs would collapse by 1996 anyway, just a stupid decision to look off it. 

Losing 3rd party support aside from just a gamer's POV was monumentally stupid for Nintendo as a business. As a business a 3rd party game you get a $10 licensing fee cut for doing nothing, so by missing out on like 700 games, and each individual copy giving Nintendo a $10 cut even if it sold or not (that's the 3rd party's problem, not Nintendo's) ... Nintendo probably cost themselves a billion dollars or more in lost revenue for nothing. 

The Super Famicom (SNES) had 1448 games released for it. The N64 only had 388 ... that was a ridiculous drop. It's actually kind of amazing the N64 sold as well as it did, it basically matched the SNES sales in North America + Europe but still they should've sold 100 million systems that gen IMO. 

And yeah for GameCube ... I'd say first off cut out that Fisher Price bullshit styling, if it has to be a cube, then at least make it look cool, mettalic with some LED lighting or something, no purple. Have it ready to launch in November 2000 with Zelda: MM, Perfect Dark, Paper Mario as your launch titles and some 3rd party multiplats. Lose the mini-disc thing too the GameCube disc tray is large enough to accomodate full sized discs anyway. Stop trying to be different for the sake of being different. 

Honestly maybe it would've been smarter for Nintendo to just accept a money deal with Microsoft to use Windows OS (like the Dreamcast did) that might've placated them enough to not even bother with the XBox at all. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 01 December 2022