| The_Liquid_Laser said: Not really that different. N64 had a small amount of exclusive games compared to other consoles of the 90's. PS5 has a small amount of exclusive games by today's standards. Some people really like those exclusives. A person could say that Baldur's Gate 3 (for example) is worth the purchase of a PS5, just like people make the case for the various N64 games. In the end the Switch has a lot more games available than the PS5, and the PS1 had a lot more games available than the N64. A lot of the reason why people bought the N64/PS5 is that the SNES/PS4 were successful systems, respectively. The gaming environment has changed and some people transition slower than others. |
Baldur's Gate 3 is more like a classic PC kind of game. I think both FFVII RE as the ones which could make people buy a PS5. But for some reason it did not work that well during their exclusivity era (first of both released also in PS4, though... but without Intergrade).
I do not believe in this idea of "people buyed N64 just because SNES had lot of success": That is not correct. Genesis/Mega Drive sold VERY WELL in NA and Europe, and Saturn didn't sell well there (specially in NA). Even worse, in Japan, Mega Drive sold MUCH WORSE than SNES, but Saturn sold better than N64 there, at the end of that generation (N64 sold like a tenth of all its sales in Japan in the first month, it was a huge burst).
What really happened with N64 is this: In 1996 (even in 1997) people was just ASTONISHED with Mario 64. That game alone... was surreal. It was like playing a computer animated movie like Toy Story, in YOUR FUCKING CONSOLE, a console just sold for a "normal" price, as the game.
There was nothing similar to SM64 in any other platform, and the new analog controller was a total revolution for everyone >(PSX did not have analog sticks in its controllers, by then. Much less a rumble).
Also, some other games of the first batch for N64 were just so impressive as 3D games... many people were just blown away: Wave Race 64 was just another in-cre-di-ble game, Goldeneye was like or even better than the famous movie, and Star Fox 64 put the rumble pack in the scene, and that was just... SO COOL: feeling in your hands the explosions you was seeing in the TV. I remember being amazed as hell with SF64. The game was excellent, but that rumble thing was just totally insane, and that was the game they first used to sell that add-on. Today, I just do not give a damn about rumble features anymore, BUT, I must say... in 1997, that was just INCREDIBLE to believe... just very few years before, in a console.
So, when you have players who only toched 8 bit and 16 bits consoles until then, for many years, with sprite 2D games being just slowly better during the last 15 years... and you show them full 3D games, with full textured polygons, controlling the camera, with very robust 3D and no downs in the framerates, with no wobblings effect at all... man, you just WANTED that machine.
N64 had the most brutal presentation I've ever seen as a console, and was focussed specially in the 3D. 3D was a total game changer in videogames as you never seen any other. It was a new world. The first games and the games in development were so fucking cool, you didn't give a fuck about the SNES success, you just were amazed by that machine. Only someone who never lived that era could say N64 sold "because SNES". Maybe that happened with NES and SNES, but N64 was another topic.
It's true PSX also did some impressive 3D games later, but the N64 starting impact was huge. PSX 3D games until then... were basically racing games and FPS (Doom Style) games. And some platformer experiments like Jumping Flash or Pandemonium. Tomb Raider was a similar situation for PSX users in late 1996, and the first great 3D adventure there. But the TR controls were horribly complex compared to the SM64 ones: Lara Croft controls were a lot harder to learn and use, feeling a lot more "orthopedic" and timed-based.
Instead, among PS4 and PS5... was just a barely better graphics update and a little more resolution.
Last edited by JohnVG - on 09 February 2025
