They did have a exclusivity agreement with Sony though we don't know what it entailed exactly.  To even have Chrystal Chronicles show up on a Nintendo console Squaresoft had to create a paper company called "The Game Designers Studio".  To evade the exclusivity deal, Square held only 49% of the company and another Squaresoft executive held 51%.  The game was directly funded by Hiroshi Yamauchi's "Q fund". Later that year Squaresoft merged with Enix and their old exclusivity agreements were no longer valid or were reexamined.

You also have to note that the expense of cartridges was also passed onto the consumer.  N64 games cost more than PSX games.

CDs were also the biggest breakthrough of the time (besides 3D graphics cards) in what it allowed developers to do.

Sega was coming off the failures of the Sega CD and 32X, Nintendo had a lot more clout in the industry.

If both the N64 and PSX used CDs, ports would be a lot easier and cheaper to do.  Exclusivity agreements usually expire.

Oh, I just tossed those particular games in there to show that Sony games aren't what made Sony popular.  Almost all of the system sellers were made by third parties.  Hell, I owned over 100 PS1 games and the only ones made by Sony were Crash 3, Gran Turismo, and Omega Boost.  it was a 3rd party paradise!  Even when I was typing it this morning, I was hoping nobody would call me out on the fact that Castlevania was on the N64.

On to the rest of the post, I think that the Wii thrived in spite of the fact that it didn't have great third party support.  It had some truly great Nintendo games, though.  I think the Wii succeeded because of the system and that's something that may never happen agaian.  Most every other system in history thrivesd because of its library.  Hence the people calling it "a board game" that people only break out when company is over and then toss it back into the closet. 

And for the final question--The Gamecube had great third party support, in my opinion.  Almost every game available from many on Xbox and PS2 got a Gamecube port.  It's true!  Maybe not some of the crazier franchises like Silent Hill or GTA but they had Resident Evil, SSX, Tony Hawk, Splinter Cell, etc.  We can go into detail but, in my opinion, it all comes down to this:  N64 failed (not really but it could have done better) because of a lack of third party support.  Gamecube failed because it was too similar to the competition (and it looked like a little girl's jewelry box).  The Wii succeded because it was like nothing we'd ever seen before.  The right combination of great 1st party, good third party, and a slick system is all Nintendo needs and the Wii U will be okay.

*edit* in the future, I'm going to reply and THEN delete the other person's comment instead of posting from memory*   I totally agree that Nintendo is the reason I buy Nintendo systems.  It wasn't always the case.  I was more excited for third parties when I had an Nes and Snes but over time, I began to appreciate them and the quality of their games.

Well I did edit my post 44 minutes before you replied!

Do you have any idea how far apart Austria and the United States are?!

Well this thread really exploded. A lot of great information came out on it. It will give me a better perspective on next gen console development politics, though its a different industry now...and usually you don't find out till post facto.

ahahaah +1.

Not partnering with Sony is NOT a mistake. Nintendo are healthy and profiting so........

I think this can be traced back to the days of the NES, when Nintendo had controlling marketshare and 3rd parties were practically begiing to release games on their console. They were the only viable market option after the videogame crash, after all. Still, Nintendo treated 3rd parties rather aggressively back then. Games had to meet strict reqauirements in order to meet the Seal of Quality (and therefore be legitimately published). Yet after this entire ordeal, we didn't see much of a struggle from the 3rd parties to escape the next generation of the SNES.

Back then, it seemed that 3rd party support was irrelevant; they came along for the ride on the money train. That might have changed after Sony started offering such large incentives to them...

I think the wonderswan development was the whole "As long as it's not Nintendo" sentiment, or perhaps Yamauchi threw out any requests when the wounds were still raw. Gunpei Yokoi developed the Wonderswan, and it was produced by Bandai, I believe. Not sure when the Bandai-Namco merger came to be, but Square and Namco had some dealings with each other at the time when Square decided to jump ship. Or maybe they maintained good relations with Yokoi back in the Gameboy era.

If Nintendo had compromised on the N64 and either included a CD-drive or even scrapped the 64DD (which went nowhere anyway) and made a CD-drive add-on early in the N64's lifespan I think it definitely would've been the no.1 platform of that gen, and the course of video game history would've gone very different.

I mean, OK, so you didn't like the deal you signed with Sony. Fine. Philips was willing to give you CD tech too. And you could've easily made a cartridge + CD system satisifying both EAD and the broader dev community.

But to stick to only carts and to alienate *every* third party developer was just way too arrogant.

Imagine the N64 launch with Super Mario 64, but with Resident Evil 2 (CD version) day and date with the Playstation version a few months later. Probably with better graphics. Imagine no software droughts. I think even Squaresoft probably would've coming running back, but even if they didn't, Nintendo could've at least retained Enix (Dragon Quest VII was supposed to be an N64 game).