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Forums - Nintendo - What happened to Nintendo between the SNES and the Wii? What went wrong~

HappySqurriel on 04 November 2012

Memory Cartridges on the N64 were a great choice for making the best gaming system, but CDs at the time allowed developers to tell stories through FMV ... Both were viable for storytelling, although you would use in-engine (possibly interactive) methods on the N64 while you would use pre-rendered cut scenes on the Playstation.

Honestly, with the direction the industry has moved in as far as gameplay and storytelling goes, it could be argued that Nintendo made the right choice at the wrong time. Large (for the time) seamless worlds with interactive storytelling were entirely viable on the N64, but the cartridge didn't allow for the FMV that worked so well in advertising campaigns at the time.



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VGKing on 04 November 2012

They pissed off Sony, that's what happened!

Seriously though, I think it was the shift to 3D..that's what really killed them.(what not literally)
We're seeing that same thing now with the shift to HD. Nintendo has a tough battle on its hands with the Wii U.



oniyide on 04 November 2012
Viper1 said:
oniyide said:
Viper1 said:
oniyide said:
@viper1 i already said that had little to do with the cd-rom. Just another example of how they were messing up in those days.
speaking of the cd-roms, ill refer you to soundwave who said it better than i could.

His statement doesn't add anythig that you diddn't already state except maybe a price.

Fact is that Sony wanted full brand control which nobody would ever agree to.   Philips and JVC were some of the providers for 3D0, SNK and Sega's disc drives which may have been why Nintendo had difficulty attracting them.   We do know they couldn't go with Matsushita (you may know them as Panasonic) because they were building a competing console.

Nintendo didn't turn its back on CD media.  They tried.   They started working on it way back in 1988.  Does that sound a company that just wanted to turn its back on optical media?

By the time all those deals fell through, they were already a whole year behind schedule.   It was go with carts or be 2 years late to the market against a very competitive Sony.   

And as soon as Matsushita shelved the M2 project, Nintendo went back to them to work on the 64 DD and the GC disc drive.   Seriously, does that sound like they turned their backs on optical media to you? I mean they wanted an optical disc drive so badly that they made the 64 DD. 

never said they turned there back on anything. Dont know where you got that from.

YOu said it yourself, they could have waited it out. They werent "forced" to stick to cartridges, they made the choice to go ahead with it.

SoundWave did and you agreed with his statement.

"forced".  Outside of a physical force, not one is forced to do anything.   But we use the term "forced" when options are reduced to where only 1 other "feasible" option remains.   Launching 2-3 years late with a CD drive would have been corporate suicide.  The only other feasible option was to utilize carts again.  

But that's semantics.  And if that's the card you want to play, fine.  Play it.  But it's a very weak card.

you used the word forced, i didnt. I just said you were wrong for saying so. And unless you have access to an alternate dimension, you cant know for sure if it would have been suicide. its not like the N64 put up a that much of a fight against the PS1 anyway.



foxtail on 04 November 2012
Viper1 said:
oniyide said:
Viper1 said:

Actually, yes, they were forced.    The deal with Sony would have ended them as a hardware maker and the deal with Philips never was finalized.  By the time, they had no other CD manufacturer they could strike up a deal with in time to launch the console.  They were already a year behind schedule.  

I'm not trying to make them a victim.  I'm explaining why things happend the way they did that lea to other things happening. 

I'm sorry if you don't like it but it's the truth.

Show me some proof or it didnt happen, because Sony and Philips are the ONLY disc makers in the world? Why not just make discs?? What was stopping them form doing that? Didnt they do something similar with GC? Hell who made the discs for the 64DD? Because from the quotes i read from them, even going into GC era they were saying how good cartridges were.

I'll show you the proof later. 

As for 64DD and GC, Matsushita provided the disc drive and discs.  In fact, Matshushita has provided the disc drive and discs for every single disc based Nintendo console.  You can't just "make discs".   You need a disc drive and the software to connect between the drive and your hardware.  As well as the software to write the games to the disc. 

And no, Sony and Philips were not the only drive developers out there.  JVC was another option but by the time things feel apart from Sony and then Philips, it was way beyond schedule.  

JVC is part of Matsushita Electric Industrial, aka Panasonic.

One thing I'd like to add is that there were 3 companies heavily involved in CD tech at the time.  Sony, Panasonic (Matsushita) and Phillips.  There were other CD companies but these were the big 3 back then.

All 3 ended up making their own consoles.

Sony - Playstation

Panasonic - 3DO

Phillips - CD-i

They even ended up in the providing the DVD gen consoles their drives.

Sony - PS2

Panasonic - Gamecube

Phillips - XBOX

DarkTemplar said:
To an old school gamer like me it's hard to imagine a Nintendo console without a 2D Mario game (and all the others classic 2D transformers). So while I can see the quality the library of the N64 and the Gamecube, they never felt like true Nintendo consoles to me.

I agree.  They went from 3 mainline 2D Marios on the NES, to 1 on the SNES, to 0 on the N64.

Also what happened to Streetfighter after the SNES. It sold 6.3 million copies on the SNES and then the next Nintendo consoles never saw a mainline Streetfighter since..



Viper1 on 04 November 2012
foxtail said:

JVC is part of Matsushita Electric Industrial, aka Panasonic.


While true, up until 2007 or 2008 when Matsushita sold off their shares, JVC was given a lot of autonomy.   Note that they (JVC and Panasonic) competed on a lot of products.



The rEVOLution is not being televised

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foxtail on 04 November 2012

^

Even though they made some competing products JVC still wouldn't make a competing console to the 3DO.  I also forgot Pioneer and their lesser known Pioneer LaserActive which was late to the generation but with a Laserdisc format.



oniyide on 04 November 2012
foxtail said:
Viper1 said:
oniyide said:
Viper1 said:

Actually, yes, they were forced.    The deal with Sony would have ended them as a hardware maker and the deal with Philips never was finalized.  By the time, they had no other CD manufacturer they could strike up a deal with in time to launch the console.  They were already a year behind schedule.  

I'm not trying to make them a victim.  I'm explaining why things happend the way they did that lea to other things happening. 

I'm sorry if you don't like it but it's the truth.

Show me some proof or it didnt happen, because Sony and Philips are the ONLY disc makers in the world? Why not just make discs?? What was stopping them form doing that? Didnt they do something similar with GC? Hell who made the discs for the 64DD? Because from the quotes i read from them, even going into GC era they were saying how good cartridges were.

I'll show you the proof later. 

As for 64DD and GC, Matsushita provided the disc drive and discs.  In fact, Matshushita has provided the disc drive and discs for every single disc based Nintendo console.  You can't just "make discs".   You need a disc drive and the software to connect between the drive and your hardware.  As well as the software to write the games to the disc. 

And no, Sony and Philips were not the only drive developers out there.  JVC was another option but by the time things feel apart from Sony and then Philips, it was way beyond schedule.  

JVC is part of Matsushita Electric Industrial, aka Panasonic.

One thing I'd like to add is that there were 3 companies heavily involved in CD tech at the time.  Sony, Panasonic (Matsushita) and Phillips.  There were other CD companies but these were the big 3 back then.

All 3 ended up making their own consoles.

Sony - Playstation

Panasonic - 3DO

Phillips - CD-i

They even ended up in the providing the DVD gen consoles their drives.

Sony - PS2

Panasonic - Gamecube

Phillips - XBOX

DarkTemplar said:
To an old school gamer like me it's hard to imagine a Nintendo console without a 2D Mario game (and all the others classic 2D transformers). So while I can see the quality the library of the N64 and the Gamecube, they never felt like true Nintendo consoles to me.

I agree.  They went from 3 mainline 2D Marios on the NES, to 1 on the SNES, to 0 on the N64.

Also what happened to Streetfighter after the SNES. It sold 6.3 million copies on the SNES and then the next Nintendo consoles never saw a mainline Streetfighter since..

probably the same reasons why FF, Star ocean, Breath of Fire, and a bunch of other franchises jumped ship from Ninty. Not really a mystery.



foxtail on 04 November 2012
oniyide said:

probably the same reasons why FF, Star ocean, Breath of Fire, and a bunch of other franchises jumped ship from Ninty. Not really a mystery.

Those games used FMV and pre-rendered backgrounds that needed the CD format for space.  Street Fighter Alpha series could have fit on a N64 cartridge, and Street Fighter III series on a Gamecube disc.



oniyide on 04 November 2012
foxtail said:
oniyide said:

probably the same reasons why FF, Star ocean, Breath of Fire, and a bunch of other franchises jumped ship from Ninty. Not really a mystery.

Those games used FMV and pre-rendered backgrounds that needed the CD format for space.  Street Fighter Alpha series could have fit on a N64 cartridge, and Street Fighter III series on a Gamecube disc.

wouldnt getting those handrawn animations up and running on the cartridges harder than CDs?? Im just asking cause i dont really know, IMHO it think it was just a matter of being too late to the party. The first alpha game was released on PS/Saturn at the end of 95, N64 wasnt released till Sept of the next year. Now why not put the sequel out on n64? No clue, guess they figured release it on SNES instead with a bigger install base? Hell maybe they just hated the damn controller. N64 was pretty much done by the time Alpha3 was ready. THe 3 series completly missed the more popular PS1 but that might have been tech issues. Im just spitballing



logic56 on 04 November 2012
spurgeonryan said:
logic56 said:

they got competiton

They had competition before. Sega, Atari, 3DS, Phillips, etc. PC....more sega, etc.

 

Even the N64 more or less held its own against the PS. Even though it lost.

Atari was before them, they died durning the crash, now if we're talking about Arcades durning the time then yeah, and they were getting beat there until everyone else died

Sega grabbed 55% of the market and were on their way to beating them worse had it not been for Sony who damn near killed them both, fast forward to wii which was position in a entirely different market then the HD twins and it did well becsaue next to no competition

Nintendo is only at their best when they aren't directly competiting with anyone else NES, WII, Handheld etc almost every time in their history where they tried to directly compete there either bearly made it, lost, or completely destoryed

and the N64 didn't hold it's own, it was completely destroyed

the PS3 is what you call "holding it's own"