Well it depends....the mini CD has a capacity of 185MB or something like that. Maybe developers could have more space than a cartridge but it is still really small when comparing it with a ~700MB full size CD. Also the mini CD format was much more available and easy to use when compared with the era of the GameCube disc so Nintendo would still suffer from a lot of piracy by using that format.

That was probably the worst mistake Nintendo has ever made. They essentially ceded third-party support to Sony without a fight. Though, from what I understand, Sony treated third-parties better, Nintendo was in a position of power at the time and could have gotten away with offering worse terms.

I think the truth is that a lot of developers were pleased to break away from Nintendo, however.

It's always been said that they stayed with carts due to piracy but I suspect part of it was due to the fact that discs didn't allow visual upgrades as the generation went forward. With the SNES, Nintendo was able to use the FX chip to stay ahead, tech wise, of the Genesis. In the N64 era, they were also able to do this as well. Once the Gamecube was out, that option was off the table and has been ever since.

This is also why, imo, we're hearing that the NX will have "upgradable" tech. I think people mistook that as hardware upgrades and not something like what they did with the FX chip back in the day. Nintendo has always been keen on that sort of thing and now that they're going back to carts, the option is there again.

Sony was giving better deal as in need to break into the market... Nintendo's mistake was to think to be in a position of control.

Ninendo might have kept a lot of their Japanese 3rd party support if they had used CDs and kept Squaresoft happy since the main reason I think Squaresoft left Nintendo was because they needed the extra space that CDs provided -- Yamauchi's indifference towards them leaving I think pissed off Squaresoft so much that they convinced Enix and other publishers to ditch them too.  If NIntendo had kept Squaresoft as an exclusive 3rd party, I believe they might have broken even with Sony in-terms of hardware sales because Squaresoft was the biggest and hottest 3rd party and JRPG developer during the 5th gen when JRPGs and collect-a-thon games were the big genres.

Yeah, but Sony was more focused on making the console well known and good to develop for. Nintendo was a stablished brand and wanted to factor out any kind of piracy for the console. They had a very different approach.

The Playstation could have gone the way of the 3DO or Saturn if this were the case. Many of PS1's biggest 3rd party exclusives like FF7 and Metal Gear Solid would have not only been on the N64 - but also been superior to the Playstation versions in every conceivable way.

Nintendo would've won that generation had they used CDs, they still could've used carts too (the Saturn did this just fine).

Plain and simple IMO. Mario 64 + GoldenEye + Zelda: OoT + Metal Gear Solid + Resident Evil + probably the Final Fantasy games + better graphics = game over for Playstation.

The N64, unlike the Playstation and Saturn, also had explosive sales right from launch, it was only a lack of games (due to the cartridge only decision) that killed the system's momentum. 

The decision to go with carts only is still I think the biggest mistake they've ever made in the history of the company and it's one that continues to dog the company to this day really. One stupid decision in 1993/94 impacted things that much. 

The N64 would have had MUCH better 3rd party support, but I've heard somewhere that games like Mario 64 and OoT wouldn't have turned out the way they did if the N64 had used CDs.

Everyway except cutscenes.