In another thread the question was raised about how the sales of the N64 would have been affected if it used CDs instead of cartridges.  This got me thinking, how would games like Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Goldenye, ect. be affected by the change to CDs?  While loading times would become an obvious problem, would the issues of loading data stored on a CD have caused problems beyond that?  How would a large open area like Hyrule Field load properly on CDs back in the day?

Nintendo first party games were built around the strengths and weaknesses of the cartridge format.  How much would they have to be changed, or even compromised, to work on CDs back then?

the games themselves would probably retail at lower prices..... which would result in greater sales.
The storage space would allow for bigger and differnt types of games.

I remember when I was young, going into a Toy's R Us store, and walking along the rows dedicated to video games.
Those n64 carts where like 79.99$ (in the USA).

With inflation, thats probably like paying over 100$ today for a game.
Those game cartridges made games expensive.

"How would a large open area like Hyrule Field load properly on CDs back in the day?"

If it was exactly the same size as the cartridge version, easily. Because load time is dependant on the amount of data that needs to be loaded and N64 cartridge games are tiny in comparison to CDs.

It would take longer than loading the same thing on cartridge, but it'd load faster than most PS1 games cause it's much smaller.

N64 games would have benefited with more/higher quality SFX, music and textures as well as prerendered cutscenes.

^ this.

I can actually imagine, some games would looked/sounded better today, if the N64, had used CDs.

Something like FF7 that SE, gave up on getting on Nintendo consoles, due to storage issues,.... would probably also have been on the n64.

CD => more games, better looking/sounding games on the N64 + cheaper prices of games.


I suspect that n64 overall would have sold a little more units too.

There's no reason to really lose the cartridge port even if they adopted CDs. 

The Saturn had both a CD drive and cartridge slot. Cartridge slot costs very little. If cartridges were required for Mario 64 and Zelda: OoT, the smarter move would've been to just leave the cartridge slot, or unify the RAM Expansion Slot + cartridge into one all purpose slot that can run either cart based games or be used for RAM expansion.

I think games were already streaming assets from CD back in day, say Driver 1/2 on PS1

Loading would have increased. The ps1 had some horrendous loading screens.

"PlayStation CD-ROMs reportedly cost $1 to manufacture, while cartridges for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System cost $15^[20] and Nintendo 64 cartridges reportedly cost more than $30."

We're seeing a similar thing with Switch today, just to a lesser extent.