Don’t forget about Mickey’s Speedway USA in the Rare column! It’s a solid kart racer.

This is really, really close. If we’re looking at the top 25 N64 games, I’d include 8 EAD games (Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Starfox 64, Wave Race 64, 1080 Snowboarding, F-Zero X, Ocarina of Time, and Majora’s Mask) and 6 Rare games (Goldeneye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Perfect Dark, Diddy Kong Racing, and Donkey Kong 64). So, EAD wins there.

But if I made a top 10 list, EAD would have 3 games (Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask) and Rare would have 5 games (GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Perfect Dark, and Diddy Kong Racing). So, Rare wins there.

I guess I give the edge to Rare then. It had more S-tier games during the N64 era, even if it had fewer A-tier games.

That’s a good point, no idea how Goldeneye slipped my mind. I’d still argue a game like Mario 64 blows anything else from that generation out of the water… but it definitely is a closer match up than maybe I was initially thinking.

I didn't play the Banjo games or Conker's Bad Fur Day, so it's not a fair comparison. But Ocarina of time > everything else for me. Mario 64 > Donkey Kong 64. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark (especially the multiplayer) were awesome and I would probably prefer Diddy Kong Racing above Mario Kart. But I would say Star Fox and F-Zero were fantastic as well (Wave Race was really nice, but didn't have the same replayability).

So the amount of great games. I would have to say: Nintendo > Rare.

For Best Game: Nintendo > Rare.

If I would have played the Banjo games. I could have said. Top 4 games for both: Rare > Nintendo.

But I didn't. So Nintendo wins ;)

Yeah I'd agree with this; Mario 64 was revolutionary, but Banjo took the formula and improved it in basically every way.

Nintendo, but it is surprisingly close. Any other company's games wouldn't stand a chance against Rare's N64 lineup but it's difficult to beat Ocarina, Majora's Mask, Mario 64 and Waverace for me, not to mention Star Fox, Mario Kart, etc. Banjo, 007 and Blast Corps were incredible though and Diddy Kong Racing, Perfect Dark and Conker were also great.

Whoops! I never played that one so it slipped my mind. Thanks; added it to the list.

That actually put the total at 10 games from EAD vs 11 from Rare, holy moly they were prolific back in the day.

I very much preferred Rare in the N64 generation.
While Nintendo deserves a lot of credit for building foundations, I found Rare hit the mark better, at least as far as my tastes are concerned.
I'll say Nintendo wasn't without games I enjoyed that generation: Mario Kart 64, Smash Bros, and Lylat Wars got a lot of my time. But other than that... Wave Race? Unlike many, I didn't really get into 3D Zelda or 3D Mario until later consoles: Mario Galaxy for Mario, and it wasn't until Breath of the Wild on Switch before I found a 3D Zelda game I enjoyed; I might have enjoyed those ones more if I wasn't comparing them to earlier iterations that were more my thing.

Goldeneye 007 was my favourite game on the N64. I also enjoyed Perfect Dark, but I think by that point I was all FPS'd out and didn't end up playing it nearly as much (I found the levels a little too longish for my liking as well), I didn't really get into any FPS games ever again after the N64... well, except for on-rails ones. Not the only time that happened for a genre/sub-genre, Smash on N64 was all I needed, found it difficult to get into any Smash game or anything like it after that (except Brawl, which had the Subspace Emissary mode)... Really, I was done with 2D platformers in general after that. Mostly I played Street Fighter Alpha 3 and earlier, and that's it... Hey! I just had a thought, GE007 had very short levels, as do those games like House of the Dead and other on-rails FPS titles... maybe my attention span for FPS games is just very short? Most of them have longer levels.
Banjo Kazooie is the game I think of when I think of early 3D platformers, not Mario 64.
Donkey Kong 64 for mid-generation 3D platformers.
Conker's Bad Fur Day defines the later N64 era 3D platformers.
Blast Corps is the game I think of for early N64 creative genre-bending titles.
Diddy Kong Racing was a game I enjoyed about the same amount as Mario Kart 64... and kept playing those two regularly until about Mario Kart on Wii.
Jet Force Gemini was the first third person shooter I enjoyed... although, it wasn't until either Godfather or Scarface on the Wii that I felt this much joy about a third person shooter on a Nintendo console again (I'm a Nintendo fan, but PSX really owned this genre).

In the mid 1990s until the early 2000s, Rare and Square were my two major video game fandoms. And a lot of people felt similarly, both were quite popular around that time, there were even fan battles between the two fanbases similar to Nintendo vs Sega vs Sony. A lot of genre shaming to justify points (Rare exclusive fans bashed RPGs, Square exclusive fans bashed platformers and FPS... but I liked them all at the time! I think most dual-console owners on the Internet were big fans of both companies.

Mickey's Speedway and Banjo Tooie were two major Rare games I didn't get into. I was aware of the chatter surrounding them, though.

And that's why I find it so unfair for N64 to had sold so few units back in the day. A video game console with this heavy-hitters titles should have sold at least 50+ million units sold

I think I’ll personally give it to Nintendo EAD for weight of games I have enjoyed and gone back to when older.
I enjoyed Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Pilotwings, Wave Race, Starfox/Lylat Wars, both Zeldas.

Played the Rareware big hits and loved parts of them. GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Banjos, Diddy Kong Racing, DK 64.
Haven’t had the opportunity to back to N64 DKR as an adult and enjoy that again.
I thought Microsoft did a great job with Perfect Dark and Banjo-Kazooie on Xbox.

The Banjo-Kazooie controls work really well on xbox and give it a tightness the original never had which I think brings out the best in it.
Whereas back in the day I thought Banjo-Kazooie was great until the last two levels which I felt had to be done in a particular order,
and I was quickly done with it. Probably enjoyed Banjo-Tooie more consistently thanks to better controls, even if the level design isn’t as good as Banjo-Kazooie.