...Zelda had released before Final Fantasy VII?

I'm not trying to start any flame wars here, I was just thinking. The PS1 was already selling 'respectably' before FFVII, but the media blitz for this game (and its' awesomeness, of course) is what really set the PS1 ablaze.

http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS&reg1=All&cons2=N64&reg2=All&cons3=N64&reg3=All&start=35155&end=36247

This chart shows how the two were selling just prior to, during, and after the launch of FFVII (september 1997). The chart has only Japanese data, since VGC doesn't have N64 and PS1 data outside of Japan.

PS1 was always outselling N64 even prior to the launch (though the race was somewhat closer in America), but it REALLY took off when Square's 200-pound gorrilla was released.

Now, both FF and OoT are similarly revered games that caused revolutions of a similar size in the industry and sold gargantuan amounts. However, OoT released fourteen months later than FF (November 1998) when the damage was completely irrevocable. My question is, what would the effect would it have had on that console battle if Zelda had released before FF, or at the same time? Would there be any at all?

As much as I don't believe in system-sellers, FF and Zelda are two of those rare games that are the exception to the rule, and, so shoot me, I think that Zelda (released in exactly the same form as it eventually was) could have evened up the sales, or at least made it closer.

(I'm aware that it would be impossible for the game to be just as good if released two years earlier. In fact, It was originally slated for 1996, but Miyamoto said 'this sucks. Start over'. This is just hypothetical.)

EDIT: The title should say 'gen' instead of 'thread' XD 

the problem here is that this would have had little effect in Japan and in Europe. Clearly in America we might have seen a shift, but the way things were N64 actually did extremely well in America.

Developers were already leaving because carts weren't profitable enough. Zelda just helped the N64's reputation, but unless carts turned profitable, the PS1 would have still gotten all that support, and grew because of it.

What happened between SNES and N64 that caused third parties to turn away? Why was Sony, a newcomer, accepted so readily in Nintendo's place?

Nintendo had a policy that only 3-5 games could be made by a publisher, and it can't be shovelware. Developers hated this. That was half of the reason. The other half is that nintendo used Carts in the n64 which were more expensive, and small, but had better load times; while sony had discs which were larger and cheaper,but had longer load times. So developers chose sony.

CDs cost less than a dollar to manufacture. N64 carts apparently cost aroun $25 to manufacture. It cut horribly into the profit margin.

$25? Last I heard, it was $5 per cartridge as apposed to pennies per disk.

Edit: huh, it could have actually been $25 per cartridge.

Nothing. PS1 still would of won handily.

At least that's my opinion.

The rest is true, but that policy was ended with the NES years. I think developers sued. Whatever the reason, that was not the reason developers left in the N64 years.

Nintendo realized how pissed devs were about the limit after the SNES, and for all intents and purposes, they removed it. However, the damage was done, and most were quick to jump ship to the promising new manufacturer, Sony. That, and it's true, carts were more expensive with less space.