Exactly and that is why I forgot he wasn't on N64...

The Rambus RDRAM was really slow too, with lots of access latency and misfires.   A redesigned N64 with faster RAM, a CD-ROM and a dedicated sound chip (hell, even sticking the SNES chip in there again) would've been a beast for the time.  And probably still profitable at $299.

But no, it wouldn't have come close to Dreamcast, which had it's own unfortunate design decisions (too little VRAM, too slow a CPU, GD-ROM over DVD, etc).

Hah, I remember when G4 had a 'best consoles of all time' list and the N64 was #1.

Indeed, it helps he was a former developer himself and he put up his own money just to get Mother 3 made :P

You have to remember that Iwata was a game developer at HAL Labs before his Nintendo presidency so he would have a programmers view of the N64.

Some developers managed to put full game disc into a single cartridge. Capcom made the RE2 port of N64 and it was very well done considering the limited size of the cartridge. We had the full PS1 version with voice work and second game. Rare made the game Conkers BAd Fur day with amazing voice work.

The N64 was hard to develop for due to it's architecture at first, and the limited size in an era when games were FMV rich

I admire iwata being honest and straightfoward, much unlike MS or Sony have always been, never accepting their downsides and always downplaying the competition without respect. is like a sense of honor from Nintendo that is good to have. Is very true that nintendo had gems during the 64,but lost a gigantic share of the lion due to developers flocking to Sony, and that carried all the way to the ps2.

That's how you learn. It's too bad it's a rare thing.

Well right now as a company, Sony is entirely restructuring itself, including the way it looks at business and issues PR statements.  Guys like Kaz can't even open their mouth anymore without prior approval, unlike their predecessors (like Ken) who would just spout off whatever was on their minds (which obviously led to the tons of hilarious and infamous quotes we have from him and about the PS3).

Microsoft however....still isn't running by this type of structure.  In fact, the loudest and most outspoken person in Microsoft is its Chairman, Steve Ballmer, who basically says everything on his mind at any given time.  Negative statements against Apple, Sony, Google, Nintendo, you name it, he thinks they're inferior to Microsoft and he's got an opinion about it.  With that kind of man running your company, its no wonder that Microsoft has taken up a 'bark first and generate results later' attitude to business.

The market is drastically changing, and Sony, as an entire company, is starting to adopt the strategy of companies like Nintendo and Apple of trying to improve the actual products and keeping their PR comments to a minimum.  Microsoft is the only one who's still out there trying to bait people with aggressive negative PR stunts and claiming everyone else is the problem, not their own past faults.