| >but I suspect it really had more to do with tighter quality controls That was Nintendo's PR spin but it wasn't based in reality. The N64 had some real stinkers (Superman 64) - so let's not delude ourselves that Nintendo's quality standards are what prevented third-parties from releasing games. >The Gamecube is evidence of this It's not a valid comparison. The Gamecube was released at a time when DVD players were novel, expensive and exciting, so getting a DVD player with a console was a big deal, and of course, the Gamecube was ... not released with a functioning DVD player. It also came out a year after the PS2 (the best selling console of all time) and at that point, everyone understood that Nintendo was no longer the top-dog in consoles. They were the underdog. There was very little hype for the Gamecube. And yes, if they released a cartridge-based system, they would have been sunk. Even the most hardcore Nintendo fans wouldn't tolerate cartridges at that point. >neither of them really "lost" the Console Wars the same way SEGA's and Atari's consoles did That's true. Nintendo found themselves a nice niche, that was in part helped by the fact that the managed to maintain mobile console dominance. >The third-party options were unremarkable, sure, but the Nintendo 64 was the debut platform for Super Smash Bros That's true, the N64 had wonderful first and second party games. That was the only reason to own the N64. It's also THE reason to own the Gamecube, Wii, WiiU, and the Switch. >Can't speak much to RPGs or sports games, since I didn't play very many RPGs back then You know who played RPGs? Japan, the second biggest console market. It hurt Nintendo incredibly badly that the big multi-disc RPGs were never ported or released for the N64. Sports games were also critically important and the first few years Nintendo did not have the yearly EA FIFA/Madden/NHL offerings. Also top-tier sprite-based (Namco/Capcom) and polygon-based fighting games were never released for the N64. All this really hurt the N64 at the time. Basically if you were at all interested in non-Nintendo first-party games, you had to get a PSOne. >though I'm pretty sure the Legend of Zelda games and Paper Mario all fall into the RPG genre and all had pretty great critical acclaim and commercial success. Those were phenomenal games but Zelda was not an RPG. Paper Mario was but that's just one game. N64 did not have Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and countless others released on PSOne. Final Fanatasy and Dragon Quest were system sellers in Japan. |
Superman 64 came out in May 1999, right around when Nintendo announced "Project Dolphin" (a.k.a. the GameCube). I have a feeling most of the other "stinkers" were similarly late in the N64's lifecycle, by which point the lack of third-party games would already have been a known issue and would've prompted the very relaxation of quality controls that allowed games like Superman 64 to see the light of day.
And besides Superman 64 (which I never played), I can't really think of very many other "stinkers" for the N64. Maybe Roasters (another Titus title, even later than Superman 64), but even that was pretty fun to play (even if it reeked of being low-budget).
----
Fair points otherwise.