[tredre3]

I think you're being uncharitable. What Kaze does is very different type of optimization and I don't see how it negates (or even relates to) MattKC's analysis of the -O situation? Nintendo did indeed deliberately NOT pass the higher -O flag, MattKC was right. Kaze himself did analysis and came to the conclusion that it was likely because Nintendo wasn't confident it wouldn't introduce bugs, and the game ran fast enough as is. Of course with the power of 30 years better hindsight and tooling, we now know that compiling with the highest -O flag would have been fine.

[TheAmazingRace]

I think to me it was the premise of MattKC's video that made me question whether or not this was some massive smoking gun. Like you said, the game ran fast enough, and Nintendo wouldn't willfully ship crap out, especially considering this was a flagship title. I still maintain that the compiler flag thing felt more like a MacGuffin for the sake of getting another clickbait video out. Even Nintendo themselves did end up using the compiler flag on the PAL region variant of SM64, which did help performance a bit, but wasn't some major gamechanger (no pun intended) in the end.

I even say this as someone who generally isn't a fan of Nintendo from the perspective of their corporate policies. I don't think Nintendo did anything wrong here, especially given how new this system and the brave new world that was 3D gaming in the home was at the time for them.