[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.