One discrepancy at 12:00, not every N64 game is 64MB in size. N64 cartridges at launch were 8MB (including Super Mario 64) which is quite small, and then 16MB was introduced in 1997 or 98, used for games like Banjo-Kazooie, then 32MB was introduced in 1998 for games like Ocarina of Time. Only three games ended up using 64MB, since the bigger the cartridge size, the more expensive it gets and 64MB was only available late in the lifecycle. Most games were between 16MB and 32MB. 64MB is quite rare Imagine trying to cram Final Fantasy VII onto an 8MB or 16MB cart
Good information but he didn't say that every game was 64MB in size. He said "games could hold up to 64MB" not that every game was that size but in the end that is all they had to work with. He actually said kilobytes but we don't need to be pedantic as we know what he meant.
This is insane, and even if you remove all CD music and videos, most PlayStation games wouldn't fit in 64 Megabytes, let alone LESS than that. What did Nintendo expect? No wonder their console only sold in one (1) country. Did anyone actually see a Nintendo 64 in Europe? As in, not a picture online but physically. I never heard about it until angry reviews of Superman 64 and the like, it seems N64 was a USA-only thing like the country or a baseball.
@@KasumiRINA not from Europe, but Nintendo kept selling their consoles here in Latin America, while the original PlayStation became a huge hit due to how easy was to pirate its games, Sony didn't actually had any official presence, but Nintendo did actually air commercials for their games in Spanish (despite their games not having official translations into Neutral Spanish until 2007) and you could rent Nintendo 64 games on Blockbuster until the mid-2000s
I think if they had made FFVII on N64 it would have possibly sold even better than it did. Since most of Square's loyal customer base were Nintendo enjoyers at that time. I know I had to wait 1 year for the PC port of FF7 since I greatly preferred N64 (no way in HELL was I gonna miss out on Mario 64, Star Fox 64, etc)
There's also some rumors floating around that Nintendo stuck with cartridges since they invested a lot of money in a circuit and cartridge manufacturing plant
I think they are more reliable too. People rarely mention that. Sometimes a disc gets a tiny scratch on it and that ruins the game's ability to work. I remember I had a FF9 disc that looked perfect, and yet it would freeze at a certain cutscene and prevent progress. Cartridges don't have this issue.
That and the loading. In interviews with hardware designers for the N64, they usually state shorter load times and harder piracy was why they went with cartridges, and harder piracy was the sole reason they chose to make mini, proprietary discs for the GameCube instead of just using CDs or DVDs by then. Unfortunately, all their attempts to stop piracy more so just hurt themselves worse than piracy ever had hurt them.
NES was a big success. SNES the restrictions on third party made them start looking elsewhere. N64 was the moment old third party said enough is enough and stopped focusing on Nintendo as their preferred machine.
And now in the long term they are paying the price of making the wrong decision. They made the best decision for short term profits but now look where they are. Konami, Capcom, Square, just a shell of their former selves. Their game franchises were once seen by Nintendo consumers as synonymous with Mario and Zelda. Now they can't even be found in the bargain bin, a total disaster.
NES was a big success in North America and Japan. Other regions, like South America, Europe, Asia (excluding Japan), or the Oceania weren't fond of the NES for it's exorbitant price point and Nintendo's disinterest in advertising it. In all of those regions, the Sega Master System actually was much more popular, a household name, especially in Europe and South America. The problem was even worse for SNES, even less people in those regions were attracted to it, and so the Genesis (Mega Drive outside of North America) was much more popular than the SNES.
I was 6 in 2000 and the frame rate never bothered me. I don't really recall anyone older calling it slow either. I think it might just be modern expectations clashing there.
Nice video as always. I felt that PlayStation really took the lead during this period, as Nintendo still relied on Cartridges, and another thing being that Square thought the Cartridge format would not be enough for Final Fantasy VII, so they went to Sony, seeing how the CD-ROM Format was essential for developing said game, as well as their future titles, and Working Designs doing the English Ports of The Lunar series released on SEGA Saturn in Japan for U.S. PlayStation users. Also, for the N64, you had your Mario and Zelda entries, but there was no Metroid entry, and the lack of RPGs on the N64, which is where the PlayStation shined. Both systems used RISC Processors, so programming should not have been that hard, except when you were trying to squeeze so much data into one of Nintendo's Cartridges. Also on the N64, some times games would freeze if you didn't have the Expansion Pack to update RAM and Display. BY the time I was ready to buy a console in 1998, I had been favoring The PlayStation as The SEGA Saturn was Discontinued in the States of that year due to poor sales figures, and The N64 just wasn't doing anything for me except bore me. So, I took The PlayStation as the winning console that Holiday Season. Just a personal opinion, but Nintendo also lost fans because in Japan, they have no "Fair Use" clause in their copyright acts, which is why they love to target fans of their IPs when the fans make tributes to them, no matter where in the world they hail from, and sue them for Copyright Infringement, over something as simple as a Fan-Fiction. And as I see it, the company is run by "Old Men" and as of this moment, many players are seeing the Switch as being obsolete. But to answer the question, IMHO, The N64 was a failure, mostly because Nintendo wasn't completely getting with the times by sticking to the Cartridge format, when SEGA had moved on to the CD-ROM Format... and lest we forget... the PlayStation was born out of Nintendo backing out their deal with Sony for a CD-ROM add-on for the Super NES, and that came back to haunt Nintendo.
1:35 Only in USA and Japan. In all other countries (about 190) SEGA was the only 16-bit console that was a thing. There was no console war here, it was Famiclones > SEGA > PlayStation, we didn't even say Mega Drive, there was just THE Sega, though I heard South America and Western Europe did have popular Segas before and after that. Also official data on sales of NES/Famicom are only ones that Nintendo sold officially, most of the world had Chinese Subors, Dendys and Dynavisions plus various noname Famicom clones, so in reality, there were hundreds of millions of consoles that play Famicom cartridges and PCBs, still sold to this day in fact! So the discrepancy between NES and SNES exposure was WAY higher than data shows. Everybody's family had a Famiclone at some point. Just want to add my 5 cents as a person not from USA, the country Nintendo always had most success. American view on their popularity is majorly skewed, they weren't big worldwide before Switch. Their games were but only during 8-bit era, on those yellow multicarts.
I don't know, Nintendo did have an official presence in many Latin American countries during the '90s and early 2000s, they left during some economic crisis, but came back later and now their games are even dubbed into Neutral Spanish In regards to piracy, yes, many people in countries like Chile and Argentina tended to play Famiclones, Genesis clones and later pirated POne games. But it wasn't like Nintendo was super obscure, I live in Argentina and I my parents bought me a Nintendo 64 and I was able to rent games at Blockbuster
Even in the United States, the Sega Genesis won the 16-bit console war against the Snes by any objective measure. Revisionist history is strong because Sega failed after the 16-bit era in the home console market. Both Genesis and Snes sold about 20M units in the United States. Genesis sold more software and dominated the rental market, which was massive in the U.S. Sega went into the 16-bit era with less than 1% market share, and Nintendo went into it with 95%+ What you will get from people who support the Snes narrative is a bunch of sales numbers "predominantly" from Japan that show very impressive sales numbers. That's a reflection of the Japanese market not the American market.
The difference with that stuff in the second paragraph is that Nintendo never officially licensed the Famiclones and such, those were unofficial products being run without Nintendo's approval.
7:10 it definitely was my first time I'm hearing Mario's voice. I found out years ago the first time actually was Mario teaches typing and or Mario's Game Gallery for the pc
Good video! When I was a kid, I only was able to get one console per generation. I chose the N64 over the PS1 and Saturn, but I loved it despite it having more limited game releases. Super Mario 64 hooked me and I enjoyed a lot of the N64's games. Also, the 4-player local multiplayer was a huge draw for my family and friends! I still love N64 games to this day and I even revisit some of them occasionally. I do agree that the cartridge format ultimately hurt Nintendo's support, but there are still some excellent exclusive third party games on it. Though, I think Nintendo and Rareware's games drew my attention the most. I've always had a blast playing Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing, Mario Kart 64, Super Smash Bros, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, the Mario Parties, Kirby 64, Star Fox 64, Wave Race 64, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Ocarina of Time, and Majora's Mask.
I prefer N64 cartridges for the instantaneous loading times. Most of what PS1 discs were used for was a total waste anyhow, the FMV movies looked bad then and have aged even more poorly than I even imagined. And story in video games is rarely ever any good.
4:38 firstly, great looking clean bottle green N64, really stylish! The problem with this controller is how horribly it maps unto other things, it comes up when you try to emulate Nintendo stuff after Super Famicom, bloody GameCube has to use awkward start + A combination to access coded in MGS Twin Snakes, while Dreamcast, Xbox and Dualshock controllers have interchangeable layouts... it also doesn't help that Nintendo don't know English alphabet and have buttons in wrong order (if you're used to Microsoft OR SEGA pads especially). Fun fact, X button is in one of three spots, except on the right.
The controller looked and felt wierd but as soon as you appreciate jumping into 3d with zelda for the first time and having a thumbstick instead of a dpad it rounded out perfectly.
The SNES was the console to own with all the biggest companies creating for it. That changed for the next generation, id say mainly due to Nintendo using cartridges and the playstation using cds. Cds cost pennies to make, cartridges many dollars so far leas risk for game companies
In multiverse theory that means there's a version of me that went SNES > PSX as a kid and not Genesis > N64. Which honesly... I probably should have. I can imagine a childhood without Sanic, but not Mario 64 and OOT. Just nah. Those bitches came out when I was 10-12 which was like the perfect age. I got a used PSX at 12 to play FF7 and other Jarpigs + other stuff, so after a quick couple years I had the best of both worlds. Plus you can play all of it "any way you can" now. So really.. no harm done... except the permanent harm that is done to every child who plays any Sonic game for any period of time.. which is an issue not taken seriously enough.
The N64 was definitely a console that can be described of "something that allows for better stuff but is more expensive to produce". Sure, cartridges allows the N64 games to have shorter load times, but unfortunately, they were more expensive to produce. But boy, the fact that it failed commercially in Japan because of lack of RPGs is really surprising in my opinion. Oh yeah, not only RPGs ended up moving onto the PS1 or Saturn - fighting games ended up moving to these platforms too, though there was still a decent amount of fighting games for the N64.
Pojr has a sponsor????? CONGRATULATIONS!! Something that didn't help the N64 competing with the PlayStation was demo discs. I tried so many new types of games I purchased because of those discs.
It did not sell as well for one simple fact, lack of a CD 💿 drive to store media! which in that era was becoming the new cutting edge standard. it made game manufacturing affordable, allowed for bigger higher ambition games. and offered full motion video cinemas.
@ Absolutely agree with you. going from a wonderfully rendered cinema scene to blocky looking characters. but it was all we had back in the day and we loved it. Look at what a success Final Fantasy seven was.
@@plaztik767 I’m just grateful that technology has now progressed to a point where hardware is now more than capable of delivering a cinematic experience these days.
Tactically these were not region locked. If you were able to get the cartridge in their it can it won't play it it comes down to a hardware issue not a software issue the notches on the bottom of the cartridge means something basically they're just not the same for each country you could either swap the boards with a different cartridge is one option or I think things online showing how you can fix your 64 so we can play everything. Pause is also with 3D printed model option I've seen. Bottom line is you can easily play any countries game on any system it's just a matter of getting the cartridge in there. For an example if you have a ROM cart can you put a Japanese rom on there it will play no problem. Cuz just like I said it's a hardware issue not a software issue so that's only half true that it's region locked
This is true, Nintendo utilized a very primitive way to keep the console region lock, just like the Super Nintendo. I didn't go into enough detail about this.
@@pojr you should make a video about various methods of region-locking later, when I was a kid I always heard about "chipped" consoles, I think that was to remove dev limitations on them. Like to play burned CDs and Japanese stuff.
This was the first time Nintendo got what I like to call "Big Head Syndrome", when just because they were industry leaders, they knew best(nothing could be further from the truth) . First off, Nintendo ruled 3rd parties with an iron grip, and most saw the medium of CDs as a way to not only make better games, but make them cheaper to boot. We have all seen for 20+ years how slow Nintendo is when it comes to adopting industry standards, and the N64 was no different. They said they kept cartridges due to better speeds, and whatnot, but that was just them saying we want to stick with carts, as it makes us the most money and we can best control 3rd parties this way. The 3rd parties rebeled and the rest is history. Even when they finally took a step forward with using CDs with the GC, they took two steps back by using mini disc to be different for differents sake. While no one likes loading times, it was a small tradeoff for all the amazing new things the medium brought to the table and the PS1 dominated. It took Nintendo several generations to get companies back like Square Enix who they pissed off with their bullish behavior. When given the chance, Nintendo will always do what they want, if its good or bad, they don't care, just so long as they can say we know best, the outcome really doesn't matter.
Yeah in terms of number of units sold it was a "failure" compared to PlayStation, but in terms of influence (basically writing the book on how 3D platforming should be done) and franchises (we wouldn't have Smash without it) and legacy (Ocarina and Majora's Mask are now hailed as classics) it's a HUGE WIN. I can't help but think Nintendo was more than happy with the profit and continues to milk the IP from the era to this day.
While I have no opinion if the N64 was a commercial failure or not I find it better then the OG PlayStation. Because of the CM of Super Smash Bros. Happy together by the Turtles is permanently associated with that Super Smash Bros. CM
N64 only lacked in quantity of certain genres like RPGs. But it did not fail to provide excellent quality for fans of that genre. Paper Mario is nowadays seen as one of the all time great ones.
I think the N64 is a failure. There were only around 300 games for it. There should have been something for everyone. Sony PS Vita is also considered a failure but it has 1500 games. They are both cool failures. N64 is not as big a failure as the Amiga CD32.
@@newmediadenmark_ but the SEGA Saturn had over a thousand games and sold way less consoles compared to the N64, and I know that people mention that the Saturn sold much better in Japan, but if you look at the official numbers, the Saturn only managed to sell a couple hundred thousand more units compared to the Nintendo 64 there
5:46 why is this anyways I always hear about how certain shows are only shown in certain areas and they constantly switch them and all that other junk why can't everyone just have access to the entire Netflix library at all times why do they got to switch it around like that. The only excuse for that should really be if it was a show that was specifically made for that country but even if that is the case everything has subtitles nowadays and make a dub the voices so even if it is the case who cares we're paying for it on top of it all too. People shouldn't have to do stuff like get a VPN just to watch what they want. It's kind of a dumb system if you ask me
Licensing issues - different IPs may have different licensing (or lack thereof) for different countries. Also governments may censor certain shows/movies.
It's about distribution rights. For example, Netflix gets exclusive rights to show WWE in Europe, so other platforms can't host their shows anymore. Imagine the opposite situation. Or Peacock got license to show some series in USA, but HBO got to show in UK, so you got to jump loopholes... A lot of times distributors pay for the rights, so public broadcaster like BBC or Suspilne will pay budget money to show Olympics in their home countries, and put their own ads on top, so they can't allow other services to do the same. But countries that didn't pay for rights had free streams on RUclips.
N64 launched 6 months too late. to give playstation a year head start in USA was a big mistake by Nintendo. March 1996 would have been a great time to launch N64 in USA.
This wouldn't have done too much eitherway. Yeah nintendo would've gotten better initial sales, but third parties wouldn't really work in their restrictions, a CD-ROM was ten times bigger then the biggest n64 cart.
And it was also supposed to Launch in 1995 as the Ultra 64... and in 1994, the N64 hardware was already there, (with the additional Hard Drive for KI's and later KI-2's Graphics & Animations). The Hardware for "Killer Instinct" & later "Killer Instinct 2" was in fact a coin-operated version of the N64's hardware, before they started tweaking it for a home release. Even though Cruisin' USA was also slated for the N64, the arcade hardware for that game was completely different as MIDWAY developed the game in-house on their own hardware (The MIDWAY V-Unit) for Nintendo and would later port it to the N64. (Little known fact: The Trophy Girl in that game, is Anutza Herling aka XXX Actress Shyla Foxxx).
But USA is the only country where Nintendo 64 was actually successful, like half of N64 sales were in United States... Americans have their own bubble where people actually played GoldenEye and Mario 64, like outside of one country, these games were absolutely unknown until the modern times. I haven't seen a single N64 and I live in Europe, in other places it's worse. It just wasn't a thing outside of USA. It had zero chances in countries that didn't even get Super Nintendo. Which is most countries.
@@SpiffyoNintendo never gave third parties any favourable terms during the NES and SNES era too, so with Sony offering third parties a much favourable terms, that’s when Nintendo lost support.
While the N64 was difficult to program for it was not underpowered compared to the PS1. The cartridge was not only a game but included extra ram if needed which is why it was expensive. If they knew more about the hardware they could of got more out of the console. The graphics could of looked way better over time. People will assume the cartridges held it back which it did. PS1 had videos playing while a n64 sometimes had slides. But it was much easier to just create a cutscene in game like they did with Conker. Very much the N64s were powerful I'd say way more then ps1 was. What held them back was the space. Making higher textures meant more space taken. So like in the video ps1 had more headroom for textures and models more complex a model was the more data itll take up. They were bottlenecked by the 64mb limit. Tons of videos online ya'll can look up that shows modders the raw power of an n64 could do.
As for great third party games on the N64, I immediately think of the San Francisco Rush trilogy. And while I'm not a pro wrestling fan, I'm sure many people will bring up those old WWF games as great third party titles. Heck, you even brought up Beetle Adventure Racing.
In Italy the N64 was kinda rare to see. Yes, we saw the consoles and the games in stores, we even got some commercials, but the console itself was a rare thing among the rooms of a late 90s' italian kids. On the other Nintendo side, the Game Boy Color sold like bread here: in fact, Nintendo was the absolute king of handhelds of my Country. The PlayStation was THE console here, because... yeah, it was so easy to pirate. An acid truth about italian people: most of them love piracy...
@@retrojoe85 that sounds kind of similar of how things went here in Argentina, and most of Latin America. Nintendo had official distributors and commercials for their games and consoles aired on television (despite the fact that the games themselves weren't translated and Nintendo would not translate their games into Neutral Spanish until 2007), but most people were playing their games on Family Computer clones, which were called "Family Game", even the first console my parents bought me was a Famiclone, and those Famiclones are still being produced to this day On the other hand, the PlayStation became very popular at the end of '90s due to how easy it was to pirate its games, but the games that were popular on the PSOne were mostly action-oriented or sports/racing games, since it was very difficult to find games in Spanish, if you were lucky you could play Metal Gear Solid in European Spanish, but Final Fantasy VII was never popular here in Latin America, since it was a very heavy-text game, and the European Spanish translation that was possible to obtain has a TON of translation errors and plenty of confusing and incomprehensible dialog The Game Boy was sort of popular here in LatAm, Nintendo even released Pokemon Red/Blue in Spanish, but most people I know that played Pokemon started playing them in emulators
It's fascinating how RUclips is so USA-dominated there's things like Nintendo vs SEGA (instead of it being just SEGA until PlayStation arrived), or N64 games being influential, even tho barely anyone played them outside of United States... Seriously, look up sales of other Nintendo consoles outside of USA. Famicom CLONES were big, sure, but official NES? Nope. And after that? The next Nintendo console that had major international appeal was the Switch! Their handhelds did sell, but on home console market Nintendos were virtually unknown outside of America and Japan.
N64 was a borderline great system despite its major flaw. It failed taking the lead, but it's amazing that they succeeded in making/getting great games. It was enough for them to make some money, I assume. I was more than happy with my PS1, though.
a lot of people think that N64 using carts was a drawback, but interestingly if you take a PS1 game like Crash Bandicoot the majority of the space on the disc is taken up by a 300 megabyte dummy file, making the actual game data around 220 megs. While that's still a bit bigger than an N64 cart at 64 megabytes max the gap between them wasn't as big as it may first appear, also factoring in most N64 games didn't use CD audio which takes up even more space on the disc that isn't strictly game data. Great job going over the N64 Pojr!
I've always been a Nintendo fan, and I bought the Nintendo64 the day of release. The only other console I owned that wasn't Nintendo was an Odyssey2. I grew up with Nintendo and love it wholeheartedly to this day. I was 21 when the Nintendo64 came out and it definitely had a bad rep with my gamer friends of the time. It was common to hear that Nintendo was for kids. I know it's had that rep for a while, but in my memory that was the first time it was mentioned. Real gamers played PlayStation, and babies played Nintendo. I don't agree with that, but it was the sentiment. I finally broke my Nintendo only streak with a PS2 as I had to play FF7
It's a good video, also you have to know, that the super nintendo was not in the best of situations, due to no CD support, absurd censorship policies and also making life impossible for developers since the NES. 👻👻
I never think of it as a failure. Well, except in Japan. In fact, it was a powerful machine, but ROM size limitations held it back from being a huge success. PS1 took the gaming crown there.
Japan was the only country other than US N64 got sales at all, it's virtually unknown in Europe, mainland Asia, and other places, it failed in literally every country except in USA.
The way I see it, the SNES represented a trend of Nintendo’s newer hardware selling worse than their predecessors. Sure, the SNES may have been the top selling console of it’s generation, but it also underperformed when compared next to it’s direct predecessor, the NES, which controlled over 80% of the American market share in it’s prime. Due to added competition from the Sega Genesis, it only seemed natural that Nintendo would eventually slip and cede its crown to a much potential newcomer.
I had and still have my N64. I eventually got a PS2 though. If you want to play Japanese carts all you have to do is take the back off and replace the back with the back off an N64 American game you don't use or like. Easy. N64 had No Mercy which is still one of the best wrestling games ever made. Lots of great games on N64 and none of my carts quit working. Back then I wasn't thrilled about discs to be all scratched up
From what I heard n64 didn't sell so well in Japan due to the less third party support it got compared to the ps1 mainly regarding rpgs like dragon quest. yet 33k is really a commercial failure sense its not that far behind in sells being close to 25% less of ps1's.
Commercial failure, yes. But a cult classic in my heart. Will never forget going from 16 bit Snes Mario to seeing Mario in 3d for the first time with Mario 64. That feeling in the video game world I don't think will ever be surpassed in my lifetime.
Simple: create a non disk based system using expensive cartridges when the entire world was using cheap cd technology. Next use a handcuffed buffer so the game sound has to take up a significant amount of your vrams bandwidth, leading to weak effects and muted music. Then cripple yourself further by developing a cutting edge chip architecture that was near impossible to program for and port over other titles. A recipe for disaster I still like the N64 but this killed them
International Superstar Soccer 64 and Snowboard Kids are both 3rd Party titles which I really liked as kid and still have in my collection. But yea, your point very valid and one of the biggest issues this system had. I am no fan of its controller either despite thinking it looks somehow cool. Overall I always liked the PlayStation 1 better and wanted a Saturn badly, but the Transfer Pak for GameBoy games was pretty awesome to have for especially Pokémon as well as Mario sports titles.
One of the reasons why Nintendo went with cartridges was anti-piracy / anti-bootlegging. PlayStation games were easy to copy, but was there even a single pirated N64 game? I highly doubt it... So, smart move in that regard.
Why would someone pirate games for console that nobody had? The most pirated system of all time is Nintendo Famicom, most people in the world played its games on Chinese Famiclones: Subor, Dendy, Dynavision etc., everyone played Mario, 90% of those people never seen a Nintendo console before Switch or at least Wii. We had tons of yellow pirated cartridges, and swapped PCBs like hot cakes, like you know, the green silicone internal part of the game? Without the plastic around it. We had BOXES of those. Every country. China pirated tons of those and put them on multicarts. N64 tho, where would you stuff them into, by finding... both... consoles they sold outside of USA?
N64 games varied quite a bit in the stores. Mario 64 was $70, some larger games could be $100. Ps1 games standardized at $50 for each release aside from budget ones which would be $20. Would you rather spend $100 for Resident Evil 2 on N64, or $20 for Resident Evil 2 on PS1 or Dreamcast because by the time Resident Evil 2 came out on N64, it would be a budget game on PS1 and on Dreamcast. Most people who had an N64, likely had a PlayStation as well for this reason. Have an N64 for the Nintendo games, and a PS1 for everything else. Imagine spending $140 (adjusted for inflation) on Mario 64.
No they didn't. Nintendo won the console war. Sony is not doing well at ALL right now. The video game industry is facing mass layoffs, Concord losing Sony billions, and meanwhile Nintendo stock is hitting all time highs and they're riding a wave of success after success.
Ok so the N64 did have some great 3rd party games like.. Bomberman 2nd attack Mischief Makers Bangai-O Star Soldier Star Successor Turok 1 2 and 3 007 World Is Not Enough Mystical Ninja 2 Starring Goemon Star Wars Rogue Squadron Shadow man Extreme G Doom 64 Quake 1 and 2 Resident Evil 2 Mega man 64
I might be wrong but at 14:29 you say that "I don't think the console exceeded Nintendo's expactations" when I think judging from the sales numbers and their expectations that what you meant to say was "didn't *MEET* Nintendo's expectations". The problem that makes N64 look like a commercial failure was that Nintendo expected (in my opinion in a rather unsubstanciated/delusional way) WAY too much from the console like it was somekind of monopoly or like the market wasn't still fastly evolving. Your wording sounds like it wasn't somekind of "homerun" success which I don't think was exactly the case for any of the competing consoles yet some of the were success stories. PS1 was a big success because it put them right at the top of the sales numbers and solidified their ground where they could build upon in the future, which was Sony's expectations, but it's not like it sold like let's say it's successor. Is my observation correct?
Nintendo could reasonably expect their next console to sell at least in Japan, as Famicoms did. And of course SONY never expected to literally run out of business basically every single console manufacturer. AND they sold worldwide, while Nintendo limited itself to home market, Western Europe and USA. You're underestimating how dominant PlayStation was, outside of USA and Japan, nobody even heard of N64, and others had it worse... Apart from big N every major console maker from 8 bit and 16 bit eras was completely destroyed forever. Amiga? Went bankrupt. Atari? Bankrupted. NEC? Last console they made. SNK? Couldn't enter CD market... SEGA? Made one more console, went out of business. 3DO, Philips and others who tried to enter 32 bit era failed. Nintendo somehow survived on their handhelds (Gameboys existed even in countries that never seen a SNES), but every other manufacturer had NO CHANCES. Nintendo are special is that they're the only ones who recovered after two generations of being completely dunked on by Sony, I mean comparing popularity of Gamecube and PS2 is like comparing CDi to Sega Mega Drive. Just don't. THEN Microsoft entered arena. Notice how nobody making consoles except for MS, Sony and Nintendo now. Fifth generation was brutal to anybody who didn't have Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo, Tomb Raider, Crash, Spyro and Tekken... I am not surprised, who TF would play Beetle racing instead of Need for Speed? Show me one person who would rather play Quest 64 instead of Final Fantasy VII. Remember, there's EXCUUUUUSE ME PRINCESS on one side, and Medal of Honor on the other... How did Nintendo not go out of business after that?
@@KasumiRINA What I meant with my comment is that, in the video pojr said "exceeded" when I think what he meant or what makes more sense is "met", they have to be arrogant (which they are but it's beyond the point) to expect a homerun success. Nintendo did bad but not bad enough for even the rest of their products not be able to keep the company afloat. The gameboy line was enough to sort of offset their shortcomings in the home console market. As a kid I never owned a N64 and I went from an SNES to a PS1 but I recall being keen enough to keep an eye on how things work in the console business, just so I can remember things in the future. What I recall was a Nintendo, not very alike the one from today, acting grand and being "safe" that they will never stop being the gods of whatever thing they think they are gods and it felt like whatever decisions they were making that there won't be any long-lasting consequences, a hint that they are still refusing to get. DELUSION.
Yes i would consider it a success even if it was [2nd place] to Sony. The history of N64 is interesting including Sierra getting involved with the technology. Yes, they lost out to Sony due to hardware development (Kart vs CD) but there were some advantages to that too. If N64 was a true [flop] you would not see The Switch or the Wii being developed or the Gamecube. Even if the disk magnetic drive had worked (it was a failure) 64 MB space it would have made it too expensive to use for most users. I believe N can learn from their previous mistakes [I hope]. It is too bad that Rare was given to Microsft (2002) era but things happen.
don't forget, while the CD-I is now seen as a failed console and a mistake, back when it was new people were fawning over it and claiming it was the future of entertainment. Not that it was an overly great system, it did have a place in the market at the time.
Ever since the SNES, Nintendo was unable to repeat the success of the NES. Ironically enough, the NES was Nintendo’s best selling console until 2010 when the Wii eventually surpassed it.
@@crazedlunatic43 Sony has never replicated the success of any Nintendo console when it comes to cumulative profits which are the only thing that matters. For the entire Nintendo vs Sony "console wars", Nintendo has turned a better profit. At no point has Sony ever been beating Nintendo, and the gap was actually widest during the Wii U years of all times.
Didn't Shigeru Miyamoto state a lot of negative things about RPGs at around this time that miffed the folks at Square, which led to those RPGs not being made for the Nintendo, but rather, to the Playstation?
@KasumiRINA although, that was the beginning of cinematics over gameplay. It's never been the same since. I know that's an unpopular opinion, but what the hay.
1.They screwed Sony over. 2. Didn’t use cds cause they were scared of piracy and cause they wanted control. 3. Just copy the Sony controller like they did urs and add two sticks to it before they did lol
Nintendo really did screw Sony over, by backing out of the deal, therefore giving Sony the opportunity to create their own game console. Nintendo's costly loss was Sony's gain.
Nooooo Pojr! Why do you now, interrupt your video with an advertisement!? This is the first time i give your video a thumbs down 👎🏼 I that this is the only time. Cause I love your videos 😊
You could play 4+ with Playstation Multitap btw. I had mormon friends (big families) so they always had them lol. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Multitap
Go to piavpn.com/pojr to get 83% off on Private Internet Access! That’s just $2.03 a month, and you also get 4 extra months completely for free!
One discrepancy at 12:00, not every N64 game is 64MB in size.
N64 cartridges at launch were 8MB (including Super Mario 64) which is quite small, and then 16MB was introduced in 1997 or 98, used for games like Banjo-Kazooie, then 32MB was introduced in 1998 for games like Ocarina of Time.
Only three games ended up using 64MB, since the bigger the cartridge size, the more expensive it gets and 64MB was only available late in the lifecycle.
Most games were between 16MB and 32MB. 64MB is quite rare
Imagine trying to cram Final Fantasy VII onto an 8MB or 16MB cart
This is true, I didn't go into enough detail. The maximum was 64 MB, but many games were under that.
Good information but he didn't say that every game was 64MB in size. He said "games could hold up to 64MB" not that every game was that size but in the end that is all they had to work with. He actually said kilobytes but we don't need to be pedantic as we know what he meant.
This is insane, and even if you remove all CD music and videos, most PlayStation games wouldn't fit in 64 Megabytes, let alone LESS than that. What did Nintendo expect? No wonder their console only sold in one (1) country. Did anyone actually see a Nintendo 64 in Europe? As in, not a picture online but physically. I never heard about it until angry reviews of Superman 64 and the like, it seems N64 was a USA-only thing like the country or a baseball.
@@KasumiRINA not from Europe, but Nintendo kept selling their consoles here in Latin America, while the original PlayStation became a huge hit due to how easy was to pirate its games, Sony didn't actually had any official presence, but Nintendo did actually air commercials for their games in Spanish (despite their games not having official translations into Neutral Spanish until 2007) and you could rent Nintendo 64 games on Blockbuster until the mid-2000s
I think if they had made FFVII on N64 it would have possibly sold even better than it did. Since most of Square's loyal customer base were Nintendo enjoyers at that time. I know I had to wait 1 year for the PC port of FF7 since I greatly preferred N64 (no way in HELL was I gonna miss out on Mario 64, Star Fox 64, etc)
I think Nintendo liked cartridges because they were harder to pirate. Even more than their impact on load times.
There's also some rumors floating around that Nintendo stuck with cartridges since they invested a lot of money in a circuit and cartridge manufacturing plant
I think they are more reliable too. People rarely mention that. Sometimes a disc gets a tiny scratch on it and that ruins the game's ability to work. I remember I had a FF9 disc that looked perfect, and yet it would freeze at a certain cutscene and prevent progress. Cartridges don't have this issue.
@@graalcloud yeah true
Sony (alongside Phillips) also owned the CD-Format too, so Nintendo would likely have to pay Sony to use CDs as the main format on their N64.
That and the loading. In interviews with hardware designers for the N64, they usually state shorter load times and harder piracy was why they went with cartridges, and harder piracy was the sole reason they chose to make mini, proprietary discs for the GameCube instead of just using CDs or DVDs by then. Unfortunately, all their attempts to stop piracy more so just hurt themselves worse than piracy ever had hurt them.
Turok was actually a fun FPS shooter for the N64, in fact it was the first game on the system not published by Nintendo to have sold 1 million copies!
NES was a big success.
SNES the restrictions on third party made them start looking elsewhere.
N64 was the moment old third party said enough is enough and stopped focusing on Nintendo as their preferred machine.
And now in the long term they are paying the price of making the wrong decision. They made the best decision for short term profits but now look where they are. Konami, Capcom, Square, just a shell of their former selves. Their game franchises were once seen by Nintendo consumers as synonymous with Mario and Zelda. Now they can't even be found in the bargain bin, a total disaster.
The SNES in other words signalled Nintendo’s demise with the N64 officially breaking the camel’s back.
NES was a big success in North America and Japan. Other regions, like South America, Europe, Asia (excluding Japan), or the Oceania weren't fond of the NES for it's exorbitant price point and Nintendo's disinterest in advertising it. In all of those regions, the Sega Master System actually was much more popular, a household name, especially in Europe and South America. The problem was even worse for SNES, even less people in those regions were attracted to it, and so the Genesis (Mega Drive outside of North America) was much more popular than the SNES.
@@koolaid33 I'm from Brazil, officially Master System was the more popular, but for each kid with one there was 5 with NES clones (me included lol)
I was 6 in 2000 and the frame rate never bothered me. I don't really recall anyone older calling it slow either. I think it might just be modern expectations clashing there.
The thumbnail is interesting but when you compare it to the NES (61 million units) both systems underperformed.
Nice video as always. I felt that PlayStation really took the lead during this period, as Nintendo still relied on Cartridges, and another thing being that Square thought the Cartridge format would not be enough for Final Fantasy VII, so they went to Sony, seeing how the CD-ROM Format was essential for developing said game, as well as their future titles, and Working Designs doing the English Ports of The Lunar series released on SEGA Saturn in Japan for U.S. PlayStation users.
Also, for the N64, you had your Mario and Zelda entries, but there was no Metroid entry, and the lack of RPGs on the N64, which is where the PlayStation shined.
Both systems used RISC Processors, so programming should not have been that hard, except when you were trying to squeeze so much data into one of Nintendo's Cartridges. Also on the N64, some times games would freeze if you didn't have the Expansion Pack to update RAM and Display.
BY the time I was ready to buy a console in 1998, I had been favoring The PlayStation as The SEGA Saturn was Discontinued in the States of that year due to poor sales figures, and The N64 just wasn't doing anything for me except bore me. So, I took The PlayStation as the winning console that Holiday Season.
Just a personal opinion, but Nintendo also lost fans because in Japan, they have no "Fair Use" clause in their copyright acts, which is why they love to target fans of their IPs when the fans make tributes to them, no matter where in the world they hail from, and sue them for Copyright Infringement, over something as simple as a Fan-Fiction. And as I see it, the company is run by "Old Men" and as of this moment, many players are seeing the Switch as being obsolete.
But to answer the question, IMHO, The N64 was a failure, mostly because Nintendo wasn't completely getting with the times by sticking to the Cartridge format, when SEGA had moved on to the CD-ROM Format... and lest we forget... the PlayStation was born out of Nintendo backing out their deal with Sony for a CD-ROM add-on for the Super NES, and that came back to haunt Nintendo.
Great analysis
1:35 Only in USA and Japan. In all other countries (about 190) SEGA was the only 16-bit console that was a thing. There was no console war here, it was Famiclones > SEGA > PlayStation, we didn't even say Mega Drive, there was just THE Sega, though I heard South America and Western Europe did have popular Segas before and after that.
Also official data on sales of NES/Famicom are only ones that Nintendo sold officially, most of the world had Chinese Subors, Dendys and Dynavisions plus various noname Famicom clones, so in reality, there were hundreds of millions of consoles that play Famicom cartridges and PCBs, still sold to this day in fact! So the discrepancy between NES and SNES exposure was WAY higher than data shows. Everybody's family had a Famiclone at some point.
Just want to add my 5 cents as a person not from USA, the country Nintendo always had most success. American view on their popularity is majorly skewed, they weren't big worldwide before Switch. Their games were but only during 8-bit era, on those yellow multicarts.
I don't know, Nintendo did have an official presence in many Latin American countries during the '90s and early 2000s, they left during some economic crisis, but came back later and now their games are even dubbed into Neutral Spanish
In regards to piracy, yes, many people in countries like Chile and Argentina tended to play Famiclones, Genesis clones and later pirated POne games. But it wasn't like Nintendo was super obscure, I live in Argentina and I my parents bought me a Nintendo 64 and I was able to rent games at Blockbuster
Even in the United States, the Sega Genesis won the 16-bit console war against the Snes by any objective measure.
Revisionist history is strong because Sega failed after the 16-bit era in the home console market.
Both Genesis and Snes sold about 20M units in the United States. Genesis sold more software and dominated the rental market, which was massive in the U.S.
Sega went into the 16-bit era with less than 1% market share, and Nintendo went into it with 95%+
What you will get from people who support the Snes narrative is a bunch of sales numbers "predominantly" from Japan that show very impressive sales numbers. That's a reflection of the Japanese market not the American market.
POJR is a leaf bud. He's not from USA either.
The difference with that stuff in the second paragraph is that Nintendo never officially licensed the Famiclones and such, those were unofficial products being run without Nintendo's approval.
7:10 it definitely was my first time I'm hearing Mario's voice.
I found out years ago the first time actually was Mario teaches typing and or Mario's Game Gallery for the pc
Good video! When I was a kid, I only was able to get one console per generation. I chose the N64 over the PS1 and Saturn, but I loved it despite it having more limited game releases. Super Mario 64 hooked me and I enjoyed a lot of the N64's games. Also, the 4-player local multiplayer was a huge draw for my family and friends! I still love N64 games to this day and I even revisit some of them occasionally.
I do agree that the cartridge format ultimately hurt Nintendo's support, but there are still some excellent exclusive third party games on it. Though, I think Nintendo and Rareware's games drew my attention the most. I've always had a blast playing Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing, Mario Kart 64, Super Smash Bros, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, the Mario Parties, Kirby 64, Star Fox 64, Wave Race 64, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Ocarina of Time, and Majora's Mask.
I prefer N64 cartridges for the instantaneous loading times. Most of what PS1 discs were used for was a total waste anyhow, the FMV movies looked bad then and have aged even more poorly than I even imagined. And story in video games is rarely ever any good.
4:38 firstly, great looking clean bottle green N64, really stylish! The problem with this controller is how horribly it maps unto other things, it comes up when you try to emulate Nintendo stuff after Super Famicom, bloody GameCube has to use awkward start + A combination to access coded in MGS Twin Snakes, while Dreamcast, Xbox and Dualshock controllers have interchangeable layouts... it also doesn't help that Nintendo don't know English alphabet and have buttons in wrong order (if you're used to Microsoft OR SEGA pads especially). Fun fact, X button is in one of three spots, except on the right.
The controller looked and felt wierd but as soon as you appreciate jumping into 3d with zelda for the first time and having a thumbstick instead of a dpad it rounded out perfectly.
The SNES was the console to own with all the biggest companies creating for it. That changed for the next generation, id say mainly due to Nintendo using cartridges and the playstation using cds. Cds cost pennies to make, cartridges many dollars so far leas risk for game companies
The NES and SNES era were times third parties grew to resent Nintendo then, so with Sony’s arrival it’s no wonder why they immediately jumped ship.
In multiverse theory that means there's a version of me that went SNES > PSX as a kid and not Genesis > N64. Which honesly... I probably should have. I can imagine a childhood without Sanic, but not Mario 64 and OOT. Just nah. Those bitches came out when I was 10-12 which was like the perfect age. I got a used PSX at 12 to play FF7 and other Jarpigs + other stuff, so after a quick couple years I had the best of both worlds. Plus you can play all of it "any way you can" now. So really.. no harm done... except the permanent harm that is done to every child who plays any Sonic game for any period of time.. which is an issue not taken seriously enough.
The N64 was definitely a console that can be described of "something that allows for better stuff but is more expensive to produce".
Sure, cartridges allows the N64 games to have shorter load times, but unfortunately, they were more expensive to produce. But boy, the fact that it failed commercially in Japan because of lack of RPGs is really surprising in my opinion.
Oh yeah, not only RPGs ended up moving onto the PS1 or Saturn - fighting games ended up moving to these platforms too, though there was still a decent amount of fighting games for the N64.
Pojr has a sponsor????? CONGRATULATIONS!!
Something that didn't help the N64 competing with the PlayStation was demo discs. I tried so many new types of games I purchased because of those discs.
yeah those discs were great for kids without money to try some stuff
It did not sell as well for one simple fact, lack of a CD 💿 drive to store media! which in that era was becoming the new cutting edge standard. it made game manufacturing affordable, allowed for bigger higher ambition games. and offered full motion video cinemas.
FMVs were cool, but with the games transitioning to a much lower poly count during actual gameplay, the immersion is immediately broken for me.
@
Absolutely agree with you. going from a wonderfully rendered cinema scene to blocky looking characters. but it was all we had back in the day and we loved it. Look at what a success Final Fantasy seven was.
@@plaztik767 I’m just grateful that technology has now progressed to a point where hardware is now more than capable of delivering a cinematic experience these days.
Tactically these were not region locked. If you were able to get the cartridge in their it can it won't play it it comes down to a hardware issue not a software issue the notches on the bottom of the cartridge means something basically they're just not the same for each country you could either swap the boards with a different cartridge is one option or I think things online showing how you can fix your 64 so we can play everything. Pause is also with 3D printed model option I've seen. Bottom line is you can easily play any countries game on any system it's just a matter of getting the cartridge in there. For an example if you have a ROM cart can you put a Japanese rom on there it will play no problem. Cuz just like I said it's a hardware issue not a software issue so that's only half true that it's region locked
This is true, Nintendo utilized a very primitive way to keep the console region lock, just like the Super Nintendo. I didn't go into enough detail about this.
@@pojr you should make a video about various methods of region-locking later, when I was a kid I always heard about "chipped" consoles, I think that was to remove dev limitations on them. Like to play burned CDs and Japanese stuff.
This was the first time Nintendo got what I like to call "Big Head Syndrome", when just because they were industry leaders, they knew best(nothing could be further from the truth) . First off, Nintendo ruled 3rd parties with an iron grip, and most saw the medium of CDs as a way to not only make better games, but make them cheaper to boot.
We have all seen for 20+ years how slow Nintendo is when it comes to adopting industry standards, and the N64 was no different. They said they kept cartridges due to better speeds, and whatnot, but that was just them saying we want to stick with carts, as it makes us the most money and we can best control 3rd parties this way.
The 3rd parties rebeled and the rest is history. Even when they finally took a step forward with using CDs with the GC, they took two steps back by using mini disc to be different for differents sake. While no one likes loading times, it was a small tradeoff for all the amazing new things the medium brought to the table and the PS1 dominated.
It took Nintendo several generations to get companies back like Square Enix who they pissed off with their bullish behavior. When given the chance, Nintendo will always do what they want, if its good or bad, they don't care, just so long as they can say we know best, the outcome really doesn't matter.
Yeah in terms of number of units sold it was a "failure" compared to PlayStation, but in terms of influence (basically writing the book on how 3D platforming should be done) and franchises (we wouldn't have Smash without it) and legacy (Ocarina and Majora's Mask are now hailed as classics) it's a HUGE WIN. I can't help but think Nintendo was more than happy with the profit and continues to milk the IP from the era to this day.
While I have no opinion if the N64 was a commercial failure or not I find it better then the OG PlayStation.
Because of the CM of Super Smash Bros. Happy together by the Turtles is permanently associated with that Super Smash Bros. CM
Good point. I still loved the N64. It still had an excellent lineup of games. I didn't even own a PlayStation as a kid
N64 only lacked in quantity of certain genres like RPGs. But it did not fail to provide excellent quality for fans of that genre. Paper Mario is nowadays seen as one of the all time great ones.
I think the N64 is a failure. There were only around 300 games for it. There should have been something for everyone. Sony PS Vita is also considered a failure but it has 1500 games. They are both cool failures. N64 is not as big a failure as the Amiga CD32.
@@newmediadenmark_ but the SEGA Saturn had over a thousand games and sold way less consoles compared to the N64, and I know that people mention that the Saturn sold much better in Japan, but if you look at the official numbers, the Saturn only managed to sell a couple hundred thousand more units compared to the Nintendo 64 there
5:46 why is this anyways I always hear about how certain shows are only shown in certain areas and they constantly switch them and all that other junk why can't everyone just have access to the entire Netflix library at all times why do they got to switch it around like that. The only excuse for that should really be if it was a show that was specifically made for that country but even if that is the case everything has subtitles nowadays and make a dub the voices so even if it is the case who cares we're paying for it on top of it all too. People shouldn't have to do stuff like get a VPN just to watch what they want. It's kind of a dumb system if you ask me
Licensing issues - different IPs may have different licensing (or lack thereof) for different countries.
Also governments may censor certain shows/movies.
It's about distribution rights. For example, Netflix gets exclusive rights to show WWE in Europe, so other platforms can't host their shows anymore. Imagine the opposite situation. Or Peacock got license to show some series in USA, but HBO got to show in UK, so you got to jump loopholes... A lot of times distributors pay for the rights, so public broadcaster like BBC or Suspilne will pay budget money to show Olympics in their home countries, and put their own ads on top, so they can't allow other services to do the same. But countries that didn't pay for rights had free streams on RUclips.
N64 launched 6 months too late. to give playstation a year head start in USA was a big mistake by Nintendo. March 1996 would have been a great time to launch N64 in USA.
This wouldn't have done too much eitherway. Yeah nintendo would've gotten better initial sales, but third parties wouldn't really work in their restrictions, a CD-ROM was ten times bigger then the biggest n64 cart.
And it was also supposed to Launch in 1995 as the Ultra 64... and in 1994, the N64 hardware was already there, (with the additional Hard Drive for KI's and later KI-2's Graphics & Animations). The Hardware for "Killer Instinct" & later "Killer Instinct 2" was in fact a coin-operated version of the N64's hardware, before they started tweaking it for a home release.
Even though Cruisin' USA was also slated for the N64, the arcade hardware for that game was completely different as MIDWAY developed the game in-house on their own hardware (The MIDWAY V-Unit) for Nintendo and would later port it to the N64. (Little known fact: The Trophy Girl in that game, is Anutza Herling aka XXX Actress Shyla Foxxx).
But USA is the only country where Nintendo 64 was actually successful, like half of N64 sales were in United States... Americans have their own bubble where people actually played GoldenEye and Mario 64, like outside of one country, these games were absolutely unknown until the modern times. I haven't seen a single N64 and I live in Europe, in other places it's worse. It just wasn't a thing outside of USA. It had zero chances in countries that didn't even get Super Nintendo. Which is most countries.
@@SpiffyoNintendo never gave third parties any favourable terms during the NES and SNES era too, so with Sony offering third parties a much favourable terms, that’s when Nintendo lost support.
While the N64 was difficult to program for it was not underpowered compared to the PS1. The cartridge was not only a game but included extra ram if needed which is why it was expensive. If they knew more about the hardware they could of got more out of the console.
The graphics could of looked way better over time. People will assume the cartridges held it back which it did. PS1 had videos playing while a n64 sometimes had slides. But it was much easier to just create a cutscene in game like they did with Conker. Very much the N64s were powerful I'd say way more then ps1 was. What held them back was the space. Making higher textures meant more space taken. So like in the video ps1 had more headroom for textures and models more complex a model was the more data itll take up. They were bottlenecked by the 64mb limit. Tons of videos online ya'll can look up that shows modders the raw power of an n64 could do.
0:00 and i'm already angry. I LOVE THE N64 AAAHHHH
Always love your videos ❤
Thank you so much! Your name sounds familiar, I'll have to check out your videos!
As for great third party games on the N64, I immediately think of the San Francisco Rush trilogy. And while I'm not a pro wrestling fan, I'm sure many people will bring up those old WWF games as great third party titles.
Heck, you even brought up Beetle Adventure Racing.
In Italy the N64 was kinda rare to see. Yes, we saw the consoles and the games in stores, we even got some commercials, but the console itself was a rare thing among the rooms of a late 90s' italian kids. On the other Nintendo side, the Game Boy Color sold like bread here: in fact, Nintendo was the absolute king of handhelds of my Country. The PlayStation was THE console here, because... yeah, it was so easy to pirate. An acid truth about italian people: most of them love piracy...
@@retrojoe85 that sounds kind of similar of how things went here in Argentina, and most of Latin America. Nintendo had official distributors and commercials for their games and consoles aired on television (despite the fact that the games themselves weren't translated and Nintendo would not translate their games into Neutral Spanish until 2007), but most people were playing their games on Family Computer clones, which were called "Family Game", even the first console my parents bought me was a Famiclone, and those Famiclones are still being produced to this day
On the other hand, the PlayStation became very popular at the end of '90s due to how easy it was to pirate its games, but the games that were popular on the PSOne were mostly action-oriented or sports/racing games, since it was very difficult to find games in Spanish, if you were lucky you could play Metal Gear Solid in European Spanish, but Final Fantasy VII was never popular here in Latin America, since it was a very heavy-text game, and the European Spanish translation that was possible to obtain has a TON of translation errors and plenty of confusing and incomprehensible dialog
The Game Boy was sort of popular here in LatAm, Nintendo even released Pokemon Red/Blue in Spanish, but most people I know that played Pokemon started playing them in emulators
"Competitors can't play 4 players"?
Try 10 local players on Saturn Bomberman. 6 Local players on Guardian Heroes.
It's fascinating how RUclips is so USA-dominated there's things like Nintendo vs SEGA (instead of it being just SEGA until PlayStation arrived), or N64 games being influential, even tho barely anyone played them outside of United States... Seriously, look up sales of other Nintendo consoles outside of USA. Famicom CLONES were big, sure, but official NES? Nope. And after that? The next Nintendo console that had major international appeal was the Switch! Their handhelds did sell, but on home console market Nintendos were virtually unknown outside of America and Japan.
Thanks, pojr, for coming at me with another video.
I enjoyed the 64, but 95% of the games I had gave me motion sickness or headaches. F-Zero x was the only game that did not do this.
N64 was a borderline great system despite its major flaw. It failed taking the lead, but it's amazing that they succeeded in making/getting great games. It was enough for them to make some money, I assume. I was more than happy with my PS1, though.
I'm surprised you didn't cover the best selling console hands down ever in history! The Playstation 2.
Because it's a video about the N64?
and maybe the "best selling console: PS2" days are dated...maybe
I had n64 and ps1 growing up before I lost them both. As long as the games were good I didn’t mind which won or not
a lot of people think that N64 using carts was a drawback, but interestingly if you take a PS1 game like Crash Bandicoot the majority of the space on the disc is taken up by a 300 megabyte dummy file, making the actual game data around 220 megs. While that's still a bit bigger than an N64 cart at 64 megabytes max the gap between them wasn't as big as it may first appear, also factoring in most N64 games didn't use CD audio which takes up even more space on the disc that isn't strictly game data.
Great job going over the N64 Pojr!
I've always been a Nintendo fan, and I bought the Nintendo64 the day of release. The only other console I owned that wasn't Nintendo was an Odyssey2. I grew up with Nintendo and love it wholeheartedly to this day.
I was 21 when the Nintendo64 came out and it definitely had a bad rep with my gamer friends of the time. It was common to hear that Nintendo was for kids. I know it's had that rep for a while, but in my memory that was the first time it was mentioned.
Real gamers played PlayStation, and babies played Nintendo. I don't agree with that, but it was the sentiment.
I finally broke my Nintendo only streak with a PS2 as I had to play FF7
It's a good video, also you have to know, that the super nintendo was not in the best of situations, due to no CD support, absurd censorship policies and also making life impossible for developers since the NES. 👻👻
I never think of it as a failure. Well, except in Japan. In fact, it was a powerful machine, but ROM size limitations held it back from being a huge success. PS1 took the gaming crown there.
Japan was the only country other than US N64 got sales at all, it's virtually unknown in Europe, mainland Asia, and other places, it failed in literally every country except in USA.
The way I see it, the SNES represented a trend of Nintendo’s newer hardware selling worse than their predecessors. Sure, the SNES may have been the top selling console of it’s generation, but it also underperformed when compared next to it’s direct predecessor, the NES, which controlled over 80% of the American market share in it’s prime. Due to added competition from the Sega Genesis, it only seemed natural that Nintendo would eventually slip and cede its crown to a much potential newcomer.
The nes only had great 3rd party support because of the draconian contracts they put other companies under
8:31 Beatle adventure racing is way too much fun
"Name one third party N64 game"
Banjo-Kazooie
Rare was a 2nd party company at the time.
12:52 looking forward to Pojr 64!
I had and still have my N64. I eventually got a PS2 though.
If you want to play Japanese carts all you have to do is take the back off and replace the back with the back off an N64 American game you don't use or like. Easy.
N64 had No Mercy which is still one of the best wrestling games ever made. Lots of great games on N64 and none of my carts quit working. Back then I wasn't thrilled about discs to be all scratched up
From what I heard n64 didn't sell so well in Japan due to the less third party support it got compared to the ps1 mainly regarding rpgs like dragon quest. yet 33k is really a commercial failure sense its not that far behind in sells being close to 25% less of ps1's.
Commercial failure, yes. But a cult classic in my heart. Will never forget going from 16 bit Snes Mario to seeing Mario in 3d for the first time with Mario 64. That feeling in the video game world I don't think will ever be surpassed in my lifetime.
In America the n64 is a sucessful console.
Simple: create a non disk based system using expensive cartridges when the entire world was using cheap cd technology. Next use a handcuffed buffer so the game sound has to take up a significant amount of your vrams bandwidth, leading to weak effects and muted music. Then cripple yourself further by developing a cutting edge chip architecture that was near impossible to program for and port over other titles. A recipe for disaster
I still like the N64 but this killed them
had to turn off greenscreen background because of your green n64 😆
International Superstar Soccer 64 and Snowboard Kids are both 3rd Party titles which I really liked as kid and still have in my collection. But yea, your point very valid and one of the biggest issues this system had. I am no fan of its controller either despite thinking it looks somehow cool. Overall I always liked the PlayStation 1 better and wanted a Saturn badly, but the Transfer Pak for GameBoy games was pretty awesome to have for especially Pokémon as well as Mario sports titles.
That transition to your ad break was smooth AF.
I just fast forwarded it. Don't like ads, but I get he has to do it.
I don't know. I've just bought Private Internet Access VPN, and it won't let me play foreign N64 games on my N64. Did Pojr lie to me?
One of the reasons why Nintendo went with cartridges was anti-piracy / anti-bootlegging. PlayStation games were easy to copy, but was there even a single pirated N64 game? I highly doubt it... So, smart move in that regard.
Why would someone pirate games for console that nobody had? The most pirated system of all time is Nintendo Famicom, most people in the world played its games on Chinese Famiclones: Subor, Dendy, Dynavision etc., everyone played Mario, 90% of those people never seen a Nintendo console before Switch or at least Wii. We had tons of yellow pirated cartridges, and swapped PCBs like hot cakes, like you know, the green silicone internal part of the game? Without the plastic around it. We had BOXES of those. Every country. China pirated tons of those and put them on multicarts. N64 tho, where would you stuff them into, by finding... both... consoles they sold outside of USA?
N64 games varied quite a bit in the stores. Mario 64 was $70, some larger games could be $100. Ps1 games standardized at $50 for each release aside from budget ones which would be $20. Would you rather spend $100 for Resident Evil 2 on N64, or $20 for Resident Evil 2 on PS1 or Dreamcast because by the time Resident Evil 2 came out on N64, it would be a budget game on PS1 and on Dreamcast.
Most people who had an N64, likely had a PlayStation as well for this reason. Have an N64 for the Nintendo games, and a PS1 for everything else. Imagine spending $140 (adjusted for inflation) on Mario 64.
Personally I wouldn't have purchased Resident Evil since those games were mid as fuck until the 4th entry (a Nintendo exclusive)
I only remember zelda and mario from the n64, rented some other games but none were very good I thought at the time. The ps1 was on a different level.
Nintendo really shot themselves in the foot by turning down the "Nintendo Playstation" deal with Sony.
No they didn't. Nintendo won the console war. Sony is not doing well at ALL right now. The video game industry is facing mass layoffs, Concord losing Sony billions, and meanwhile Nintendo stock is hitting all time highs and they're riding a wave of success after success.
@@graalcloud yeah, 30 YEARS LATER...
@@mchenrynick Long term strategy beats short term selling out? Who knew
Tiger Woods 99 was great
Nice living room with Christmas tree, POJR.
Thank you! Some scenes I had to film in front of the green screen because my green Nintendo 64 didn't like the chroma key lol.
Ok so the N64 did have some great 3rd party games like..
Bomberman 2nd attack
Mischief Makers
Bangai-O
Star Soldier Star Successor
Turok 1 2 and 3
007 World Is Not Enough
Mystical Ninja 2 Starring Goemon
Star Wars Rogue Squadron
Shadow man
Extreme G
Doom 64
Quake 1 and 2
Resident Evil 2
Mega man 64
13:20 Turok
I might be wrong but at 14:29 you say that "I don't think the console exceeded Nintendo's expactations" when I think judging from the sales numbers and their expectations that what you meant to say was "didn't *MEET* Nintendo's expectations". The problem that makes N64 look like a commercial failure was that Nintendo expected (in my opinion in a rather unsubstanciated/delusional way) WAY too much from the console like it was somekind of monopoly or like the market wasn't still fastly evolving. Your wording sounds like it wasn't somekind of "homerun" success which I don't think was exactly the case for any of the competing consoles yet some of the were success stories. PS1 was a big success because it put them right at the top of the sales numbers and solidified their ground where they could build upon in the future, which was Sony's expectations, but it's not like it sold like let's say it's successor. Is my observation correct?
Nintendo could reasonably expect their next console to sell at least in Japan, as Famicoms did. And of course SONY never expected to literally run out of business basically every single console manufacturer. AND they sold worldwide, while Nintendo limited itself to home market, Western Europe and USA.
You're underestimating how dominant PlayStation was, outside of USA and Japan, nobody even heard of N64, and others had it worse... Apart from big N every major console maker from 8 bit and 16 bit eras was completely destroyed forever. Amiga? Went bankrupt. Atari? Bankrupted. NEC? Last console they made. SNK? Couldn't enter CD market... SEGA? Made one more console, went out of business. 3DO, Philips and others who tried to enter 32 bit era failed. Nintendo somehow survived on their handhelds (Gameboys existed even in countries that never seen a SNES), but every other manufacturer had NO CHANCES.
Nintendo are special is that they're the only ones who recovered after two generations of being completely dunked on by Sony, I mean comparing popularity of Gamecube and PS2 is like comparing CDi to Sega Mega Drive. Just don't. THEN Microsoft entered arena. Notice how nobody making consoles except for MS, Sony and Nintendo now.
Fifth generation was brutal to anybody who didn't have Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo, Tomb Raider, Crash, Spyro and Tekken... I am not surprised, who TF would play Beetle racing instead of Need for Speed? Show me one person who would rather play Quest 64 instead of Final Fantasy VII.
Remember, there's EXCUUUUUSE ME PRINCESS on one side, and Medal of Honor on the other... How did Nintendo not go out of business after that?
@@KasumiRINA What I meant with my comment is that, in the video pojr said "exceeded" when I think what he meant or what makes more sense is "met", they have to be arrogant (which they are but it's beyond the point) to expect a homerun success. Nintendo did bad but not bad enough for even the rest of their products not be able to keep the company afloat. The gameboy line was enough to sort of offset their shortcomings in the home console market. As a kid I never owned a N64 and I went from an SNES to a PS1 but I recall being keen enough to keep an eye on how things work in the console business, just so I can remember things in the future. What I recall was a Nintendo, not very alike the one from today, acting grand and being "safe" that they will never stop being the gods of whatever thing they think they are gods and it felt like whatever decisions they were making that there won't be any long-lasting consequences, a hint that they are still refusing to get. DELUSION.
I don't think it was a failure I got one from my dad and I enjoyed it and I knew other kids who had one, some real classics on the system
Yes i would consider it a success even if it was [2nd place] to Sony. The history of N64 is interesting including Sierra getting involved with the technology. Yes, they lost out to Sony due to hardware development (Kart vs CD) but there were some advantages to that too. If N64 was a true [flop] you would not see The Switch or the Wii being developed or the Gamecube. Even if the disk magnetic drive had worked (it was a failure) 64 MB space it would have made it too expensive to use for most users. I believe N can learn from their previous mistakes [I hope]. It is too bad that Rare was given to Microsft (2002) era but things happen.
Nintendo really only had a lead in the 8 bit era due to their monopolistic business practices that they went to court over
2:04 *snort laugh* thats adorable you think Nintendo at all considered the CD-I a competitor to anything XD
don't forget, while the CD-I is now seen as a failed console and a mistake, back when it was new people were fawning over it and claiming it was the future of entertainment. Not that it was an overly great system, it did have a place in the market at the time.
I would say a good console it did have a lot of good add on for it. I had at the time N64 and Playstation 1 and Saturn so had most of the games.
They may have lost in the sales during that generation, but they absolutely did not lose in the "having good games" competition.
Ever since the SNES, Nintendo was unable to repeat the success of the NES. Ironically enough, the NES was Nintendo’s best selling console until 2010 when the Wii eventually surpassed it.
@@crazedlunatic43 Sony has never replicated the success of any Nintendo console when it comes to cumulative profits which are the only thing that matters. For the entire Nintendo vs Sony "console wars", Nintendo has turned a better profit. At no point has Sony ever been beating Nintendo, and the gap was actually widest during the Wii U years of all times.
Later on the nintendo switch@@crazedlunatic43
Yes, nintendo lost for several years but now they back to lead again.
Yeah they definitely redeemed themselves, starting with the Wii.
Didn't Shigeru Miyamoto state a lot of negative things about RPGs at around this time that miffed the folks at Square, which led to those RPGs not being made for the Nintendo, but rather, to the Playstation?
You'd need at least 30 cartridges to put FF7 on N64 lmao.
@KasumiRINA although, that was the beginning of cinematics over gameplay. It's never been the same since. I know that's an unpopular opinion, but what the hay.
Nintendo makes their games the way they do so you can't pirate them, there's always some gimmick
It was far from a failure. And the playstation had heavy pirating, so perhaps it didn't differ that much how much the companies made.
Would you mind if I called you Po Junior?
Yeah that's fine. I think most people assume that's how my name is pronounced. There's no wrong way, because it's not even a real word lol.
8:24 Wow, this looks fun to play.
12:30 Error: You say 64 KILOBYTES instead of Megabytes.
Let's Go Awesome Video POJR
Merry Christmas 🎅 🎄
THQ and those wrestling games was the best 3rd party games
the n64 was very great and it has very nice games
Cool
Indeed lol
1.They screwed Sony over. 2. Didn’t use cds cause they were scared of piracy and cause they wanted control. 3. Just copy the Sony controller like they did urs and add two sticks to it before they did lol
Sony was going to screw them over, not the other way around.
@ bro all I meant is with the snes deal and then they jumped ship to Philips. Lol lil Sony fanboy getting passive aggressive.
Nintendo really did screw Sony over, by backing out of the deal, therefore giving Sony the opportunity to create their own game console.
Nintendo's costly loss was Sony's gain.
Sony was gonna eventually screw them over anyway, and CDs would’ve made Ocarina Of Time unenjoyable.
i peed my pants to this video
I also peed ur pants to this video🎉
💀
uh
yippee...i guess?
U nasty
I peed my pants before this video came out
I abandoned Nintendo when I played Mario 64 at Walmart.
Nooooo Pojr! Why do you now, interrupt your video with an advertisement!? This is the first time i give your video a thumbs down 👎🏼 I that this is the only time. Cause I love your videos 😊
I had to thumb it down too. Yay, Pojr's got a sponsor and is making money. But boo, mark the sponsor spot with a chapter so we can skip it.
@MorreskiBear I would prefer that he put it in the end of the video 🙃
Hey Pojr, any chance of having your brother be in a video? Maybe you both can share your favorite games or gaming moments growing up?
Excellent Third party N64 title that was better than PS1 version: Mortal Kombat Trilogy
First
bruh
Hi lol
guess i'm third reply than
You could play 4+ with Playstation Multitap btw. I had mormon friends (big families) so they always had them lol. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Multitap