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The N64 undoubtedly sold very well and has players worldwide but with it's death looming I have chosen this opportunity to review it's 4 year life and where Nintendo went wrong. First off they barley gave it any marketing what so ever. I think there were only five games that were advertised on TV. Super Mario64, Donkey Kong64, Super Smash Brothers, GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. If Nintendo want to get their product known and show people what they have to offer they should unquestionably give more than five games adverts. The PlayStation had and still does have lots of adverts around. That I think was one nail in Nintendo’s coffin.
The next point was the fact that Nintendo refused to let gore or swearing into many of their games. Hey I'm not saying that all of their games should be á la Turok but many games were blocked from development because of some of the crimson stuff. I don't think there is anything wrong with the fact that the N64 had more games aimed at a younger audience because I believe it's the gameplay that counts. However I know quite a few people were turned off by the fact that mature games were not in abundance on the N64. yet another nail being planted into the big N's wooden overcoat.
The next point was perhaps not Nintendo’s fault but was definitely a big downer from the sales point of view. The PlayStation had a two year headstart on the N64. In this time Sony had an opportunity to consolidate their image as the only next gen console around at that time. In these two years many people got sick of waiting and went out and brought home a grey box shaped CD player. (errr yeah)
The next one is not a point that has been brought up on this forum before, or maybe it has and I've just never seen it. The N64 used cartridges. The PSX used CDs. Why is this bad? One word. Piracy. It is hard nowadays to not go very far in life without encountering some kind of form of illegal activity. For years the games market was thought to be safe and then CD pirates came along and ruined it. Count how many pirated games ever found their way onto the N64, none. That’s because Nintendo did the right thing and chose uncopyable cartridges as their format. Bootleg games are very cheap and very easy to get your hands on and crooks saw this as a way to make money and started copying PSX games onto just an ordinary CD and flogging them for a tenner a throw. People hearing of how cheap PSX games are then choose the PSX as their console
Finally was the time it took for Nintendo developers to actually make the games. An average time span for N64 games to make the trip from a designer’s mind to the commercial market is around one to three years. The PSX wasn't much shorter than this but it still took a shorter time for games like Resident Evil to make it onto the CDs than say, Perfect Dark. Another thing that can be linked to this is the fact that N64 games have this awesome capability of being delayed. Conkers Bad Fur day has been in development for damn near 4 years now! The release of Duke Nukem:Zero Hour was delayed by 7 months. You getting my drift now? All of these problems coupled with the fact that Nintendo was very cautious about the gaming market has led to the N64s death. So it's time to say "bye bye Ninny we'll miss you" and wait expectantly for the Xbox, GCa and GBA to come out.
RBS
> You don't what your talking about, there are many adverts for the
> N64, the is Jet force gemini, Monster truck racing, Star Wars racer,
> Conkers bad fur day (i've got the ad on my PC), banjo-kazzoie,
> Shadows of the empire, killer instict, and... POKEMON! (Wasn't that
> enough advertising for one year!). If the N64 was a failure, why has
> it made MILLIONS od people happy, it isn't a faliure. And the
> gamecube is coming out so they haven't gone just yet. So we will see
> Nintendo for the next couple of years... so never mind, you little
> fantasy will live on in your head for ever and ever, while the rest
> of us will grow up. (sorry every one for coming back, i couldn't let
> him get away with this $hit. Dringo says HI).
LMAO, still on your little venge trip are you NIS. Whys that? becuase I'm more popular on here than you? Because I don't talk crap, or maybe becuase I've won gameaday.
Well, if anyone needs to grow up NIS, it's you.
The N64 will be the last cartridge-based console of this generation of consoles, and with current manufacturing costs, it should be the last cartridge-based console of all time. (Unless you include hand-helds, which I don't).
If it had been CD based, and normal CDs at that, I may have considered one.
Stubborn Nintendo.
The next one is not a point that has been brought up on this
> forum before, or maybe it has and I've just never seen it.
Sorry, I wrote this ages ago and forgot to post it until now :-D I wrote it when I was releativley new and I forgot to edit that bit
The N64 undoubtedly sold very well and has players worldwide but with it's death looming I have chosen this opportunity to review it's 4 year life and where Nintendo went wrong. First off they barley gave it any marketing what so ever. I think there were only five games that were advertised on TV. Super Mario64, Donkey Kong64, Super Smash Brothers, GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. If Nintendo want to get their product known and show people what they have to offer they should unquestionably give more than five games adverts. The PlayStation had and still does have lots of adverts around. That I think was one nail in Nintendo’s coffin.
The next point was the fact that Nintendo refused to let gore or swearing into many of their games. Hey I'm not saying that all of their games should be á la Turok but many games were blocked from development because of some of the crimson stuff. I don't think there is anything wrong with the fact that the N64 had more games aimed at a younger audience because I believe it's the gameplay that counts. However I know quite a few people were turned off by the fact that mature games were not in abundance on the N64. yet another nail being planted into the big N's wooden overcoat.
The next point was perhaps not Nintendo’s fault but was definitely a big downer from the sales point of view. The PlayStation had a two year headstart on the N64. In this time Sony had an opportunity to consolidate their image as the only next gen console around at that time. In these two years many people got sick of waiting and went out and brought home a grey box shaped CD player. (errr yeah)
The next one is not a point that has been brought up on this forum before, or maybe it has and I've just never seen it. The N64 used cartridges. The PSX used CDs. Why is this bad? One word. Piracy. It is hard nowadays to not go very far in life without encountering some kind of form of illegal activity. For years the games market was thought to be safe and then CD pirates came along and ruined it. Count how many pirated games ever found their way onto the N64, none. That’s because Nintendo did the right thing and chose uncopyable cartridges as their format. Bootleg games are very cheap and very easy to get your hands on and crooks saw this as a way to make money and started copying PSX games onto just an ordinary CD and flogging them for a tenner a throw. People hearing of how cheap PSX games are then choose the PSX as their console
Finally was the time it took for Nintendo developers to actually make the games. An average time span for N64 games to make the trip from a designer’s mind to the commercial market is around one to three years. The PSX wasn't much shorter than this but it still took a shorter time for games like Resident Evil to make it onto the CDs than say, Perfect Dark. Another thing that can be linked to this is the fact that N64 games have this awesome capability of being delayed. Conkers Bad Fur day has been in development for damn near 4 years now! The release of Duke Nukem:Zero Hour was delayed by 7 months. You getting my drift now? All of these problems coupled with the fact that Nintendo was very cautious about the gaming market has led to the N64s death. So it's time to say "bye bye Ninny we'll miss you" and wait expectantly for the Xbox, GCa and GBA to come out.
RBS