Topic: What If the N64 Had Been a Disc Based System Similar to the GameCube?

[Kytim89]

A question that has been swirling inside my head for a very long time concerns the idea of what if the Nintendo 64 had used similar disc based technology as that of the GameCube? The CD-ROMs of that time offered more storage at the expense of loading times, but cartridges, on the other hand, offered limited storage and lower loading times, but were very expensive to develop for. Now What if the N64 used mini-CDs inside of a disc slot where the cartridge would normally be found on a normal N64. How would this have affected third party support on the N64?

[ShyGuy]

More games, but I think the tide would have still shifted at least somewhat to the PS1.

[Kytim89]

More games, but I think the tide would have still shifted at least somewhat to the PS1.

In what ways? I could see Metal Gear Solid being a PlayStation exclusive, but what about such things as Final Fantasy 7?

[broodwars]

More games, but I think the tide would have still shifted at least somewhat to the PS1.

In what ways? I could see Metal Gear Solid being a PlayStation exclusive, but what about such things as Final Fantasy 7?

No, FF7 would still have stayed with Sony. Nintendo was pretty anti-RPG at the time, encapsulated by Yamauchi's infamous comment about RPG players being "depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games."  Nintendo and Squaresoft just had (and still have) completely different philosophies about gaming which just aren't compatible.

Plus, Sony was willing to publish FF7 and give it a ridiculously huge marketing push that there's no way in Hell Nintendo would have matched.

[Retro Deckades]

No, FF7 would still have stayed with Sony. Nintendo was pretty anti-RPG at the time, encapsulated by Yamauchi's infamous comment about RPG players being "depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games."  Nintendo and Squaresoft just had (and still have) completely different philosophies about gaming which just aren't compatible.

Plus, Sony was willing to publish FF7 and give it a ridiculously huge marketing push that there's no way in Hell Nintendo would have matched.

I was under the impression that development of FFVII began on the N64 but that Square jumped ship due to cartridge space limitations.

[TJ Spyke]

No, FF7 would still have stayed with Sony. Nintendo was pretty anti-RPG at the time, encapsulated by Yamauchi's infamous comment about RPG players being "depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games."  Nintendo and Squaresoft just had (and still have) completely different philosophies about gaming which just aren't compatible.

Plus, Sony was willing to publish FF7 and give it a ridiculously huge marketing push that there's no way in Hell Nintendo would have matched.

I was under the impression that development of FFVII began on the N64 but that Square jumped ship due to cartridge space limitations.

That is a widespread rumor, but it's false. All Square did was make a tech demo to show what  Final Fantasy could look like on the N64, like when they did a FF 7 tech demo on the PS3. It was never officially gonna be on N64.

[Kytim89]

The best case scenario is that Final Fantasy 7 would have been multi-platform and shared between the N64 and PS1. I could see the samething happening with the Resident Evil and various other series.

[ShyGuy]

I think the tastes of the majority of gamers were changing by the mid-90s. The average age was going up as the Nintendo kids wanted to be "mature." The crowd wanted Twisted Metal not Pokemon.

PS1 gave birth to the soft-core dudebro gamers.  They late moved on to Madden, GTA, and Halo. Currently Call uh Doody.

[Kytim89]

Weren't the GameCube discs difficult to pirate? If so, going by that idea wouldn't the more primitive version of the technology also be hard to pirate? What I am trying to say is that perhaps the disc-based N64 would have gotten more third party support due to the fact that its discs would be hard to duplicate.


To give you an idea of what the Disc-based N64 games would be like just picture Resident Evil 2 and 3 for the GameCube with the label replaced with the N64 and both games would be released along side their PS1 counterparts.

[MegaByte]

... Resident Evil 2 WAS released for N64.

[TJ Spyke]

... Resident Evil 2 WAS released for N64.

Yep, and it was tied largest N64 game (due to the FMV cutscenes).

[UncleBob]

More games, but I think the tide would have still shifted at least somewhat to the PS1.

In what ways? I could see Metal Gear Solid being a PlayStation exclusive, but what about such things as Final Fantasy 7?

No, FF7 would still have stayed with Sony. Nintendo was pretty anti-RPG at the time, encapsulated by Yamauchi's infamous comment about RPG players being "depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games."  Nintendo and Squaresoft just had (and still have) completely different philosophies about gaming which just aren't compatible.

Plus, Sony was willing to publish FF7 and give it a ridiculously huge marketing push that there's no way in Hell Nintendo would have matched.

Umm... Nintendo's remarks were a reaction to Squaresoft's very public negative comments about Nintendo's internal policies and, in particular, their decision to go with cartridges on the N64.

[Stratos]

No, FF7 would still have stayed with Sony. Nintendo was pretty anti-RPG at the time, encapsulated by Yamauchi's infamous comment about RPG players being "depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games."  Nintendo and Squaresoft just had (and still have) completely different philosophies about gaming which just aren't compatible.

Plus, Sony was willing to publish FF7 and give it a ridiculously huge marketing push that there's no way in Hell Nintendo would have matched.

I was under the impression that development of FFVII began on the N64 but that Square jumped ship due to cartridge space limitations.

That is a widespread rumor, but it's false. All Square did was make a tech demo to show what  Final Fantasy could look like on the N64, like when they did a FF 7 tech demo on the PS3. It was never officially gonna be on N64.

Still wrong. That demo wasn't even for the N64.

At the ACM SIGGRAPH 95 convention, held from August 6 to August 11, 1995 in Los Angeles, California, Square unveiled an interactive technical demo displaying a 3D battle scene between characters and enemies from Final Fantasy VI, which had been released as Final Fantasy III on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in North America.
 The demo ran on Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) ONYX workstations, which are primarily used for graphics-intensive 3D modeling.  This was how the demo came to be known as the Final Fantasy SGI Demo.  The fact that Nintendo had teamed with SGI to develop the graphics engine for the Ultra 64 was seen as further proof that Square was developing a Final Fantasy title for the upcoming Nintendo system.

Source

[BranDonk Kong]

Discs would have meant more games, plain and simple.

[ShyGuy]

Slow loading would have probably meant a very different Ocarina of Time. How different would the gaming landscape be?

[Mop it up]

If the Nintendo 64 used the same kind of discs as the GameCube, it would have been an incredibly advanced system as that kind of technology didn't really exist yet. If it just used a "mini" version of CDs, it would have had the same problem that the N64 had: not enough storage space.

If the question is about the N64 using CDs, there are a lot of variables to consider. The system likely would have garnered more third-party support, and the sales would be closer to the PlayStation. I still think the PlayStation would be the market leader, as a large reason third-parties jumped ship was due to Nintendo's controlling ways, something using CDs wouldn't really fix.

The big thing to consider though, is that Nintendo's design philosophy is what lead them to stick with cartridges. If Nintendo had released a CD system in place of the N64, they'd be a completely different company than what they were at the time. All of the N64's greats would be completely different games, and there's no way to know if that means they'd be better or worse. Personally, I find the N64 to be home to some truly excellent games, and I wouldn't want to risk them not existing by changing the N64 into a CD system.

I actually like this generation because the systems were so different, each system offered different experiences. Last generation (PS2, GCN, Xbox, Dreamcast), all the systems seemed the same, there weren't really any types of games that would be better on one system over another. Even this generation, the Xbox 360 and PS3 seem interchangeable. It's nice when systems have more reason to exist beyond just different games available.

[EasyCure]

Slow loading would have probably meant a very different Ocarina of Time. How different would the gaming landscape be?

Personally, that **** would of left a sour taste in my mouth that might be hard to wash out. I was much more impatient back then and I can remember getting a headache during all the load screens in Resident Evil and Tomb Raider on my cousin's Playstation. It didn't help that they would only rent games and those things were scratched up and likely extended the loading times due to read errors; but yeah, if I had to deal with the full time I probably would of rage quit gaming in general. Maybe I'd of stuck to portables but to this day, they don't capture my attention the way consoles do.

I will say that at least with the GCN (1st party titles anyway) the load times were super fast and bearable, so even if I gave up on a disc based N64, GCN may of brought me back. Like other people here, I really don't think the discs would've helped Nintendo keep those 3rd parties. If anything we'd just see a similar situation to what we saw on GCN; a decent amount of 3rd party games but all the major stuff would never come because of some ridiculous excuses. At the time, that excuse would of likely been Nintendo was too controlling and they didn't want to make an edited version of their game.

Personally, I find the N64 to be home to some truly excellent games, and I wouldn't want to risk them not existing by changing the N64 into a CD system.

This makes me want to go back in time and change gaming history just to come back and see what Mop it up would be like.