As has been noted repeatedly in the past by many a writer, analyst, and industry insider, Sony's dominance in the 32/64-bit generation owed as much to Nintendo and Sega's mistakes as to Sony's successes. One such mistake was the loss of any sort of true RPG for the Nintendo 64. While we were blessed with Quest's incredible epic Ogre Battle 64 and Intelligent System's inspired Paper Mario, we were also left with the horrid Quest 64 and the recently released Aidyn's Chronicles. Other than those four titles (and the obscure Mysterious Dungeon title released in Japan) the Nintendo 64 had a complete lack of RPGs. This was a major blow to Nintendo's success, especially in its homeland of Japan.

Starting with Square's defection to Sony, nearly the entire RPG development community migrated en masse to Sony's new console. Citing issues with the limiting space on the cartridge format and the system's target audience, RPG developers seemed to treat Nintendo's latest console like the black plague. It was not to be touched.

Now, we are at the brink of the coming clash of the titans. Sony's Playstation 2, Microsoft's X-Box, and Nintendo's GameCube will all be competing for the wallets of gamers around the world. While Sony and Microsoft have done nothing but flaunt the enormous developer support they are receiving, Nintendo is, as always, holding all of its cards close to its chest. There are reports and rumors of Nintendo turning a new leaf and actively courting third-party developers. Yet, there are also whispers that Nintendo is running their business like they always have. Will Nintendo dig themselves into the same hole once again?

This on-going feature, which will be updated periodically until its completion, will examine the history of each major RPG development house, its strengths and weaknesses, its relationship with Nintendo, and also provide some idea as to what Nintendo might (or, at the very least, should) be doing to court them.