Okay, let's try this again. Nintendo 64 sold how many? It might have appealed to the loyalists, but what Nintendo console hasn't appealed to them? If you think Playstation wasn't fueled by teenagers then you were living on a deserted island in the 90's. Nintendo has never been strong with teenagers. Just because some people who grew up with DK and Smash appealed to those people who just happened to be teenagers at the time doesn't prove it appealed to the broader category as a whole. And like it or not Nintendo does appeal to kids, just because some grown ups, myself included, also get into their games doesn't mean they don't try to make games that have broader appeal but you gotta admit it's always been a token effort at best.
BTW, Perm you just proved my point, NONE of the games you mentioned were made by Nintendo, bravo buddy thanks for playing. Nintendo has never made games that appeal to teenagers, and as a whole their consoles have never appealed to teenagers. They appeal to kids, and adults that grew up with them, and a few who stick with them even through the awkward teen years. Perm, go back in time and I promise you had more friends that were into Playstation, even people in your HS that weren't your friend, that were into Sega and Playstation, than N64.
Nobody was talking about Handhelds, the rules that apply to them have never applied to consoles it's an entirely different market, no different everything.
I don't live in a revisionist history. Goldeneye was published by Nintendo. It was made by Rare, but Nintendo owned just shy of the majority share. When they sold their shares to Microsoft they got $375 million dollars. Smash Bros was made by Hal Labs. If you didn't know Hal Labs offices are located inside the Nintendo Kyoto offices. Miyamoto or Iwata meerly had to take an elevator or staircase to take a look at what was going on during development. Actually, Iwata would just stay put. He was president of Hal. Who else makes Mario Kart? Nintendo makes Mario Kart. Mario Kart 64 was made at EAD. The house of Mario and Zelda. Every game I mentioned was published or made by Nintendo.
lets take a walk through history.
Playstation comes out in 1994. During this time period Nintendo is still releasing SNES games. When it comes out it is met with mild applause. It does well, but not super well. At this time period I never saw any Playstations in stores. I do see Sega NOMAD, 32x, and Virtual Boy.
1995 Nintendo is still making snes games. Games like Donkey Kong Country and Metroid are in stores. If you walked into like a Target you would see an snes hooked up with Donkey Kong Country. Killer Instinct is in full force at arcades and is the big thing. Tekken is around, but not in a big way. You might walk into a k-mart arcade and see Soul Edge. During this time period you start to see some interest in Playstation in some magazines. Sega Saturn comes out in 1995 out of nowhere. At this point you start to see a lot of magazines start to compare Saturn and Playstation a lot. Meanwhile in the rumor section of the magazine there are rumblings about whatever Nintendo is doing. Its a big newspoint that Nintendo is working with the Silicon Graphics company.
1996 two big tings come out Nintendo 64, and Tickle-me-elmo. Initially both products are highly popular and sell out. There is a shortage though. Getting an n64 was big among my friends. Getting an n64 was more like getting a PS3. You weren't cool if you didn't have one.
At this point if you were to walk into a Toys R Us you would see a trio of systems. Saturn, Playstation, and N64. The first time I played Playstation was in a Toys R Us. They had Mortal Kombat Trilogy on display. But **** that. Mario 64 was on display and the game was something to behold. I've always been a Nintendo/Sega/Pc gamer. We had 3d games on the computer. But they were all 2.5D shooters like Doom and Hexen. Ok maybe there were a few polygonal games like Stunts or Flight simulator. We also have to take into account that the games on Playstation were not using its power. Mario 64 was a revelation of just the amazing synthesis of ideas. It was special. There were lines in the store of people who wanted to play at the kiosk.
Christmas came, Christmas went. I really wanted an n64 that year. For consolation I got Super Mario Bros 2. and an Atari Jaguar with AVP, Cybermorph, Raiden, and NBA Jam. I stared to save some money to buy an n64 myself instead of relying on my parents. Resident Evil came out, but I didn't hear abut it until 1998. It wasn't an exclusive though. It was on Saturn too. D(DÄ« no Shokutaku) was a scary game too. Also Multiplatform.
The year is 1997. Playstation is this console that did well against snes, but got totally decimated when n64 came out. My brother was a big Sega fan. He collected a lot of magazines. I still possess these, because its a good refresher to read some journalism from the actual time period as opposed to the revised opinion of somebody who wasn't even sperm yet. If you had bought an n64 the previous Christmas you would notice something. There weren't a lot of games coming out for n64 in the future.
A game is coming out that will change everything: Final Fantasy VII. At this point people start to make a bigger deal about how n64 doesn't possess the storage capacity in cartridges. I have to say though to me. No big deal. Mario 64 would still be a hot product in 1997. I rented an n64 from Blockbuster. I played the **** out of Mario 64. It was a hard game for a 13 year old. I mastered it though. I got an n64 for Christmas with Mario 64 and Diddy Kong Racing.
I went to a friends birthday party in February of 1998. At that house was an amazing game that would sell more than 8 million copies. Goldeneye 007. My birthday was in March. I payed 69.99 for that game, plus tax.
During a free day in 8th grade I got to see some wrestling games like wcw vs nwo world tour and cool boarders. Went to a few other friends houses and saw FFVII and more cool boarders.
I have to say at this point Nintendo captures the majority of the market share (IE more n64s were sold then Playstations had been sold in the last 3 years. But not by much. Sega Saturn wimpers off in the distance as I enter high school after the summer. I see an add in an Electronics Gaming Monthly magazine. Ye Snooze Ye Lose. Get the gold copy of Zelda. It was the thing in my life I antiscipated the most. When I got it in Novemeber It did not dissapoint. In fact it moved the bar so damn high.
I have to note Starcraft and Half-Life came out on the PC that year. Metal Gear came out on Playstation. I didn't have a psx yet. Pokemon comes out too. It is a gigantic sales champion for Nintendo. Banjo Kazooie also comes out.
Lets skip to 1999-2000. And let me start to cut this short. N64 games dry up, psx games do the opposite. Dreamcast comes out and is a best selling system that breaks initial release sales records. Nobody buys the games though. Everyone pirates them. It was not at all hard to pirate dreamcast games. Sony captures the market share and maintains it. Sega captures 20% of the market share, but doesn't get further. Nintendo 64, which started off strong ultimately doesn't grow much after its initial popularity.
There is a severe drought in games for Nintendo. People have now completely switched from getting their news from magazines to getting their news from online. Oh and Playstation games are now only $9.99 while n64 game are still $60-$70. My brother won a playstation at his HS graduation. He didn't play it much. A friend gave me MGS which was awesome, but the second disc never worked. I tried FFVII again, and still hated it. My brother combined our Birthday money and bought a dreamcast. I had originally bought Aidyn Chronicles, which sucked, I took it back and thats where my money for Dreamcast came. We
purchased probably only 3 games for the system. The rest we
acquired This satisfied me during the n64 drought. I would have bought psx games if most of them weren't terrible. I did buy resident evil 3.
We hear news of ps2, Microsoft announces Xbox, Sega drops out. Nintendo releases games few and far between at this point. Gamecube gets announced. PS2 comes out, PSone comes out. N64 sales stop.
2 years into ps2 Playstation is still around. Still selling consoles. Nintendo is making gamecube.
What you should learn from this is.
Playstation started 2 years earlier than n64, if it had launched against n64 it wouldn't have gone off the ground. Playstation had continued well after Nintendo had moved on.
I would say the games people did buy for all sold well. Ultimately, the price of the games was a big factor. Getting a game for $9.99 is more appealing than getting multi color consoles and then paying 7 times as much for an n64 game.
Also, the lack of games. So many droughts of games. People would say Nintendo was kiddy. Even while you were beating them at Goldeneye. Console sales were pretty even until game droughts happened in 1999. Nobody wants to buy a system with nothing on the horizon(look at wii u). The n64 ultimately sold 32 million.
If you don't think 32 million people is a lot, consider this, that is almost the entire population of Canada.
But the biggest argument was that there were almost 2000 games for psx and only almost 400 for n64
also Final Fantasy Vii
lets also take into account the combined sales of GBA, GBC, GB, SNES, n64 vs psx and ps2 during that time period of 1994 till 2004. One would find that Nintendo sold more systems and games than Sony. Also, note Sony wouldn't be outputting much themselves besides wipeout and ape escape. Sony relied entirely on 3rd parties during this period. Nintendo had far more on their plate despite the narrative given by revisionist.
also note. In high school I wrote school papers about bias in video game journalism. I remember my interactions with people. I saw the shift, but it seemed to happen to some extant by media manipulation. Also, very shortly after EVERYONE had the internet.