"Konami was my first choice; the other option was Nintendo," reveals Masaaki Kukino, whose illustrious arcade career would create Surprise Attack, Asterix, and Silent Scope. He then explained why he did not want to join Nintendo, "I actually visited Nintendo, which had just launched the first generation of Famicom. So the company was not putting much emphasis on the Famicom or the video game business at all. I don't know whether I should say this but... I felt my job might be designing hanafuda cards, which did not look interesting. I thought, well, this is what I'll have to do if I join. All day long, all year long. On the other hand, Konami looked much more exciting. But after I joined Konami, Nintendo's performance skyrocketed with the success of the Famicom! So I regretted that a little bit!"
As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Nintendo's Famicom – which would later metamorphose into the Nintendo Entertainment System – we're going to see a lot of articles and video essays talking about how amazing the console is, how it redefined the gaming landscape, and how incredible its software library is. None of these statements are incorrect, but it's important to contextualise them by looking at the difficulties the Famicom and Nintendo faced in those early years. History could have played out very differently. Kukino's statement above, and others, reveal that the Famicom was an unknown entity; its success was not guaranteed, and even Nintendo was unsure of its potential.
The Famicom launched on 15th July, 1983 into an already well-established video game market, consisting of home computers and arcade games. Home systems were a little more nebulous (fun fact: Sega's SG-1000 console launched on the exact same day). The Famicom started with just a paltry three games: Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye. In fact, for the entirety of 1983, only nine games came out! There was also a hardware defect that would see Nintendo initiate a complete product recall the following year – not the most auspicious of starts. Nintendo, as we know, had been involved with arcade games for several years by this point, but as Kukino's statement reveals, they were still seen as a toy maker rather than the video game behemoth we know today.
Tomonori Otsuka, a programmer on the original Metal Gear for the MSX2 home computer, offers further insight into how companies such as Konami regarded Nintendo's new prospect. "Konami had development teams for several platforms at that time," explains Otsuka, "Such as coin-op, Famicom, the MSX range. Famicom was this brand new platform, and it was not deemed successful yet. MSX initially had a bigger market than Famicom. By the time Metal Gear was started in 1987, the MSX team had already released many titles. We couldn't work on the Famicom if we were in the MSX division."
Hudson was the first company besides Nintendo to develop games for the Famicom. It would go on to become a smash hit in Japan, but at the time, personal computer games were still dominant
This dichotomy between computers such as the MSX1/2 range and the Famicom is important, since while the Famicom would go on to dominate the market, computers were initially seen as the leading platforms for home use. While Nintendo today would never make a statement on this, you can infer the company's belief at the time through the words of those it worked with. Takashi Takebe was the seventh employee at Hudson Soft and saw Hudson's meteoric rise from small-time computer developer to co-creator of the PC Engine. His recollections of partnering with Nintendo – and even creating computer versions of Mario – are a priceless window into the era.
"The relationship between Hudson and Nintendo began with the development of Family BASIC," explains Takebe, describing the project that would see Nintendo try to angle its new console also as some sort of home computer. Released in June 1984, it came with a large keyboard and allowed users to create simple programs. "That was before the Famicom boom began," adds Takebe, "before all the third parties started signing up. Hudson was the first company besides Nintendo to develop games for the Famicom. It would go on to become a smash hit in Japan, but at the time, personal computer games were still dominant. Due to the relationship the companies forged in the early days of the Famicom, Hudson was able to acquire the licenses to the Golf, Excitebike, and Ice Climber games that Nintendo had released, and port them to computers. Mario was part of this deal as well. For 1985's Super Mario Bros. Special on PC-88, I was involved with the planning and management. When Nintendo was licensing Super Mario Bros., PC games were still selling well."
While developing games for computers was seen as a safe bet – hence Nintendo's intellectual property appearing on NEC hardware – making games for consoles was still an unknown. Takebe goes on to describe a Nintendo perhaps somewhat naïve in its initial business dealings. "While making these PC games, Hudson released Lode Runner and Nuts & Milk on the Famicom. This was risky, unknown territory for the company because manufacturing these cartridges required significant amounts of money. We wondered how much we would be able to distribute and sell. Meanwhile, from Nintendo's perspective, we were the first third party to negotiate a license to develop Famicom games. So Nintendo didn't really know what to do either! <laughs> At that time, Nintendo had only released four or five cartridge games, such as Donkey Kong and Popeye. The world of home gaming still belonged to computers. At Hudson, our thinking was that the Famicom was an interesting machine. So we made our first two titles, and they completely sold out. We thought we should have produced more copies!"
The timeline is important here because Super Mario Bros., one of the NES launch titles in America, only came out in September 1985 in Japan – more than two years after the system itself. Mario as a valuable mascot was not yet fully established. While Super Mario Bros. did not single-handedly create the "Famicom boom" mentioned earlier – there were many popular games – it makes for a nice road sign on the journey. The system had sold well towards the end of 1984, after the recall, and throughout 1985 – especially the second half – a lot of the big names started to emerge. Koichi Nakamura's Door Door port came out July; Masanobu Endou's Tower of Druaga port in August; Yuji Horii's Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken port in November. December saw Thexder and Bomberman released. The scales were tipping.
"The Famicom started selling very well," agrees Takebe, "and Nintendo then handled the business in a smart way. This was very profitable for Hudson too. Not many other third-party developers for the Famicom existed yet, so Nintendo and Hudson were responsible for most of the early Famicom games. A short time later, Nintendo released the original Super Mario Bros. Hudson was still making computer games at this point, and we wondered whether we could obtain a license. So we created original games of our own using the Mario character. The licensing was for the right to use the Mario character as well as Nintendo's earliest home games. Nintendo granted us the license to create home computer versions. But then Nintendo went on to create their gigantic empire, <laughs> so they became more protective of their assets, and stopped licensing them out."
Slowly, despite a weak opening software line-up, hardware defects, product recalls, uncertainty from third-party developers, and even within the company itself, the Famicom reached critical mass. It was not an overnight success, but a stoic march to market supremacy. An excellent example is shared by Tokihiro Naito, creator of the Hydlide series – the Famicom port, Hydlide Special, was released in March 1986.
As Naito describes: "By 1986, console games were outselling computer games significantly. For the first Hydlide, the Famicom version alone sold a million copies, whereas on the computer side, the combined sales of the first game for all the different computer platforms reached one million, while Hydlide 3 on computers didn't even reach a million. In Japan, when a successful music artist like Yumi Matsutoya sells a million copies, Toshiba EMI will give you a plaque to commemorate. It's like going platinum with a music album. We received one of those for Hydlide."
To put this statement into context, there were at least eight different computer versions of the original Hydlide: PC-6001, PC-88, Sharp X-1, Fujitsu FM-7, MZ-2000, MSX1, MSX2, and finally PC-98. It had taken time to gain that kind of momentum, but once going, there was no stopping the Famicom. The system would be redesigned and rebranded for launch in America towards the end of 1985, and the rest is history. Hudson would create a competitor with its PC Engine console (1987), and Sega would then enter the fray with its Mega Drive (1988). Meanwhile, Nintendo's little white-and-burgundy juggernaut would continue being manufactured until September 2003.
The key takeaway from all these statements, on reflection of the 40th anniversary, is that sometimes success comes from the unlikeliest of candidates. It happened with the Famicom, and it would happen a decade later with the PlayStation – another system no one quite expected to be as huge as it was. Even if the Famicom or NES is not a system you put a lot of time into, you have to appreciate the hurdles it overcame to become number one.
Happy birthday, little guy.
Interview segments for this article were taken from The Untold History Of Japanese Game Developers trilogy of books by John Szczepaniak. All three are available on Amazon.
Comments 28
Man, that original Famicom design was so cool, with the controller slots.
Happy 40th anniversary Famicom!🎂🎉🎈🥳
"it would happen a decade later with the PlayStation – another system no one quite expected to be as huge as it was"
I was one of those people who had no faith whatsoever that the Playstation would be successful. Looking back and reading games magazines at the time, many were equally skeptical. There's plenty of "which system will be victorious" articles in big magazines that place Playstation behind Saturn, N64, and even the 3dO and Jaguar in their predictions. How wrong we all were.
Sure, early previews of Playstation made clear that was very powerful, but we'd just recently seen very powerful impressive hardware be released and completely flop, dead within 6 months because the high quality games didn't come fast enough, third parties didn't get onboard, entry price of hardware was too expensive. This happened countless times between 1992 & 1995. and in any case, future systems like M2 and "Project Reality" were going to be infinietly more powerful than Sony's machine, weren't they?
People nowadays look back as if Playstation as always going to be a success because Sony were sucgh a huge company with such deep pockets - but again, we'd seen huge tech companies like Apple, Phillips, Panasonic, Goldstar, NEC, Bandai, Pioneer and more all try and fail to compete with dedicated games companies like Sega and Nintendo - Atari may be about to regain market share, 3dO had the backing on EA...
I truly feel that the main reason for Sony's success is actually the fact Sony were SO furious at Nintendo, that they were determined to take them out of the market for the sake of honour and revenge, even if it nearly bankrupted the company putting all tehir eggs in one basket - first planning on making a $100 loss per system, then boosting that to a $200 loss on a whim to counteract Sega, throwing unprecidented amounts of money to devs to make exclusive games, and paying more to advertise the Playstation than they'd even done for any of their previous movies or music projects, let alone tech releases. It wasn't about making profit, it was about teaching Nintendo a lesson.
What a system love the Nes/Famicom. Happy birthday what a Legend.
Its really interesting to think about how big the early microcomputer and PC markets were in Japan, similar to the Sinclair/Commodre/Amstrad system in the UK, whcih was a big part of why the NES didn't really take off here til pushed as a budget system in the 90s.
Its a really fun "alternative gaming universe" to look into, even though its hard to navigate for those unable to read Japanese. I remember reading about "Super Mario Bros. Special" and the MSX Metal Gear games, and going down a big emulation rabbit hole in the early 2000s. The Sharp X68000 is an especially incredible machine.
As a Sega fan who adores the Master System, and grew up programing for 8bit computers, the fact that the SG-1000 had a variant that was essentially a full computer with keyboard that you could program games for fascinates me. It was released in Australia so even for English lanuage only there's a possibility of importing one and learning to make simple Master System compatible games with it. So cool.
What an interesting period of time. Everything was new and there was no roadmap on how to do things, for better or for worse. It makes me wonder what Nintendo was expecting when they released the Famicom, as it sounds like they though it might be a modest success. It also shows how things back then took time, which I view as a positive in a lot of ways. I thought it was interesting to hear about the context of the Famicom launching when gaming on early Japanese computers was somewhat popular. The smooth scrolling in games like Super Mario Bros. probably amazed people at the time and helped propel the machine to success.
@samuelvictor
Sony only ever sold the PlayStation at a $100 loss. The PlayStation cost $400 to manufacture at the Japanese launch. The Saturn cost $500 to manufacture. Giving the PlayStation a $100 start.
And as the manufacturing costs dropped, the difference remained. When the PlayStation manufacturing dropped to $300 per unit, the Saturn was being manufactured at $400 per unit. And Sony still continued to sell at a $100 loss to price Sega out of the market.
@UK_Kev Ok fair enough - I remembered reading that during the harware design phase, the original planned pricepoint was $399, with a $100 loss factored in. But then a year or so later when Sega did the surprise launch, they changed the price to $299, so I assumed that meant a $200 loss. It hadn't occured to me that the manufacturing costs may have dropped from when the hardware was originally designed, but that makes sense.
Either way my point was that Sony could afford the losses (and this was quickly recouped through games sales anyway), but the primary motivation factor in the initial creation of the Playstation was not profit, it was teaching Nintendo a lesson, whatever the cost.
@samuelvictor Yeah playing the victim while doing all dirty tricks possible to kill competitors. That's classic Sony.
@samuelvictor I feel like it started with teaching Nintendo lesson, but turned into something more aggressive to Sega, honestly. PlayStation predominantly stole Sega’s fanbase right from underneath them, in my recollection of the console wars of the day. The Nintendo kids largely remained Nintendo kids, but Sony really out Sega-ed Sega in price and “edgy,” mature games. Back in those days, I knew more people that had a Jaguar than Saturn, but PlayStation and N64 were really the only consoles competing.
@somnambulance Actually yeah I can totally see that. For me, I loved both Sega and Nintendo (at that time had a Master System, Megadrive, Mega CD, 32X, SNES and Gameboy... and a pre-order on an N64!) but I definitely felt Sega was "cooler"... Playstation went after that cool, edgy, more adult marketing HARD.
Sadly, Sega absolutely botched the Saturn launch in every territory. The only thing that saved it in Japan was their obsession with Virtua Fighter. Even as somewhat of a Sega fanboy who even loevd his 32X, I had zero interest in Saturn on launch after seeing the poor performance of the rushed launch lineup combined with a £400 price tag, and that ugly and uncomfortable "western" redesigned joypad, compared to teh super comfortable Playstation one. (ironically, the Japanese Saturn pad / Model S is my favourite controller of all time, but of course I didn't experience that at launch)
It was only 18 months or so later when I bought a cheap second hand Saturn that I realised how awesome a system it actually was, how many amazing games weer on it, and it was just that spectacularly awful launch period that had made it seem underpowered and overpriced. By then, it was too late of course.
@glaemay As someone who started in the music industry and now produces superhero movies... and also makes indie games he's hoping to sell on all consoles... I don't have an official take! But that's certainly a common opinion that I hear from some people.
@samuelvictor I'd say the other thing about "teaching Nintendo a lesson" would have been Mortal Kombat. Even if you don't care much for the game itself, the controversy of the initial home ports had a huge historical impact.
At that point, Nintendo was huge into only permitting "family-friendly" content on its consoles. MK1 was the game that was popular enough to warrant a huge "NO!", reportedly especially in the market sales which is the thing they'd most pay attention to. It's rumored that Nintendo was the one who made an overblown reaction to Night Trap to federal regulators as a defense reaction to how highly criticical game fans (again, even those who didn't care about MK specifically) were of that decision.
@samuelvictor Totally agree with you that PlayStation made this illusion that the Saturn was an overpriced nothing console, and arguably Sony played the same card on the Dreamcast. I really wish I would’ve know better about both consoles, as I would’ve enjoyed having them both in my youth. But Sony’s advertising never did much for me either as I thought PS1 was awful in comparison to the N64 in those days as well. I mean, Sony advertised Crash, Tomb Raider and Twisted Metal, Sega advertised Nights, Virtua Fighter, and honestly nothing else, it seemed. Meanwhile, the 64 was boasting Super Mario 64, Ocarina, and Goldeneye. PS1 and Saturn seemed like nonsense in comparison to me in ‘95 or ‘96 or so. I didn’t realize how good either console’s library was until… totally legal alternative means to play the games existed. Lol. Sony, unlike any other third party (at the time), figured out how to totally disrupt the industry, sending Sega to its “doom.” I don’t think Sony has ever totally understood what Nintendo does and why they succeed, nor did Sega, though they both tried.
@KingMike Oh, absolutely. The neutering of Mortal Kombat, and the "Night Trap and Lethal enforcers will never appear on a Nintendo system" debacle beign so public massively, massively damaged Nintendo's "coolness" factor in ways that still haut them to this day and they've never been able to escape from.
I personally love Nintendo systems, since Sega's demise they have always been my primary system of each generation, but I love cartoony and family friendly games. Even back in teh SNES days Nintendo realised their mistake, and backtracked with a "full fat" version of Mortal Kombat II, even freakin Doom... but it was too late. And since then, each subsequent Nintendo systrem has tried to have more "adult", "scary" and "hardcore" games but they never sell particularly well, because their primary market seems to be kid friendly cartoony titles. I may be wrong but my feeling has always been that this impression started with Mortal Kombat and that reputation followed down the lines with each new generation through the opinion of kids on the playground, those kids eventually growing and becoming parents and still harbouring those same feelings.
@somnambulance Yeah there was a period circa 95-97 where I had zero interest in Sega and thought Sony would be a flash in the pan, and was fully onboard the N64 hype train thinking it would blow everything else out of the water. I spent nearly 2 years just savign my money for the eventual N64 release and did onthing but read Nintendo magazines reading about these upcoming games and how they would be completely impossible on Saturn or Playstation...
I really loved the N64 on launch, but for me at least, reality sank in after owning the N64 for a while and seeing how much the lack of texture memory hurt it, meaning most texture maps were very low detail and the filtering that I believed would eliminante visible pixels actually turned everything into a blurry mess... and the fog that was going to eliminate popup actually just made things feel claustrophobic and meant I couldnb't see where I was going.
Of course, certain games, especially those from Rare and Nintendo themselves, looked briulliant and made teh best of teh system. But even then, when compared with the best looking Playstation and Saturn games, N64 actually often looks pretty weak, and ran at half the framerate.
That doesn't mean there aren't standout games on N64 though, I'd argue some of the absolute best of its generation. But the fact it wasn't as all powerful as I thought, combined with the fact cartridges were so expensive, meant that by late 97 I bought a secondhand Saturn, and in 98 picked up a Playstation, and the games for both were so much more affordable, and many were absolutely mind blowing and seemed like the N64 couldn't dream of running them - which was shocking to me havign spent 2 years reading how the N64 would be so powerful. It was - but only in very specific ways, and was sadly very hamstrung in others.
For me, nowadays the N64 is a machine I use to play maybe 10 games max - and I love them to pieces - Mario 64 is my #2 favourite game of all time for example. But theres SO many more games in Saturn and Playstation library that I replay regularly and I find the "cleaner" graphics so much easier on the eyes on a modern television. I really need to get a modded N64 with the HDMI and ability to turn off the filters, I'm sure I'd enjoy it more.
@samuelvictor I’ll always remember that feeling of playing FF7 and MGS on PC, only to realize later that they were tentpole PS titles, and realizing how Sony’s marketing actively pushed me away when their console ecosystem was in-line with what I liked as a gamer more than I realized. Today, I would argue that PS and N64 have competitive libraries and the Saturn’s library is better than it was regarded at the time. I’ll be honest, my early experiences with N64 blew me away, whereas I felt like Saturn was clunky, but I was biased in not being a Sega guy. Ironically, I started liking Sega more when they became a publisher. I definitely wish I would’ve played the Phantasy Star series 25, 30 years ago. I’m curious if that would’ve changed my perspective as a gamer.
I agree with you 100% that 64 aged like milk. Perhaps worse than any other major console. I’m not talking about you, Jaguar. You don’t count! Lol. The games that hit really hit, but there’s not that many (and even those that did, I acknowledge that my nostalgia may be painting my opinion). I always think the 64 had more good games than it actually had, whereas the Saturn is the total opposite. I was a diehard for Nintendo until the GameCube/PS2 era. I fell off the Nintendo wagon the year I asked for both consoles for Christmas one year and got the PS2. Lol. My parents dictated that generation for me then and there, which is ironic because my entire family is usually Nintendo-centric. They decided it was time for me to become console agnostic there, I suppose (I’d be an Xbox guy the next generation and I’d say I’m Nintendo first now). The PS2 arguably aged about as well as the 64 for me too. Odd how that is.
@somnambulance Well the earliest games on Saturn were pretty awful as the launch was so rushed and the hardware was difficult to program for, so it definitely seemed clunky out the gate... also for all of its life most multiplatform 3d games were by far the worst on Saturn, to the point of sometimes being unplayable, again because it was difficult to program for. However, once you dive into the library fully (especially if you take into account the Japanese only games and all the ones that use the RAM cart expansions) for me, its the best library of all 3 systems... but I do have a pretty severe bias towards arcade style experiences like shmups, 2d fighters, 3d fighters, light gun games, arcade racers, puzzle games, and 2d platformers - and almost none of those genres are well represented on N64, sadly. Playstation is clearly the best system for RPGs, N64 probably the best for 3D platformers (Mario and Banjo trump everything else despite strong competition on Playstation), and very strong for FPS and multiplayer family titles like Mario Kart, Party, Smash etc. Saturn also has the distinct advantage of havign my #1 favourite game ever - Nights into Dreams (& Xmas Nights) - the only game I personally rate higher than Mario 64 (and teh only Sega game Miyamoto said he wished he made ) so that definitely biases me too.
At the end of the day, it was an amazing console generation and all 3 of the main systems have titles that I go back to regularly. But as you said, sadly the N64 comparitively aged like milk so nowadays I mostly play those games through emulators or source ports - I really should get a properly modded console to make it more paletable to my modern, more fussy eyes!
PS2 probably has the best overall library vs Dreamcast / Gamecube / Xbox but again the hardware itself looks AWFUL on modern tvs and te loading times are rough so again its emulator only for me until I get round to buyign a fully modded and upgraded system, whereas the other 3 consoles hold up well. Its also noticably weaker when it comes to most multiplatform titles similar to how the Saturn was. Funny, as the best of the best PS2 games are very impressive and possibly the most impressive of the generation... Again though, all 4 of those consoles have incredible games, it was yet another fantastic generation with no duds.
Interesting you didn't know FFVII and MGS were Playstation titles, they were key in making me want the system and eventually cave and buy one in 1998 after resisting for 4 years! lol. FFVII is my second favourite RPG of all time - but my #1 is Panzer Dragoon Saga on Saturn - an incredible technical showcase achievement for any game of that generation, the areas in teh later discs must be sucking every last drop of power from the poor Saturn.
@samuelvictor Yes, for me, N64 smashes everyone else when it comes to 3D platformers that generation, which is honestly what I was playing mostly at the time. For me, I had no idea FF7 was on PS, as this was in an era where I was younger and didn’t exactly look into these kinds of things online. After all, I was still largely in an era where my parents dictated my gaming choices. I think my mom bought me Final Fantasy titles because it encouraged reading, you know?
I do hope that Panzer Dragoon Saga one day finds its way onto modern consoles. I know it’s code has been reportedly lost and it’s notoriously difficult to port without that origin code, but I do hope Sega figures something out, as I’d love to legally invest in the title after enjoying it without spending a cent on it all these years. Lol.
For me, it’s hard to really rank Saturn, PS1, and N64 as they had such dramatically different libraries. If I were to rank on first parties, I’d likely say N64, Saturn, PS1. If I were to rank on exclusives, PS1, N64, Saturn. If I were to rank on cumulative library, PS1, Saturn, N64. Funny how that works out.
PS2 both has the best and worst libraries of that era. The PS2 had so many games! The PS2 and Wii both are such weird systems in that I’d bought so many actual garbage titles for both consoles (Ah, the internet has grown to be quite helpful in curating a good library). I think that’s part of my lack of nostalgia for PS2 perhaps. I had my own money by the time that console rolled around and gaming wasn’t what it is today, in that many gamers were less than tasteful. I remember being recommended Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer because I enjoyed Tony Hawk 3 by a friend. What an idiot was that friend. And myself! I bought it! It was terrible. I think I owned more bad games than good games and tapered off into Wii casual land for the next generation til I saw Fallout 3, which promptly gave the voice in my head the strong desire to be a more hardcore gamer than ever before and I bought a PS3 and Xbox 360 within the year, with an insatiable desire to play every game. So my thanks to my lack of nostalgia in the PS2. Had I owned a GameCube, I likely just would’ve been a blind Nintendo fanboy. Lol.
@somnambulance Yeah I agree there was a HUGE amount of shovelware rubbish on both the PS2 and Wii - I guess that's the price you pay for those systems being so mind bendingly popular. If you think about it, the Switch has that problem too, but its disguised somewhat by most of the actual rubbish being eshop only - cartridges being so expensive to produce and having a minimum order size meanign you have to risk tens of thousands of dollars to release a physical game means most of the low effort asset flips are just put to the eshop and most gaming sites and youtubers completely ignore them, so we don't even hear that they exist. The Wii and PS2 existed before digital storefronts were common, but as they were just standard DVD discs they cost literal cents to manufacture, so we ended up with retail libraries where 50% are unplayable crud... maybe 75% in the case of the Wii. I think its why I don't really like collecting for either system, even though theres a few standout titles that I love.
I totally get what you're saying about your parents just buying you games and therefore you having little choice or even knowledge of them. I'm probably a few years older than you by the sound of it (I was born in 1981) and while we didn't have the internet I was obsessed with buying gaming magazines and watching all the game related TV shows to keep up on the latest news. I was originally a Sega fanboy then got into Nintendo as well so started buying all the multiformat magazines as well as the format specific ones... but then after seeing so many platforms be hyped up and then instantly die (Jaguar, CDi, 3dO, CD32, NGCD etc etc) and then somewhat losing faith in Sega after the Saturn launch, I just went full "Nintendo fanboy" for nearly 2 years whilst waiting for the N64 launch (coincidentally that was around the time the tv shows I watched stopped making new episodes too, so I really went dark on non-Nintendo news for a short while).
I certainly agree that the N64 was the system to own at the time for 3d platformers. Thats the whole reason I was so excited to own one and immediately put down a pre-order in 95 after seeing a preview of Mario 64 on TV. My favourite genre was the mascot platformer, so seeing that translated into 3d was incredible and I was HYPED. Mario 64 did not disapoint of course, but my disullusion with the N64 started to kick in when the other staple genres that I loved, 2d platformers, shmups, 1v1 fighting games, arcade racers, lightgun games, all never really materialised... whereas the Saturn and Playstation excelled in all of these areas.
I mused recently that the absolute best 3d platformers were exclusive to the N64, but perhaps the Playstation has more of them that are worth playing, even if they don't quite reach the same heights. The Crash trilogy, Spyro trilogy, Croc 1&2, Tomb Raider 1-5, Ape Escape, Bugs Lost in Time, Bugs & Taz Timebusters, Sheep, Dog n Wolf, Pacman World - these are all good games that aren't on N64. But then the N64 has less exclusives but the quality is even higher? Of course many decent games were released on both, Gex, Toy Story 2, Rayman 2, Going Quackers, etc.
@samuelvictor You’ve got me beat by 8 years in age. The late N64, early PS2 era too, I’d say I’d transitioned to being a PC first gamer, which sounds ridiculous to me now, given that I’m most certainly as far pro-console over PC that you could be now. I just prefer the simplicity of dedicated hardware, I suppose. But anyway, I’d get a random gaming magazine here or there, but I didn’t stay up to date, definitely not like I do now. To use an example of my ignorance, when Pokémon cards were a thing, my dad got my sister and I both three packs one day and I had no idea what they were. I had a first edition Charizard in one of the packs. My “best friend” of that time stole it and I had no idea it was worth something until probably three or so years later.
I do appreciate the Switch for that reason. There’s so much garbage on the console, but unlike the Wii and PS2 libraries, you have to look for the trash. It’s sort of brilliant. Meanwhile, I remember going to the store with the desire to buy a PS2 or Wii game (or my parents just picking one up) and you’d just sort of get what you’d get, based on what the store would have and what you’d already have. There was no eshop to buy what you wanted. I’m not sure how big Amazon was in those days. It was mercy of the marketplace. Speaking of that and consoles that died immediately, man, I do remember the Jaguar launch. The hype on that was real. So many people felt Atari would be back to shake up the Nintendo vs Sega dichotomy. How wrong those people were! In looking at the Jaguar’s sales though, I do always get surprised, given how many people I knew that had them. I do remember my parents considering getting one, only to decide against it because they didn’t like any of the games they tried at Funcoland.
Mascot platformers and, by proxy of how that generation developed, party games were my bread and butter of the 64 era. I would not at all be surprised if Mario Party has more hours on it than any game I’ve played in the last 10 years. I would say that the 64 has a better line-up in mascot platformers than PS1 did, but that’s just my preference. And often, if a platformer was on both consoles, it usually played better on 64 than PS1. Take Glover for example. Nothing exclusive on PS1 comes close to touching Mario 64, let alone DK64… for me, of course. Well, maybe Ape Escape touches DK64 tier for me, now that I think about it…
@somnambulance I certainly a bought a few Wii and DS games I fully expect to be garbage but are hopefully at least amusing. (Never caved to the urge to buy Ninjabread Man, which I know one or more sites back in the day hyped as the bottom of the barrel of Wii shovelware. Then again, I watched my online pals play Vroom in the Sky and it didn't look like a game that'd still be "the worst Switch eShop game" once the catalog was over a thousand games in. I haven't played it and while I could tell it wasn't the best playing game, I could still see some charm in it.
@KingMike Lol. I’ve definitely purposefully bought awful games, but that’s more of a recent thing… and usually Gamepass has me covered for my morbid curiosity.
@somnambulance Dude that sucks about the Charizard! Could have been your retirement plan, damnit!
Being older than you, as you can imagine, I had the same probelm times 10 as far as just being at the mercy of whatever was available in the shops, ordering online wasn't a thing and my parents didn't trust mail order companies. When I had cash to spend I had to beg them to driev me to the nearest Toys R Us which also had a Curries & Comet near by (British electronics retailers) or if I was on holiday in a small town I would look for games in shops with a smaller selection like Woolworths, Smiths or Boots and just hope that they had something that I wanted and didnt' already have. As I said I was pretty up to date on magazines and shows so I mostly knew if a game was good or if it was a stinker - but every now and again I'd be there with money burnign a hole in my pocket and my only options were games I had no idea if they were any good or not... thankfully on those occasions I got lucky - I remember picking up Master System Jurassic Park and Batman Returns, Gameboy Yogi Bear and SNES Road Runner without having any clue if they were good or licensed trash... thankfully all of them are great
Often, the reviews would really help my choices - I was not really a fan of Donkey Kong in the arcades or on NES, but the reviews for the Gameboy conversion were so glowing that I picked it up on holiday despite having reservations - its now in my top 5 favourite games of all time. I only remember one time when I bought a game because the reviews had been extremely positive and I just couldn't get into it, that was The Fidgetts for Gameboy - to this day, I can't play it. The graphics are excellent and it seems like a nicely designed puzzle platformer similar to Lost Vikings but I find the time limit so strict I can barely get off the first level.
Sometimes, reviews were bad, but the games just looked like something I'd really enjoy... in cases like this I'd wait and buy them cheaply second hand. Sadly near me there weren't really stores where you could rent games so there was no way for me to try stuff out first.
As I was an only child (and didnt' particularly have many friends - I'm autistic and didn't learn how to "fit in" until I was an older teenager) it was extremely rare that I'd get to play multiplayer games, so the 4 player and party game nature of the N64 mostly passed me by, except for the rare occasions we'd go to my cousins' houses. I can imagine if you had siblings or regularly had friends over, teh N64 was an amazing consoel for that reason. When I was 18 and had a place of my own I rebought N64 to play Pokemon Stadium (I wanted to play Pokemon Blue on my TV, and see my Pokemon rendered in 3d) and had lots of fun with friends over playing the minigames in that title, as well as Mario Kart 64, which remains one of my favourite games in the series.
I agree the N64 version of Glover is the best, probably lots of the other multiplat titles I mentioned... if only I could turn off the darned "fuzz filter". I agree Ape Escape is really good too!
@somnambulance As far as the Jaguar, the fact you remember so much hype around it and people really excited is because you were in America at the time Of course you are aware of the "rivalry" (to put it nicely) between America and Japan throughout history and that was still very fresh in the 80s-90s with a constant fear that Japan was about to become the "next world superpower" because of their technical proficiency - similar fearmongering to what you hear about China / South Korea / India at the moment. Seeing the reality of where Japan is right now, they needn't have worried.
Probably because of this bias / fear there was a real narrative in American media in the late 80s to early 90s that America had invented videogames (mostly true) and Atari (an American company) had perfected the console market (also mostly true) and then Nintendo and Sega had come along from Japan and put Atari out of business and stolen a great American art form (not even remotely true... in fact Sega started off as an American company and Atari bankrupted itself through greed, incompetance and having zero quality control...). But therefore the news story that Atari was making a comeback and with a "64 bit" system that would destroy the 32bit Japanese consoles, and it was both designed and even manufactured in America? That was a news story people wanted to run with. Jaguar was the choice for patriots! The choice for freedom!
Unfortunately it was kindof underpowered, not really 64bit by any real measure, and the games that came out weren't very impressive, mostly looking a generation behind because people couldn't get their head round programming for its complex architecture and just used the 68000 in it to make ports of 16bit Genesis and Amiga titles. As soon as journalists saw the games, it was fairly obvious it was going to die on its butt. In the UK, we certainly got news of the hype, and before the games started to appear we saw previews and excited talk of tech specs in the magazines... but the actual wall to wall and televised advertising "do the math!" etc never materialised like it did in America.
In the end, it sold less than 150k units worldwide. For all the hype, thats an unbelievably small amount. Considering I've owned 3 of them and I regularly see them in retro stores for sale, I would find that figure hard to believe, but its from the literal SEC filing by Atari themselves. Other "failed" consoles of the time sold waaaaay more than that - 3dO, 32X & Virtual Boy all sold about 750k, CDi 500k, TurboDuo 2 million, NeoGeo 1 million, Sega CD 6 million... the only well advertised system of the time I can think that sold less is the CD32, but that's because the company literally went bust during the release window and the American release was cancelled.
Its never been reported how many Jaguar CD units were sold, or even manufactured, I'd hazard a guess of 10k max as I imagine most Jaguar owners felt burned and were savign for a Playstation, not about to drop another $150+ on an upgrade for their dying system that only ever had 11 games. A shame, as I actually was quite excited for the Jaguar when it was first anounced, and wanted it to do well. A handful of the games are good, and there's a bustling homebrew community trying to show what it was actually capable of.
Interestingly, the same "American console, designed by Americans, built in America" marketing was used again in the launch of the original Xbox. Theres still a decent chunk of Xbox fans who are insitent the reason its the "best" brand is because its American. You only need to unscrew your console and look at all the components to realise how little sense that makes, but hey, marketing is marketing.
@samuelvictor With the amount of inflation we’ve experienced, it could’ve been a grocery shopping trip, if I’m lucky. Lol. Seriously, America loves price gouging the fruit and produce these days.
I’ll be honest about my NES and SNES catalogue. There’s plenty of games that are probably stinkers by modern standards that I loved back then, and that I’d still fight for. Kid Klown, yeah, I’ve beaten it hundreds of times. Beetlejuice, really enjoyed it, you know? It went from platformer to almost a top down arpg-ish thing. Friday the 13th, I won’t let anyone tell me it’s a 4/10 game even if it totally is! It’s funny, I came really late to the SNES, and honestly played the console most in the PS2 era. We had the SNES for two years only (before getting the 64 at least… my parents still have it in their basement hooked up) and it was totally late into the generation. We were gifted the console and we moved across the country to the desert, so just imagine all the games I had access to. I could speedrun any DKC game or Kirby’s Dreamland 3 for a reason. Lol. I was definitely a renter, outside my year and a half in the desert though. It was wonderful in the 64 era. My Family Video (god bless its resting soul) even let us rent consoles. We went every Friday too and rented a lot of movies, so I’m pretty sure they gave us deals on things. We used to get a Christmas card from them and my parents still do get one from the pizza place across the street.
I didn’t really have many friends either. Never been all that social of a person in any capacity. I may well be on the spectrum but unaware. Many have recommended we test my son and I see a lot of my characteristics in him. Anyway, my mom and sisters all played a lot of games with me. We would regularly play Goldeneye, Mario Kart, Mario Party. I remember cutting my hand open playing Mario Party once because of that Shy Guy minigame. Pokémon Stadium’s minigames were perhaps the biggest party pleaser in those days.
Ah, yes, the American console thing is definitely “a thing” for some people I know. I think it’s quite silly since I quite like the foreign influence on gaming culture, personally. Given that I’m a midwesterner that could account for why Xbox was so popular in my area as well as Jaguar. And meanwhile the Saturn and Dreamcast were nowhere to be found. I’ve known but one person that had a Dreamcast, and that’s a friend of mine that is fortunate enough to “have them all,” so to speak. In my experience, the Jaguar was sort of awful. I know this site is for the odd console nostalgic, but I just really didn’t enjoy the controller or games I played for it at all. It made better use perhaps as dental equipment?
@somnambulance Yeah back then, games were expensive and rare to come by, maybe only one new game for Xmas, one for birthday... saving up pocket money for months at a time. That meant that whatever games you did have had to last and you'd play them over and over - maybe if there was a game that was "bad" you would gaslight yourself into enjoying it. Thats possibly what happened to me with Road Runner on the SNES - whilst the graphics and level designs are really good, the controls are awful and most newcomers to the game nowadays write it off as unplayable. However, I persisted with it, mastered the controls, and loved the game. Nowadays if I just tried a rom of it without previous experience i would have given up before that point. But I'll go to bat for that game anyday! lol
You were lucky to have rentals be so common! I'd have loved to be able to use my pocket money to rent a new game to try on a weekend or something. That simply wasn't a thing when I was little, sadly - perhaps in bigger towns.
Sorry to hear you didn't have many friends growing up but honestly the fact that you played with your sisters and mom sounds really lovely. My parents had no interest in games (or time to play them with me) and I was an only child. I only ever got to play multiplayer videogames on 7 occasions growing up... and I remember each one of those times really clearly as I had so much fun!
Yeah in the UK I never knew anyone with a Jaguar... Saturn was a 3rd place behind PS1 and N64 but it certainly sold enough so that it wasn't uncommon, and Dreamcast was very popular, while it lasted. As a rule though Sega consoles sold far better than Nintendo consoles in general - people have a stereotype of "the UK hates Nintendo". Thats not true, they just didn't market the NES very well, and the Master System was very popular, so Sega had a headstart and kept that lead, building up a loyal fanbase. Even though they are thought of as rare, I speak to far more British kids that had Mega CD and 32X than Americans (and I work in America a lot and attend a lot of conventions etc so I think I get a fairly good cross section).
By the way, I wasn't saying there's anything wrong with being patriotic. I spend a lot of time in America and like it a lot. When I go to the American Pavillion in Epcot it does an incredible job at making me feel teary eyed and proud to be American, until I remember Im not! lol Its just that from an outside perspective the way American media, schooling, etc pushes national pride it and reverence of flag etc can be seems like its quite extreme, but also misused to manipulate poor people and sell them stuff... hense the insistance Xbox is "American" when I don't think even the plastic shell of the console is made in America. Maybe the box and manual is printed there? I saw a fantastic wooden door sign, which was an American flag with "Not made in China" written on it... the sign was made in China. Made me chuckle when I saw that.
I totally agree the Jaguar controller was pretty rough. The system as a whole was a disaster but there are some genuinely good games on the system if you hunt through the rough, most notably Tempest 2000 and Alien Vs Predator... unfortunately for the system nowadays many of the actually fun games are available and just as good or better on other systems, meaning there's little reason to collect for it. However at the time, if you'd been an early adopter, there were at least 10 games that would have made you feel your purchase was worthwhile... as long as you avoided the stinkers - some of the games are embarassingly bad and should never have been released as they made the system look weak and burnt customers trust.
@samuelvictor Yes, that’s precisely hitting the nail on the head. I don’t know if I ever had a “new” game (outside Donkey Kong or Mario because those were “for my mom”) til N64 when I’d use Christmas money to buy approximately 2-3 games over the course of the year and who knows if they were new? We rented instead of purchased, for the most part, so i developed this habit of needing to beat games quickly. After all, my parents were cheap and did 24 hour rentals every time.
I quite appreciate that my sisters enjoying gaming. They all have Switches now, but they’re so casual on gaming that we’ve never actually played online together… even though I pay for NSO. It’s always interesting to me when parents have no interest in gaming and yet invest in it for their child. Maybe they dabbled and you never knew? My mom showed me a photograph of my Dad playing Rocket: Robot on Wheels once and it startled me, given that I’d never seen him play a game, and, of all things, he was photographed playing that one!
Something that you’ve likely noticed about Americans is that there’s staunchly patriotic Americans and not. Lol. I think it’s a very different concept of nationality than many nations have. I was reading about the new album from that duo that Graham Coxon is in where he talked about how, “Regardless of your feelings for what Britain has done or the politics, you still love the country, even when you disagree with it.” America doesn’t quite have that mentality. Obviously, I’m not sure if that’s a real mentality with those in Britain or not, but I can see it in TV and movies. For instance, Bake Off could not exist in America! They’d be rushing the poor bakers with an athlete’s ethos. America is a land of paradox, and I suppose I enjoy some of that from time to time, myself.
In America, it’s odd because Sega and Nintendo seemed very even in the SNES era, but the Saturn was a total flash and it was gone. I don’t even recall seeing games for it anywhere after maybe the first year or two of its life. I don’t recall anyone I know owning it or talking about it. I truly do recall the Genesis kids taking a one-way ticket to Twisted Metal Land. I think the N64 wasn’t all that popular, but I remember it being more popular because it was popular among people I was associated with, a lot of them later in life. It’s sort of part and parcel with my view of Xbox being popular. By the 360 era, it seemed everyone had one, but that’s just everyone I knew.
I really wonder what they were thinking with that controller. It’s uncomfortable and unpractical. I don’t think I’ve played a fun game on the console, to be honest. Many bragged about it at release, but I think those same people sold their consoles for a PlayStation. I wonder if some of them sold the Jaguar, bought a Saturn, and returned it for a PlayStation. Lol.
@samuelvictor at least we can thanks Hasbro Interactive (plus the active campaigning by the BattleSphere devs and fans) that the Jaguar became public domain. I wish more homebrew devs jump to the Jaguar scene. I actually had two Jaguar back when i was younger in the 2000s and 2010s, because i wanted to play Rayman but i ended up getting sucked into the Jaguar scene in the end XD
I would say the Jaguar does still have its exclusive library of good games like Iron Soldier 1 and 2, BattleSphere and BattleSphere Gold, Power Drive Rally, Super Burnout, Defender 2000, Breakout 2000, Zero 5, Hyper Force, Skyhammer, Protector and Protector SE, the janky Ultra Vortek, and Battlemorph, as well as homebrew games like Rebooteroids.
@KGRAMR @somnambulance Sorry I went so long without replying to you guys - I went on a very needed mental health break from social media, I was becoming obsessive about checking reponses and replying to the point of not getting any work done! lol.
Absolutely 100% agree on the Hasbro thing, the modern homebrew Jaguar scene is really cool! If the Jagaur is trult public domin it would be amazing if we start to see actual hardware becoming manufactured by some enterprising person so more people get a chance to play them - as a game dev myself I'd be quite interested to try out development (and I used to make ST games for fun in the 90s... well, Amiga games tbh, but them later tried porting them) so I think I could get something up and running... but for the amount of work it would take, I feel more inclined to make games for systems more people will be able to play as I don't exclusively have nostalgia for teh Jag, more that whole time period of transition and innovation in the gaming world with things switching from 16bit to 32/64 and 2d to 3d.
Yes it pains me how much SEGA in America was mostly "Genesis only"... In Europe, every Sega system was at least moderately successful, even the 32X and Mega CD.
Not to plug myself, but you may like the Sega hardware and Sonic history references in the intro sequence I made for my SAGE entry this year? 😇 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvTiAmOH8MM
Tap here to load 28 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...