Square Had Huge Plans For The N64 Before It Fell Out With Nintendo

Definitely a win for Playstation. If FF7 had never released on PS1, I probably would game never cared about the series in the slightest. Glad it did as I'm really enjoying the remakes.

It was a rather foolish decision of Nintendo to stick with cartridges TBH, the two big advancements in gaming at the time were 3D graphics and CD-ROM storage, and Nintendo just tossed aside one of them in favour of expensive cartridges.

Nintendo had their scrapes that’s for sure. Were it not for their strong vision of personal gaming from the get go, they’d probably not have held onto the market

@JackGYarwood Carts had other benefits as well, like keeping system cost down.

On the other hand, Nintendo could charge third parties more money for roms than they could cd's and claimed better piracy prevention, which the Bung soon disproved.

Even at the time prior to the N64 we had cartridge games with loading times and decompression delays on SFC/Snes. NEC proved CD games on console by being Nintendo's closest competitor in Japan in the 16bit days.

There was a lot of marketing in Nintendo's stance which was in line with their antics with developers. Threatening Square to step in lie or regret it would certainly be in keeping wth Nintendo of the time. It probably helped Square make their decision.

As for the 64DD, its failure was inevitable and deserved. It would have just looked feeble next to proper cd's.

The problem of carts was only the straw that broke the camel's back. The real split started back when Secret of Mana was originally planned for the SNES CD as a launch title and had to be reworked to fit the SNES cartridge by limiting audio samples, and cutting an entire area out of the game. When Nintendo scrapped the SNES PlayStation for the Phillips venture, only to then have it turn out to be a debacle of massive proportions, Square was already looking for an out and a reason. The N64 just gave them the final reason to leave.

@MysticX Yea I do wonder where Nintendo would be now if they used CDs for the n64. Would they still have eventually switched to underpowered hardware? Or would they be trying to be more competitive hardware wise? I assume in this timeline that Nintendo never would have lost the third party support that led them to where they are today. I have would have to imagine the Gamecube, Wii, etc. would look a lot different if the n64 used CDs.

N64 should have been DD from jump.

@HammerKirby The only real limitation of the Gamecube was its storage discs, I would say it was Nintendo at some of its most competitive hardware wise.

Funny that now FF7 is available on a "cartridge" (the Asian Switch version) and costs well under $1,200.
But, yeah, that wasn't happening in 1997.

@MysticX Licensing royalties (using cartridge production as a means to control that) and Nintendo having a cocky attitude that because they were in the lead (in Japan), they probably expected to sell on brand recognition.
Something they've done repeatedly.

The whole story is the greatest “what-if” in gaming. What if Nintendo had gone forward with their original CD hardware plans? There would be no PlayStation, and Square’s games would have been on Nintendo hardware… so many ramifications flow from that that it’s literally unimaginable. Fun to speculate!

@Sketcz That's a wording issue. It's more clearly stated in the newspaper image. 70 percent of the new company's capital was to be from Square. I'm sure it was still a much smaller fraction of their own assets.

As others have said, this is one of those moments that had a major impact on gaming and becomes a great "what if" in hindsight. And just to bring Sega into this, as I recall, the Saturn was very competitive with the PS1 in Japan, even outselling it at times, until Final Fantasy 7 changed everything over there just to show its importance. It's amazing to think that it wasn't just about having Square as a third-party, but actually a joint venture which would mean console exclusives. Was Nintendo's leadership so arrogant due to the success of the Super Famicom/Nintendo that they didn't understand Square's importance to continued success? It sounds that way, if they didn't try everything they could to make things work to mitigate the cart limitations.

I also wonder if the DD was conceived because of major developers wanting added storage. Of course, that came too late(after many delays) and was one of Nintendo's bigger missteps. I know it mirrored their strategy with the Famicom Disk System, but their effort with the DD seemed half hearted at best. I also wonder if Nintendo simply misread industry trends sticking with carts. It reminds me of how surprised they were on the difficulties of game development in for HD, 720p and 1080p. They didn't realize that until the Wii U.

To be honest if Nintendo did secure FF7 first, Sony would not exist. I love Sony, but I speak the truth. FF7 carried the system for what it is today. That's why they went back to FF7 at the end of the PS3 life cycle. But to be respectful to the boss in the room, FFX is the BEST final yet!!, That damn ending still gets me, "NEVER FORGET THEM".

Not using disks was the smartest thing Nintendo did at the time. Loading times were nonexistent, and the console didn't have to rely on prerendered backgrounds like the weaker disc based systems, so that wasn't even an issue. This whole story shows that square had incorrect vision of what could be done on a cartridge, of course they didn't know that at the time and had to make a decision.

Good example how short-term corporate greediness (Nintendo wanting to keep banking off that cart manufacturing) can screw your entire company's future.

Someone please get the guys who make cartridge games a cigarette and a blindfold

I betcha Square thought they would never had to deal with cartridges ever again with that quote. Oh how wrong they are, now they are the ones with the cigarette and blindfold.

@james4591 Not really, Square was planning to stay with Nintendo even if the Super NES PlayStation CD thing fell through. The thing is Square was waiting for the 64DD to launch with the N64 itself cause that was the peripheral that added more memory for them to make FFVII. Nintendo delay the N64 and on that case the 64DD as well. Then Square beg Nintendo to use CD like Sony and Sega and Nintendo refused, that's when Square truly broke away from Nintendo.

If Square was really trying to seek another partner after the Super NES CD PlayStation fallout, then they would had partner with Sega instead of Sony. The fact that they didn't partner with Sega at all during their existence in the 90s and rather stay with Nintendo means they still value Nintendo to the point where they were able to work with them on Super Mario RPG: Legends of the Seven Stars. Also that big chunk of contents that got cut from the Secret of Mana CD game weren't totally wasted either. It was a time traveling mechanic story and it got reused for another game. What was that game again? Ah yes Chrono Trigger, that's the one. It was a good call for them to use it for Chrono Trigger cause then they could expand more on the world building of each era whereas if it stay with Secret of Mana it would had just been filler contents anyways.

@GhaleonUnlimited Yeah they're really screwed. And not the richest company in Japan or anything.

@GhaleonUnlimited I wouldn't say they messed up their entire future, but they definitely went through a... "rough patch" due to that decision, Gameboy/color/advance kept them going through the lackluster (Financially) N64/GameCube days.

Nintendo rebounded well with the surprise success of Wii, and then almost fumbled it all with Wii U, sure, Nintendo are rich now (As people will gleefully remind us), but they're not without their slip-ups.

@madgears Yea (the n64 was competitive power wise as well) but the Mini Dvds were a pretty big mistake, if not as bad as the cartridges. But more importantly, the n64 cartridge mistake was li what gave the ps1 the install base and brand power to make PlayStation a household name. Even if Nintendo had used DVDs for the GCN, the ps2 would have still won that console generation easily. Basically what I am saying is that the n64 using cartridges was one of the most important decisions to lead Nintendo to where they are now.

@LowDefAl They didn’t mind Square’s decision to leave for Sony. It was when Square reacted pettily to Nintendo’s under reaction by convincing Enix, who were working on the N64 and slated to develop Dragon Quest 7 for it, to ditch Nintendo for Sony, that Nintendo were angered, and refused them dev kits for the GBA for awhile.

@HammerKirby Yeah, the GameCube would have had to knock it out of the park on all counts, in order to have any hope of beating the PS2.
It also had the N64's failings, its own "kiddy" and toy-like image, and a so-so launch to overcome.

What do you think it would have sold, though, had it used full-size DVDs (all other factors staying the same)? Considering how narrowly it missed the #2 spot in console sales, I'd say beating the Xbox is a given, if nothing else. Or would the larger discs even provide a real advantage in sales, considering that Nintendo surely wouldn't be willing to shell out for movie playback? (See also: Wii and Wii U.) At least it would have allowed for more and better multi-platform games, and that must count for something.

@LowDefAl Piracy on the Playstation was ubiquitous. Which I suspect contributed a lot to its success (teens live off their limited allowance). N64 piracy on the other hand was niche and its games expensive. Then with the PS2 those teens got jobs and they sure didn't buy Gamecubes. Genious strategy. Foot in the door and then brand familiarity/ loyalty.

@HammerKirby Nintendo didn't want to pay royalties to Sony to use their DVD technology and their philosophy was to create dedicated video game hardware. Hence mini-discs with faster access speed (like the N64 carts), but this time round the difference in storage space was much smaller, so much less of a big deal, and manufacturing cost was also much lower than carts.

However, Sony including DVD playback was HUGE, at a time when the DVD market was set to replace VHS and dedicated DVD players were expensive. Couple this with Sony's cool image (they were really good at marketing) and it's easy to see how the PS2 became a massive success. Sticking with cartridges the previous gen, besides the massive upset of Square and a whole bunch of third party devs defecting, had hurt Nintendo's image. CD-rom technology was marketed as the future and cartridges seen as old/ backwards.

Hardware-wise the Gamecube was a fantastic console: powerful, compact, well-designed, but the purple color and handle didn't do them any favors. People laughed at the purple lunch box with the kiddy games and that was that. Written off on appearance. While Nintendo downplayed theoretical performance and said it was all about the games, the PS2 was the space-age looking, hyped up, highly anticipated follow-up to the PS1. There were some rumors about it not being sold in certain countries because the processor was supposedly so powerful, it could be used for military purposes (missile guidance and so forth). It actually turned out to be the weakest console by a significant margin, but word was out. Like I said marketing. Being first to market certainly helped too.

@Poodlestargenerica So because everything worked out OK 25 years later, this wasn't a mistake in your eyes? You're entitled to your opinion. Probably the 64 and Cube could have done much better. Japan LOVES RPGs and was a huge source of dominance for the SFC

If not for Pokémon, and later Nintendo trying radical new things with the DS/Wii that paid off (which VB/Wii I did not), they could be a 3rd party like SEGA now

@GhaleonUnlimited Disc's had nothing to do with squares ability to make games. FF7 looks like playmobil characters against prerendered backgrounds. The areas in ps1 FF games are miniscule compared to N64 games, and the loading times are horrific. If they'd developed for 64 they could have done the same things better, discs just let them be lazier.

@Poodlestargenerica So Square flipped over the expense and limitations of carts, upending the entire console industry and abandoning a key ally, which in Japanese culture is EXTREMELY risky, because they're lazy. You might want to take that to a conspiracy YouTube channel or something.

@GhaleonUnlimited Did I say they were lazy? I said using discs allowed them to be lazier. Part of why it was easier to develop for ps1 was the ability to use prerendered large amounts of things. It's not a conspiracy it's just basic knowledge of video game history.

And either way that's not the conversation we were having. You said Nintendo's choice cost them square, I'm saying square clearly could have made better games had they developed for N64. They chosebthe easier path, they would tell you the same thing. And I don't think it would have boosted the N64 sales much, sur people bought a lot of FF games, but people bought the ps1 for rapidly churned out nascar, sports, and shooters just like they do now, and because it was a reasonably priced high end CD player.