RCBH928 wrote:Did they ever explain why they went the cartridge route? Wasn't it because it was harder to make bootlegs out of? The disadvantages seem a lot more than the advantages here. Not sure how it was percieved back in the mid-90s.
At the time, if I recall, it was presented more as a load time issue. Which, being fair, is a downside of using discs, especially earlier CD-ROMs. On the other hand, like you mentioned, Nintendo could also keep a much tighter control over production. I think that was also a factor for the smaller format discs that the Gamecube used.
RCBH928 wrote:Which felt more next-gen for you? Saturn, PSX, or N64?
Well, keep in mind that the Saturn and PS1 had been on the market for a year or more by the time the N64 hit stores. I'd still say the N64 stood out more as a technological leap. Which isn't to put down what Sony and Sega had. Coming from a SNES or something, they were a huge leap. Coming from things like 3DO or Jaguar though, which had already been out for a bit, they weren't quite as revolutionary (nevermind for those also gaming on PC). Some of the early games were just ports of games from those systems, if not better quality ports of games also on 16-bit (like
Mortal Kombat or
NBA Jam).
Meanwhile, consider that consumer 3D acceleration was still a very new thing. In the same couple years or so that the new consoles were hitting, on the PC side, we were seeing add-in boards that could offer enhanced 3D for games that specifically supported them. Stuff like the nVidia NV1 chip or Rendition Verite. Some, like the early ATi ones, were notably slower than using a software renderer, even if they looked a lot nicer. Still, somewhat pricey, enthusiast stuff.
To see Nintendo offering similar tech in commodity hardware at a relatively low price was pretty amazing. Analog control wasn't new, but including it it felt forward looking for 3D.
Mario 64 was very, very impressive. At the time, to me, it felt like more of a leap forward.
Again, a few years later, and some of the limitations of Nintendo's hardware and general approach became more apparent, along with the results of the shift in developer support. Early on though, the system was very promising.
