The N64 was an interesting console. I consider it the beginning of what I call "weird Nintendo". The company has this tendancy to move forward with wild and risky innovations while being stubbornly stuck in the past on other points. Case-in-point: The N64 had a bizarre controller, which many regard as horrible, despite the fact it revolutionized the industry by (re)introducing the analog stick. Meanwhile, they stuck with cartridges while everybody else was switching to optical media, a decision for which they would pay dearly.
I still love the N64. It had a fantastic and innovative library, and the while the controller may not have been suited to most third party titles I made perfect sense for first party games. I have many fond memories of afternoons spent in my basement playing Golden Eye or Super Smash Bros. with friends.
They were always weird and risky.
Hell the NES was laughed out of CES 1985, largely due to the controller. NES controller was mocked for being too dumbed down and simple. I mean it only had a newfangled input called a D-pad and four buttons, while the competition had more buttons and used joysticks ( not analog sticks).
The SNES controller was lambasted for having a weird gimmicky controller because it had 4 face buttons in a diamond shape and L and R shoulder buttons. Saga, NEC/Hudson, 3DO, Panasonic and the other hardware makers ran marketing and PR stuff against the SNES controller. He'll even third parties, especially EA decried the controller to the press.
The N64 controller was purposely designed to give you both traditional 2D controls and the new Analog controls (joysticks are different). Many third parties, Sega and Sony rejected the analog stick as another one of Nintendo's gimmicks and they claimed it would destroy traditional gaming. Third parties openly refused to adopt analog sticks for the first few years because they really thought it be another failed gimmick. The major third parties such as Square, konami, EA etc... tried to get Nintendo to drop the analog stick from the controller.
The analog stick was really that controversial in 1995 (that's when Nintendo unveiled it and was planning to launch Nintendo 64 before fall 1995).
The reason why N64 stuck to cartridges was due to following reasons:
- Royalties: They had 4 choices for CD-ROMs and drives at that time. They where Phillips (Dutch), RCA (U.S.), Panasonic (Japanese), Sony (Japanese). These 4 companies held the patents on technology at that time. The first three had no real interest in gaming and didn't want to invest any real resources in gaming. Sony wanted in. Sony when negotiating with Sega demanded the bulk of the profits for all software and consoles sold using CD technology. This why Sega said no. Sony when negotiating with Nintendo, slipped in a clause last minute giving Sony full profits from all software sold on CDs and they also would have gotten the hardware profits too. Sega paid a pretty penny to license the CD technology to develop their drives for Sega CD and Saturn that cost them dearly.
- Load time: Miyamoto did not want load times in MARIO 64 and his other games. Well he was right, load times were awful due to how slow early CD drives were at that time.
- Control: Sony had fully content control of any game released on PS1 due to the modifications Sony made to the CDs. They also had the power to control how many units were produced. Sony denied tons of games in each market just over them being 2D alone. Many more were denied due to "adult" content. Nintendo also controlled the cartridge supply and content.
The reality was of you wanted a CD based gaming system in the in first half of the 1990s you either had to agree to Sony's harsh terms or break the bank to license the technology and develop your own CD drive.
The systems that used CDs not named PlayStation, made little money or bled money due to the costs of licenses of patents and development/manufacturing of the drives.
Sega struggled to make profit with Saturn, Panasonic lost money with their two CD consoles (they decided to join after they saw how much PlayStation was making for Sony), 3DO went under from hardware costs, NEC/Hudson both exited the console hardware market, Amiga exited too.
By the end of the generation Sony and Nintendo were the only ones who made real profits.
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Back on the controlled topic:
Every one of Nintendo's major controller innovations and inventions were adopte by the competition with their next systems.
This includes motion controls and gyroscopes which are now in permanently in Sony's controllers and used by all smartphones and tablets. Hell the motion controls and chips in the drone controllers named both the software and motion chip after the Wii ( I had to research this for work). The official industry publications claim Nintendo created the tech used to control drones.
Imagine a Sony or Microsoft controller without a D-pad, shoulder buttons, 4 face buttons arranged in a diamond shape... I mean the dual shock line looks just like an SNES controller with 2 analog sticks wielded on.
Seriously without Nintendo trying to find new ways of inputs into gaming, controllers would have stagnated early on.