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Nintendo 64 - Was Nintendo's strategy for third party dev tools a massive mistake?

R

Rich!

Member
As I noted in the RTTP thread earlier, I'm currently playing through Banjo Tooie on my N64. Through the RGB modded console, I'm constantly amazed at just how amazing it looks - with the game reaching Dreamcast levels at some points. It's led me to think a bit more about just why there's such a disparity between games like Rare's work and that of third parties (not even in the same fucking league).

I knew about Rare's mastery of the nitty gritty code of the N64 (microcode), as I read up about it in N64 magazine years back. In Tooie for example, you have dynamic realtime shadows, massive worlds, multiple realtime light sources, and a whole host of other at the time cutting edge effects all without an expansion pak. Reading up on it again today makes things visible in a whole new light:

The graphics and audio co-processor was programmable through microcode.[7] By altering the microcode run on the device, it could perform different operations, create new effects, and be better tuned for speed or quality; however, Nintendo was unwilling to share the microcode tools with developers until the end of the Nintendo 64's life-cycle. Programming RSP microcode was said to be quite difficult because the Nintendo 64 code tools were very basic, with no debugger and poor documentation. As a result, it was very easy to make mistakes that would be hard to track down, mistakes that could cause seemingly random bugs or glitches. SGI's default microcode for Nintendo 64 is called "Fast3D", which some developers noted was poorly profiled for use in games. Although it allowed more than ~100,000 high accuracy polygons per second, it was optimized more for accuracy than for speed, and performance suffered as a result. Nintendo's own "Turbo3D" microcode allowed 500,000–600,000 normal accuracy polygons per second. However, due to the graphical degradation, Nintendo discouraged its use. Several companies, such as Factor 5,[8] Boss Game Studios and Rare, were able to write custom microcode that ran their software better than SGI's standard microcode.
Click to expand...

So, the basic gist of it is that Nintendo purposefully held back from giving third party developers decent devtools. I guess the reasoning would be:

1. To keep Nintendo made games the best the console had to offer
2. To encourage third party developers to put effort into the console and reduce shovelware.

It's fucking insane. Then again, Kuturagi had the same line of thinking with the PS3, didn't he? Regardless, here's another quote this time from a dev posting on assemblergames:

The whole structure of the system is incredibly flexible - if you have the tools. Which most developers didn't. Because Nintendo locked down the uCode development tools, most devs just used the SDK-provided Fast3D microcodes.
It has been proven capable of MP3 playback WHILE rendering 640x480 hi-res graphics (good job Boss) and also capable of MPEG-1 decompression (Angel Studios).

The original Fast3D microcode sucked ass. I used to use it in my own demos. Then I switched to F3DEX (later redesign) and things were a good deal better. Still lightyears behind Factor 5's rendering engine though.
Click to expand...

Looking back, and I know this is an obvious question, was this the right thing to do? I guess the ratio of good to shit on the N64 library is higher than any other console I can think of, at least.
 
R

Rich!

Member
Skyzard said:
Wow Nintendo, I always wondered why Nintendo games looked better on their systems.
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Funnily enough, Majora's Mask and OOT look like blurry shit on the N64 whereas Banjo Kazooie and Tooie are crisp and vibrant with glorious colours, brilliant effects and high resolution textures.

Whatever their plan was, Rareware kicked their ass regardless.
 
S

Skyzard

Banned
They must have been really expecting the n64 to nuke everything else, or wanted guaranteed sales on their own platform...but they always get that with system ads.

richisawesome said:
Funnily enough, Majora's Mask and OOT look like blurry shit on the N64 whereas Banjo Kazooie and Tooie are crisp and vibrant with glorious colours, brilliant effects and high resolution textures.

Whatever their plan was, Rareware kicked their ass regardless.
Click to expand...

I was excluding Rare when I was thinking back tbh, they must have had access...
 
R

Rich!

Member
Skyzard said:
Wasn't including Rare when I was thinking tbh, they must have had access...
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As I remember from the interview with Greg Mayles, no. They didn't.

They disassembled Nintendo's code and built their own tools. Nintendo were shocked when they saw what they were capable of with Banjo Kazooie.
 
R

Rich!

Member
drproton said:
That's only because it was the beginning of Nintendo's loss of third party support.
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Well yeah, but what I'm saying is that this decision likely led to the reduction of third parties in the first place (amongst the obvious other factors). In a way, it worked.
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
richisawesome said:
Looking back, and I know this is an obvious question, was this the right thing to do?
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I'm not sure I see a correlation between full access to the system's hardware, and thus superior graphics, with the third party situation on the N64. I'm certain poor dev tools contributed somewhat, but there were other factors at play, such as Sony's very successful entry into the market, that I believe made a far more significant impact on where third parties would play their cards.

That being said, in no realm of imagination was it the "right thing to do", regardless of potential impact on sales. Not unless there was some horrific technical issue that would result from using Nintendo's dev tools, which is obviously untrue given Nintendo/Rare/etc used them just fine. Locking off content to your third parties is just typically blind stubbornness, indicative of Nintendo's classically terrible decision making when it comes to dealing with third parties.

Results do show, though. Rare's technical accomplishments on the N64 are tremendously impressive, even if they often came at a hefty performance cost. Perfect Dark and Conker's Bad Fur Day do crazy things with the hardware.

EDIT: Ahh, I'm reading that Rare didn't have access to the tools, but built their own code instead. More impressive again.
 
R

Rich!

Member
Jacobi said:
Nintendo was so arrogant at that time... And totally sure of the N64's success (&success of 64DD).
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I remember when the 64DD was unveiled at Spaceworld all those years ago. Nintendo honestly thought that it was the solution to the Playstation's dominance. That says it all, really.
 
S

Snakeyes

Member
Do you even need to ask? This, along with the decision to stick with cartridges and the royalty fees that came with them are the main reasons why the PlayStation and Xbox brands exist today.
 
R

Rich!

Member
Snakeyes said:
Do you even need to ask? This, along with the decision to stick with cartridges and the royalty fees that came with them are the main reasons why the PlayStation and Xbox brands exist today.
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Well yeah, it's more of a rhetorical question.

It's just interesting to revisit. Does anyone know if the Gamecube had similar restrictions? I remember reading that it was significantly easier to develop for than the N64 and even the PS2.
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
richisawesome said:
So, the basic gist of it is that Nintendo purposefully held back from giving third party developers decent devtools. I guess the reasoning would be:

1. To keep Nintendo made games the best the console had to offer
2. To encourage third party developers to put effort into the console and reduce shovelware.

It's fucking insane.
Click to expand...

Why couldn't it be something as simple as, Nintendo didn't have the tools to give out (as they weren't developed by Nintendo), or maybe as was mentioned they sucked and had crappy documentation? Or how about, the PSX was marketed as being super easy to develop for, and Nintendo didn't want their system to get a reputation of requiring expensive super-hacking (like what happened to Saturn), especially when the N64's games already blew the competition away graphically? You have the most powerful game console, everyone agrees on that point, so why would you need to go the extra step to improve graphics even further?

The N64 failed primarily due to lack of cd drive, not due to graphical prowess.
 
J

Josh7289

Member
richisawesome said:
It's fucking insane. Then again, Kuturagi had the same line of thinking with the PS3, didn't he?
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Mark Cerny did admit that they had the same mindset with PS3 development. Before the system launched, the ICE Team at Naughty Dog was working on figuring out how to best use the system, and the internal feeling was that third parties like Electronic Arts "had better watch out" because their proprietary first party systems were going to show them "who had the right stuff". Basically they wanted to be the best developers for the system, and didn't even consider that they should have been helping third parties as well. Third parties hadn't even been briefed on the system yet.

Source: The Road to PS4 | Mark Cerny talks at Gamelab 2013 - http://youtu.be/xHXrBnipHyA?t=24m30s


So, I can absolutely see Nintendo's arrogance in the N64 days leading them to have taken the exact same approach back then. And just like Sony with their PS4, Nintendo realized their mistake and designed their next system, the GameCube, to be more developer-friendly.
 
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