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[Vlade]

Seems that Nintendo doesn't have a good relationship with any third party.

They did somehow get Bravely Default and Dragon Quest.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

I had read that Secret of Mana was going to be their big CD-based game back when the SNES was going to have a CD addon, and when it fell through at the last minute, they had to make huge cuts to fit it on a cartridge. It's pretty obvious if you play it that there are things missing in it.

It wasn't really at the last minute. It was actually quite early in development. That CD-based game was originally called "Chrono Trigger" and had Hiromichi Tanaka and Akira Toriyama working on it. When the CD addon fell through, Square split the project in two. It was decided that one part would be made into a sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure; it became Secret of Mana. The other part was recycled into a new game which became the Chrono Trigger that we all know.

 

[Easy_D]

They should have went with a 4x drive while everyone else has 2x drives. The Mario 64 DD prototype that was leaked didn't have bad loading times at all.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the DD stood for Disk Drive, not Disc Drive, no? It used rewritable disks for expansion packs and stuff.

 

[Oregano]

It has been said in the past that Angel Studios(Resident Evil 2 64) approached Squaresoft about the possibility of porting FFVII to the N64 and were shot down. If true it suggests that the technology wasn't the only reason.

 

[Futurematic]

After the Atari catastrophe , those policies where necessary

Although Atari was a major problem that was actually a three factor problem.

The first was that Atari was terribly run throughout their enter history and post-Bushnell they hated third party developers (on consoles and their 8-bit computers) which meant no control over them on the console side and hence a free-for-all in quality terms. Silicon Valley companies are founder dependent in large part[1]. That also extended to Atari demands that popular games be tied to games they want to push (i.e. if you want the best sellers you also have to order, say, E.T.)

The second was that the broad genius of Warner Communications CEO Steve Ross did not extend to games: to wit the licensed video games such as E.T. via great expense were dumped onto understaffed short development schedules. It was not yet clear that Hollywood is a financing bank, not content for videogames.

The third, often overlooked in the great videogame crash, was then-Commodore CEO Tramiel's pricewar. It killed Texas Instruments, Tandy, badly wounded Atari, and had massive knock-on ripples. Among them, of course, bringing the C64 to console level prices, a key reason we remember the C64 as a sort of hybrid desktop computer/games console. Another being that distributors (indie to larger chain specialty shops) were badly weakened by Commodore, Atari's policies amplified that to crippling.


So most certainly it was Atari's fault, but only partially.


[1] A vastly larger point, but SGI failed without Jim Clark. Apple failed without Steve Jobs (not that he could have run it in 1985). Sun went down without McNealy. HP without HP. Etc... Not a rule, but Valley companies tend to do that.

 

[lazygecko]

Nintendo has never been a company that concerns itself much over accomodating the needs of third parties. Their identity and perspective of the industry has remained the same even after Sega and later Sony started changing the rules of the game.

Oh sure. So basically the deal is that on the SNES Nintendo required that 3rd parties had their games made by Nintendo. (Sega did not require this.) This meant that every game produced on a Nintendo system required the 3rd party to pay an extra fee.(You'd pay your royalty which I think might have actually been higher than on say Sega but you also had to pay for the cart.) Worse was that Nintendo was a bit slow on production.(Not as much of an issue if you were making them yourself.) So this meant when ordering cartridges you had to be precise on how many you wanted. Order too few and now you're waiting month for your next order to go through Nintendo.(And most games sold the majority in the first couple of months.) Too many and you were stuck with extra carts that eat into your profits. (But of course Nintendo was paid up front so they got their money.)

Now what you have to remember is one of the games that really turned the SNES around, especially in the US, was Street Fighter 2 which did sell quite well. Of course SF2HF also sold a lot too. So when it was time to put out SSF2 they figured it would sell a lot too. Unfortunately it didn't and they ended up being stuck with I believe a million carts. So they tried to return them to Nintendo to get some of their money back. Pretty much they figured that Nintendo owes us a big favor for SF2.(I mean hell, they could have put it on a Sega system.) Pretty much Nintendo told them sucks to be you but we're not giving you any money back. Suffice it to say Capcom felt a bit screwed. (Especially as I mentioned putting the first SF2 on the SNES was a big thing and really helped out Nintendo.)

I can't say I'm too surprised, but the way I heard it the Nintendo and Capcom executives at the time had a very close personal relationship which is why Capcom remained very loyal to Nintendo and only showed token support to Sega cause they got too big to ignore. You would have expected them to at least have gotten treated a bit better in return.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

Nintendo of old aren't the same company people seem to think are sound lads and a good laugh.

They were ruthless, from the restrictions they imposed to the way they would deal with developers.

Sega hit them a bit, but Nintendo of old (incidentally, the one that I will always prefer for their games) refused to change. They were stubborn. Set in their ways. Service Games was a shock, but they still, ultimately, were a much smaller company and their sales were a lot lower.

Nintendo made the ultimate mistake of pissing off Sony, though. Sony wanted to jack games in entirely after the incident, but a handful of executives kept the dream alive and used Sony' money to turn a disasterous CD add on into a standalone console and use it, and a bit of Sony cash, to attract developers to the platform, especially with low production costs of CDs compared to cartridges and none of Nintendo's restrictions.

Nintendo could bully Sega, if they wanted, but a multinational with a portfolio like Sony, at the time, was a different kettle of fish. Nintendo of old could no longer exist and, incidentally, I feel like my Nintendo also died. The Nintendo of today is a much tamer beast, trying to get developers on their side (but with poor results) but the Squaresoft/Nintendo falling out of old was probably more down to Nintendo's general disdain for publishers, their unwillingness to approach CD based console tech after the various projects fell through and just a company with more money offering an easier ride.

That's maybe all nonsense though.

 

[sharc]

Oh sure. So basically the deal is that on the SNES Nintendo required that 3rd parties had their games made by Nintendo. (Sega did not require this.) This meant that every game produced on a Nintendo system required the 3rd party to pay an extra fee.(You'd pay your royalty which I think might have actually been higher than on say Sega but you also had to pay for the cart.) Worse was that Nintendo was a bit slow on production.(Not as much of an issue if you were making them yourself.) So this meant when ordering cartridges you had to be precise on how many you wanted. Order too few and now you're waiting month for your next order to go through Nintendo.(And most games sold the majority in the first couple of months.) Too many and you were stuck with extra carts that eat into your profits. (But of course Nintendo was paid up front so they got their money.)

as i understand it, in the famicom days, certain companies could obtain rights from nintendo to produce their own carts, and thereby obtain some freedom from having deal with the usual supply chain.

...but it seems like in the super famicom days that option was no longer on the table.

 

[TreasureHunterG]

Many issues:

- Nintendo didn't provided storage cartridges with enough space for their games like they did for Enix in the SNES. As result, some games, like Secret of Mana, had it's content cut due to it's storage limitation.
- Square was heavily invested into CD-ROM technology because of the add-on Nintendo was originally planning to do with Sony and later with them and Philips. They back off allegating piracy issues and loading times, but the real deal was because they wanted control over the cartridge manufacturing and demand. This made Square pissed off, because this would waste many of their already invested work into this technology. Secret of Mana, for example, was originally a SNES add-on title. That amazing opening sequence, for example, was planned to be a CGI entrance.
- Super Mario RPG. It was originally planned for Square to publish it, not Nintendo. Nintendo backed off the deal and decided themselves to do it, disappointing Square. Which appeared to be the pinnacle of Nintendo/Square relationship, turned out to be a negative turning point.
- Nintendo not including Square into the N64 Dream Team. Given the proximity both companies had at that time, Square considerated this decision snobby and angered them even further.

Yes. Nintendo fuck up BADLY with Square and they paid a high price for it. Blame their departure only for carts in the N64 it's only a narrow view of the problem. It became a domino effect for third-party relationship in Japan as, pretty much, every single japanese developers left them after their departure.

Square and Nintendo had their fights, mostly because Nintendo was a dick, but Square kept coming back to Nintendo because Nintendo was generally less of a dick to Square than they were to other publishers. Also, Nintendo was money, so most people couldn't afford to walk away from Nintendo.

Nintendo had this thing going on the SNES where you're supposed to ask them for (as an example) 2 million cartridges and give them a massive money order for that amount, and then Nintendo decides that you only "need" 500k units, so they arbitrarily sell you 500k and give you back your change (you have no say in the matter, Nintendo decides how big your game is going to be). It was crazy because you had to have enough cash in your bank account to buy a money order for 2 million units, even though you only want 500k. And if you tell Nintendo that you only want 500k (and put forward that much money), Nintendo will decide that you get 100k, and then your game bombs. If you really do want 2 million units, you need to ask (and pay for) 10 million units. At expensive cartridge prices.

Well, Square was apparently supposed to develop AND publish Mario RPG, but they decided to send Nintendo a message about this stupid policy, so they asked Nintendo for an amount of carts that Nintendo typically gave Square, not the amount that Square typically asks for. Nintendo got insulted and took the publishing duties away from Square. That might have something to do with why Square owns the name and Nintendo can't use it, because Square (not Nintendo) was originally set to publish it.

But that particular fight didn't end Nintendo and Square's relationship, nor did FF7's FMV necessarily demand that FF7 be made for PSX. FF7 got FMV added to the formula after Square moved. FF7 was originally slated to be made on SNES after FF6, but then it got cancelled so the developers could work on Chrono Trigger, and after Chrono Trigger they got pencilled in for FF7 on the N64, and started to experiment on how to use the analog stick. They never got past playing around with the analog stick before higher-ups at Square decided to give Nintendo the boot and move to Sony.

Sony had flirted with Square over the original Play Station (the Sony-made CD add-on for the SNES). This resulted in some fights with Nintendo and canned/shoehorned games, and a few business cards being traded back and forth.

When carts were announced for the N64, half the industry objected (the other half cheered for the death of Nintendo), but RPGs were singled out as the genre which would be hurt by carts the most. So Nintendo quickly put together their "64DD" idea, which was good enough to get Square and Enix to hesitate and say "I'm listening". Nintendo apparently asked Square and Enix for a wishlist of things they wanted for the 64DD (anything except CD), and they apparently asked for premade text fonts to be built into the system, to make it cheaper and easier for text-heavy games to be made for the 64DD. I remember at one point I read in an old magazine that Square and Enix were being listed as "design partners" with Nintendo on the 64DD. Nintendo really wanted to make them happy. At one point, I believe the 64DD was pencilled in for about four games, Zelda 64, FF7, DQ7, and Mother 3.

But Sony had an actual CD-based system and Square's business card, so they asked Square "Seriously, what are you doing bending over backwards to support these assholes who have proven time and time again that they don't give a damn about you. Nintendo's trying to meet you halfway? Fuck halfway. If you were our girl, we would give you everything you wanted and more."

So yeah, Square dumped Nintendo and moved to Sony. And apparently when Square told Yamauchi about it, he was okay with it, because everyone else dumped Nintendo a lot quicker, and it was the right move for Square.

But then Sony treated Square like rock stars, and there were interviews about how awesome Sony and PSX were, compared to the hell Square had to endure with Nintendo and LOL carts, and Sony produced and paid for ads for FF7 in America which specifically took shots against Nintendo and the N64 (ads made by Sony, in Square's name). Another thing which was rumored to be a major factor in pissing off Yamauchi was that Square's president apparently met with Enix's president for coffee, and Square convinced Enix to dump Nintendo too. Now Nintendo was left with no RPG support, and the 64DD which was built almost exclusively for Square and Enix looked pointless. Zelda 64 got shoehorned onto carts, kind of like what happened to Square's games on the original Play Station. Square gave Nintendo a second taste of what it was like to be one of Nintendo's "partners".

So Yamauchi lashed out against Square, and held a grudge for years. He only let them come back (pretty much tried to bribe them, even) after Square's president was forced to step down.

Awesome post as usual from Cheerilee, but you're overlooking some major issues I mentioned which were pivotal for Square's changing of side. Nintendo's control over the cartrdrige manufacturing was an issue bothering third-parties ever since the NES days, something that motivate Namco to run away from them, and their decision to keep carts with the N64 was exactly to keep this practice intact, as it was very profitable and held third-parties under Nintendo's strict control. Sony's CD-ROMs were a better media? No doubt it was. But the real attraction here was getting free from Nintendo's manufacturing policies. Another issue, is that Nintendo didn't included a single japanese company on their Nintendo 64 Dream Team as it was composed only from western developers. Square and Enix, despite the 64DD being made with them in mind, were ignored. That's why Square departure started a chain reaction in the japanese development community as pretty much every single local major developer left Nintendo. On the other hand, on the west, Nintendo 64 got major support because Nintendo was actually major invested on that market and western developers.

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

Yeah, as already said it wasn't just the cartridge thing with the N64 it was a series of issues (and later Nintendo's reaction) that lead to Square jumping ship, not going to spend time with a long write up since everything is already pretty much been covered in the last 159 posts.

It's a long story, and Nintendo had many faults, it was not only because of the cartridges: http://www.unseen64.net/2008/09/06/square-vs-nintendo-eng/

Missing some details but still a decent write up.

Well, it's kind of complicated.

• In 1991, Squaresoft asked Nintendo for bigger SNES cartridges in order to ship properly Romancing SaGa, which was going through some development hell. Nintendo refused for unknown reason (maybe because there wasn't much time). Some months after the release of Romancing SaGa (January 1992), Enix released Dragon Quest V using the same cartridge format Square asked to Nintendo. Of course Dragon Quest V was a much more important game, and probably Enix had much more bargaining power against Nintendo.
• Nintendo was working on a SNES CD add-on on which Squaresoft was developing Seiken Densetsu 2 (Secret of Mana in the West); the deal between Nintendo and Sony didn't go well, and the add-on developed into the PlayStation. Nonetheless, Squaresoft management felt that the game should have been on SNES, so the team had to work hard to make it fit on a cartridge... which meant to scrape up to 40% of what developed, including multiple routes, and large portions of the worldmap.
• Super Mario RPG is one of the best SNES games but the development was hard. Nintendo oversaw Squaresoft in everything, and that was difficult for a company having its on identity. Other than some communication problems and changes at the last minute, the Squaresoft logo disappeared from the NA boxart.

IIRC Squaresoft also requested larger carts for SD2/SoM after they were forced to move it but were denied which lead them to cutting as much as they did to shoehorn it onto a 16Mb cartridge.

 

[GameGuru59]

It was merely a difference of opinion. Square wanted to make interactive movies, Nintendo wanted to make videogames.

Spoiler

/s

EDIT:

Well, it's kind of complicated.

• In 1991, Squaresoft asked Nintendo for bigger SNES cartridges in order to ship properly Romancing SaGa, which was going through some development hell. Nintendo refused for unknown reason (maybe because there wasn't much time). Some months after the release of Romancing SaGa (January 1992), Enix released Dragon Quest V using the same cartridge format Square asked to Nintendo. Of course Dragon Quest V was a much more important game, and probably Enix had much more bargaining power against Nintendo.
• Nintendo was working on a SNES CD add-on on which Squaresoft was developing Seiken Densetsu 2 (Secret of Mana in the West); the deal between Nintendo and Sony didn't go well, and the add-on developed into the PlayStation. Nonetheless, Squaresoft management felt that the game should have been on SNES, so the team had to work hard to make it fit on a cartridge... which meant to scrape up to 40% of what developed, including multiple routes, and large portions of the worldmap.
• Super Mario RPG is one of the best SNES games but the development was hard. Nintendo oversaw Squaresoft in everything, and that was difficult for a company having its on identity. Other than some communication problems and changes at the last minute, the Squaresoft logo disappeared from the NA boxart.

Then, Sony entered the market and offered good contractual terms (lower royalties, agreement on distribution in Western markets, financing -Digicube was basically created with the help of Sony) and the CD support. In 1996, Squaresoft released quickly the last six SNES games (Super Mario RPG, Radical Dreamers, Bahamut Lagoon, a new Front Mission, Treasure of the Rudras and Treasure Hunter G), because the company was setting the stage for the big debut on PlayStaton: Final Fantasy VII was announced in early 1996, and was released in January, 1997. In between, the first Squaresoft game for PS1: Tobal.

Yeah, the two companies had/have fundamentally different design philosophies. Nintendo believes in conserving and iterating with existing resources, while Square creates a whole lot of unique stuff and crams it into the game.

 

[Inuhanyou]

"I have been saying this for some time, but customers are not interested in grand games with higher-quality graphics and sound and epic stories.
Only people who do not know the videogame business would advocate the release of next-generation machines when people are not interested
in cutting-edge technologies" - Hiroshi Yamauchi

Yamauchi was an idiot. I wouldn't want to do business with him either.

WTF!?

 

[thegirlleastlikelyto]

WTF!?

Again, I love Nintendo, both past and present, but Yamauchi's MO was that people didn't want AAA games - for him, they wanted toys, with interesting ideas and lower-powered, but proven hardware. To Yamauchi, Nintendo was a toy company.

He wasn't in charge of the Wii but you can see that ethos in it.

as i understand it, in the famicom days, certain companies could obtain rights from nintendo to produce their own carts, and thereby obtain some freedom from having deal with the usual supply chain.


...but it seems like in the super famicom days that option was no longer on the table.

That is fascinating.

 

[fvng]

Cartridges.

Way to read the OP

 

[EdLin]

My precious podium? Ha.

Fact - Nintendo sold 21.74m Gamecubes

Fact - Microsoft sold 24m Xbox's

In terms of home consoles, Nintendo failed to outsell Microsoft's first outing in the home console market.

Profits are a different matter, because the Xbox was a huge money sink because of it's specs. And Nintendo was killing it with the Gameboy, not the Gamecube.

If selling less than your competitors and hiding behind your handheld for profit doesn't put Nintendo in last place when MS was setting an establishment for the Xbox platform, I think your precious soap box is worthless.

I take your Gamecubes and Xbox figures, and raise you a PS2 (Sony's entry to the sixth generation.) over 150 million PS2 consoles sold

The fact that Nintendo and Microsoft were fighting over table-scraps is irrelevant, Sony owned that generation, case closed.

 

[Noitshado]

My understanding is that Sony tried to gain control or take 50% stake in all licenses and ip under the CD add on which was why nintendo broke the deal off with Sony and the cd drive. So in a sense I don't think they intentionally did not want to provide higher capacity and cheaper to manufacture cds to third parties. Well at least thats what it says on the SNES CD wiki. Im guessing any company they tried to make a deal with wanted some sort of stake in the IPs so maybe thats why they had to decide on cartridges? And explains why they dabbled with the 64DD on their own?

 

[Scrub Mcgrubb]

... but then Squaresoft made that Mario Basketball game on DS and all was forgiven

... yeah... maybe not...

 

[Sub_Level]

Their Nintendo legacy ended with VI because VII VIII IX.

 

[Elija2]

Isn't the reason the Gamecube uses those mini-discs because (again) they wanted control over manufacturing? But of course the reasons they gave were "shorter load times and less piracy", literally the same situation as the N64. I can't believe they made the same greedy mistake twice. At least the Gamecube mini-discs weren't as bad as cartridges and they still got decent third-party support.

 

[TreasureHunterG]

Isn't the reason the Gamecube uses those mini-discs because (again) they wanted control over manufacturing? But of course the reasons they gave were "shorter load times and less piracy", literally the same situation as the N64. I can't believe they made the same greedy mistake twice. At least the Gamecube mini-discs weren't as bad as cartridges and they still got decent third-party support.

They still have those practices active till today. Why do you think they're still producing carts for 3DS and don't want to go mobile? Carts manufacturing is still a major source of income for Nintendo. They produce it and control the demand. Let's say a developer wants a 3DS game to sell 300k, but Nintendo will only provide them 150k carts. That's how it works. It's a major reason for why third-party support is lackluster on Nintendo platforms.

If they want to amend they relationship with third-parties, they need to review those manufacturing and demand issues, it lasts from NES days.

 

[Elija2]

They still have those practices active till today. Why do you think they're still producing carts for 3DS and don't want to go mobile? Carts manufacturing is still a major source of income for Nintendo. They produce it and control the demand. Let's say a developer wants a 3DS game to sell 300k, but Nintendo will only provide them 150k carts. That's how it works. It's a major reason for why third-party support is lackluster on Nintendo platforms.

If they want to amend they relationship with third-parties, they need to review those manufacturing and demand issues, it lasts from NES days.

Well what else can they use on the 3DS? UMDs? Nobody wants those. There's the eShop now too and Nintendo doesn't discourage publishers from putting their games on there. Hell, they even encourage people to buy their games digitally because both they and the publisher get a bigger cut of the profits.

Although it is dumb that they still used proprietary discs for the Wii and Wii U. Nobody cares that Wii U discs have softer edges!

 

[encephalon]

Well what else can they use on the 3DS? UMDs? Nobody wants those. There's the eShop now too and Nintendo doesn't discourage publishers from putting their games on there. Hell, they even encourage people to buy their games digitally because both they and the publisher get a bigger cut of the profits.

Although it is dumb that they still used proprietary discs for the Wii and Wii U. Nobody cares that Wii U discs have softer edges!

I think he means let them manufacture their own carts.

 

[DannyDanger]

Put me in an American History class: F

Put me in a Game Industry History class: A+++++++++++++++

Reading about this stuff is so intriguing

 

[Mak]

this is what I knew:

By Square's own admission, the bridge between Square and Nintendo was not, as many speculated, burned because Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi felt like a jilted bride. In a 2001 interview with the Nikkei business newspaper, Square president Nao Suzuki took all the blame, not merely for leaving Nintendo but for convincing other publishers to go with them:

"Our true enemy," he admitted, "was our pride". This was pride that resulted from the heady years of the original PlayStation. When Square originally announced back in 1997 that the Final Fantasy series would be PlayStation exclusive from now on, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi treated the affront lightly, saying that the console selection "couldn't be helped." Suzuki responded by publicly bashing the N64 and convincing Enix to join the PS camp along with them, which, looking back at it now, he realizes wasn't an incredibly smart move. The little grudge match between them that resulted was the main reason Square failed in their bid for a Nintendo license earlier this year.​

1) WonderSwan is great.
2) Square didn't have Nintendo license so they were banned from releasing products for GBC/N64/GBA/GC until the reconciliation.
To note the reconciliation happened around the same time Square merged with Enix which was always a supporter for Nintendo platforms.

Yeah, that quote from Power+Up by Wired's Chris Kohler, page 119, goes into the fight between Nintendo and Square.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0744004241/?tag=neogaf0e-20

- Final Fantasy VI was developed with Square's experience working with 2D and sold well enough, but was expected to sell millions in the U.S. based on the population alone and didn't.
- Square went with in a multimedia direction for the Final Fantasy series that needed a CD-ROM based system since Nintendo went with cartridges.
- In 1996 Square suddenly announced developing for CD-ROM based Playstation, which was in the lead at the time with 17.4 million units vs. the other CD-ROM based system, Sega Saturn at 5.7 million.
- Square was arrogant and announced they wouldn't be supporting Nintendo 64 or Game Boy Advance, while other publishers like Capcom, Konami, and Enix moved most of their games to Sony and Sega's systems while still supporting Nintendo.
- Enix made Dragon Quest VII for Playstation but still supported N64 with Mischief Makers and GBC with Dragon Quest remakes.
- In 2001 after developing for Bandai's Wonderswan, Square wanted a license for the more popular Game Boy Advance and were initially denied because of the grudge match. Within a year they had a Nintendo license.

Isn't the reason the Gamecube uses those mini-discs because (again) they wanted control over manufacturing? But of course the reasons they gave were "shorter load times and less piracy", literally the same situation as the N64. I can't believe they made the same greedy mistake twice. At least the Gamecube mini-discs weren't as bad as cartridges and they still got decent third-party support.

E3 2001 http://youtu.be/RiGzVMcRF9Q?t=3m40s

Faster load times for optical media (at the time), required less power than a full DVD drive, and made the dimensions of the GameCube smaller
Piracy - proprietary security to protect against copying
Fit easily in a child's hands
At 1.5GB Miyamoto thought developers could make a full game without feeling like they needed to fill a full 5GB DVD, or use multiple discs.

Wii U discs are again proprietary likely for the usual reasons and hold 25GB like a standard Blu-Ray, but avoid the licensing fees. Nintendo is probably thinking about kids with the softer edges of the Wii U disc, making it closer to holding the plastic casing of a cartridge. For the 64DD they were worried kids might stick a cookie in the disc drive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_optical_discs

 

[Cheerilee]

My understanding is that Sony tried to gain control or take 50% stake in all licenses and ip under the CD add on which was why nintendo broke the deal off with Sony and the cd drive. So in a sense I don't think they intentionally did not want to provide higher capacity and cheaper to manufacture cds to third parties. Well at least thats what it says on the SNES CD wiki. Im guessing any company they tried to make a deal with wanted some sort of stake in the IPs so maybe thats why they had to decide on cartridges? And explains why they dabbled with the 64DD on their own?

Sony and Nintendo apparently never hammered out the details for who owns what on the first SNES CD.

So Sony (Ken Kutaragi) built the original Play Station, and was left holding the keys to the system. Nintendo said "Very nice, now hand us the keys, because we own that 100%", and Sony responded with "Nuh uh, we made this, we own it 100%".

After Nintendo failed to get the keys away from Sony (possession is 9/10ths of the law), Nintendo turned to Phillips, and asked Phillips to make another SNES CD, this one being basically a CD-i which bolted onto the underside of the SNES. Then Nintendo threatened that if Sony launched their SNES CD, Nintendo would launch their own, and there would be a SNES CD vs SNES CD war, which nobody would win.

Sony shouted "Betrayalton!" and pulled back, only to regroup and make the PlayStation-X.

Now free to do whatever they wanted, Nintendo farted around with their own SNES CD for a few years, promising it was coming but never delivering. Phillips was never a threat to Nintendo, and was willing to let Nintendo have the keys. Nintendo had promised to make some Mario and Zelda games for the CD-i (which would become SNES CD games once the SNES CD launched), but Nintendo never delivered on those games, so Phillips had to make those famously terrible CD-i games without Nintendo's help.

There was no reason why Nintendo couldn't buy a CD drive for the N64, except that Nintendo didn't want one/refused to have one. Nintendo bought a custom DVD drive from Panasonic/Matsushita for the GameCube, and that worked out just fine. Matsushita is still making DVD drives for the Wii U.

Faster load times for optical media (at the time)

That one was actually a lie. Smaller discs didn't make the loading times faster (neither the streaming speed or the seek time), because Nintendo cut away the "steak" portion of the disc and kept the "ass" part of it. The Xbox drive is basically similar to the GameCube drive, both of which were newer and faster than PS2's drive. The outer edge of the Xbox disc is superior, and has quicker seek times and faster streaming speed.

The only reason GameCube games loaded faster than other games of that generation is because the games themselves were smaller. If Nintendo had gone with full-sized discs with a giant hole in the center (same capacity but pushed to the outside), they would have loaded even faster.

 

[MrCunningham]

I can't say I'm too surprised, but the way I heard it the Nintendo and Capcom executives at the time had a very close personal relationship which is why Capcom remained very loyal to Nintendo and only showed token support to Sega cause they got too big to ignore. You would have expected them to at least have gotten treated a bit better in return.

They didn't support Sega directly early in the Sega Genesis's life, but they did license a lot of their games out to Sega prior to the release of Street Fighter 2: SCE. Strider, Mercs, Ghouls 'N Ghosts, Forgotten Worlds, Chiki Chiki Boys and Final Fight CD for the Sega CD were either outsourced to another developer or programmed by Sega in-house and published by Sega.

Sega did this a lot during the SMS years and all the way up to about 1990 with the Genesis. It was because Nintendo had a lock down on third parties back then and if Sega wanted third party games for their hardware, they had to get the license and make the port themselves.

PBS did a nice little piece on Nintendo's monopoly in 1991: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwd56K7rp7A Though this was mostly from an American perspective, as they didn't do any interviews with Japanese developers. But it still sheds a good light on how things were with Nintendo.

 

[Mak]

Faster load times for optical media (at the time), required less power than a full DVD drive, and made the dimensions of the GameCube smaller

That one was actually a lie. Smaller discs didn't make the loading times faster (neither the streaming speed or the seek time), because Nintendo cut away the "steak" portion of the disc and kept the "ass" part of it. The Xbox drive is basically similar to the GameCube drive, both of which were newer and faster than PS2's drive. The outer edge of the Xbox disc is superior, and has quicker seek times and faster streaming speed.

The only reason GameCube games loaded faster than other games of that generation is because the games themselves were smaller. If Nintendo had gone with full-sized discs with a giant hole in the center (same capacity but pushed to the outside), they would have loaded even faster.

Right, the GameCube and Xbox disc drives are similar since they're both CAV drives that read faster on the outer portion of the disc. Even though the GC disc is smaller, the CAV drive is still reading the outer tracks of the GC disc at a faster rate. Nintendo eventually used the full DVD size years later on Wii which was basically a powered up GameCube, and there was the Panasonic variant of the GameCube that played DVDs but was much bulkier. http://www.bordersdown.net/content/147-Panasonic-Q-Hardware-review?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/858/9

The [GameCube] drive itself is a CAV drive meaning that it can read data per second off of the outer tracks of the disc than on the inner. The Xbox DVD drive is also a CAV drive capable of reading at anywhere between 2.5MB/s and 6.25MB/s. The GameCube drive is slower and can read between 2MB/s at the inner tracks and 3.125MB/s at the outer tracks.

In spite of this, none of the GameCube games had any significant load times. It should be noted that none of them used as detailed textures/scenes as the Xbox games we were comparing them to.​

http://www.anandtech.com/show/858/13

What is interesting to note is that in spite of the hard drive and faster DVD drive, Xbox load times are still not dramatically better than the GameCube load times.

We have yet to compare one title on both platforms to figure out which one loads faster (in theory the Xbox should) but current GameCube titles experience much quicker load times than Xbox titles.​

This forum post summed up why GameCube had fast loading times despite the Xbox technically being "superior".

http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/sh...-DVDs-a-bad-idea&p=97266&viewfull=1#post97266

Shadow Fox: Xbox's CAV drive is definately some hundreds of nanoseconds faster than that of the GameCube; but the speed has yet to be used (I'm beginning to think because the games are all preloaded, and the 5800rpm HD in Xbox is too slow to sync with the DVD's). Now, GameCube games load faster for two reasons:

-The disc (and the resulting sectors) are much smaller in volume to read, leaving less work for the Class 1 laser lens

-The GameCube nearly triples the Xbox's cache and texture bandwidth inside the video card (flipper LSI). With a 25GB/sec maximum transfer rate (and the lack of FMV in most GCN games), loadtime is instantaneous- often faster than cartridge loads, which also preload just as optical discs do.​

 

[tuxfool]

I take your Gamecubes and Xbox figures, and raise you a PS2 (Sony's entry to the sixth generation.) over 150 million PS2 consoles sold

The fact that Nintendo and Microsoft were fighting over table-scraps is irrelevant, Sony owned that generation, case closed.

You're missing the point entirely with that conversation. The point was than the grizzled veteran Nintendo was twice beaten by console newcomers. Despite grandiose statements of what people wanted, they were wrong, twice...

 

[dave_d]

as i understand it, in the famicom days, certain companies could obtain rights from nintendo to produce their own carts, and thereby obtain some freedom from having deal with the usual supply chain.


...but it seems like in the super famicom days that option was no longer on the table.

Pretty much as far as I know. I think I heard the basic gist of all of that from Vic Ireland. Actually I think he posted that here at one point. (Basically Working Design earlier on had considered porting SNES/SFAMI games but found out the royalties were higher and Nintendo had to make your games for you. The side effect of that was you effectively gave them more money since Nintendo made a profit on cart production plus the turn around on a cart order was much longer than a CD order which there were loads of places that could make them for you. Suffice it to say they decided against it.) If I ever find the reference to the whole Capcom getting screwed over SSF2 I'll post it though.(But more than a few have posted Nintendo of old had their 3rd parties by the balls and when things changed the 3rd party companies jumped.)

 

[Celine]

You're missing the point entirely with that conversation. The point was than the grizzled veteran Nintendo was twice beaten by console newcomers. Despite grandiose statements of what people wanted, they were wrong, twice...

The counterpoint though was that it was a Pyrrhic victory due to to the severe losses the project incurred into (with PS3, the heaviest a console ever caused).
Microsoft literally bought marketshare by burning money.
Which is far different from what happened with PS1 where the console business was profitable after a year.

At least Xbox served as a foothold for Xbox 360.

Yamauchi was pretty fucking bad lol

Yamauchi is the reason why we talk about Nintendo in this own forum.

 

[Zee-Row]

Dragon Quest VII was one of those games that made me scratch my head why it needed 2 disks. Yeah the game is over 100 hours long but the sprites and 3-D graphics couldn't take that much memory.

 

[Josh5890]

Yamauchi is the reason why we talk about Nintendo in this own forum.

Exactly. For those who are familiar with the NFL you could compare Yamauchi with the late Al Davis. Al was a great visionary who helped form the NFL back in the 60's 70's and 80's into what it has become today. Later on though Mr. Davis worn out his welcome and brought the Oakland Raiders down the tubes to a point where it has not recovered yet.

 

[SuperAngelo64]

All this thread did was make me sad by reminding me that Geno and Mallow are trapped in limbo for eternity.

 

[Cheerilee]

All this thread did was make me sad by reminding me that Geno and Mallow are trapped in limbo for eternity.

Not trapped for eternity. They can jump out anytime SquareEnix and Nintendo play together.

Dragon Quest and Mario were just recently playing together in "Fortune Street" for the Wii.

Square and Nintendo don't hate each other anymore.

 

[Zapperman]

As far as I know Square wasn't leaving Nintendo completely, at least not at first. They announced they were taking FFVII to the PS1. Maybe it was Nintendo's reaction to this that made Square never to throw a bone to any Nintendo console from 1997 to 2003.

It wasn’t Nintendo’s reaction. It was Square’s reaction. Hell, Nintendo didn’t antagonize them. During the meeting when Square told Nintendo they’re going to work with PlayStation, Nintendo said that the console decision couldn’t be helped and wished them the best of luck. This pissed off Square so this resulted them badmouthing Nintendo during 1996 which pissed off Nintendo prompting them to ban Square from their console and for good reason.

this is what I knew:




1) WonderSwan is great.
2) Square didn't have Nintendo license so they were banned from releasing products for GBC/N64/GBA/GC until the reconciliation.
To note the reconciliation happened around the same time Square merged with Enix which was always a supporter for Nintendo platforms.

Wonderswan sucked.
Square begged Nintendo to take them back.

That's not example of 'to be fair'. Maybe in the NES days when they were starting out that kind of behavior was tolerable, but as soon as they hit the SNES, they were just another corporation who wanted all the control. And they paid for it

No that IS an example of "to be fair". Nintendo didn’t want all control and they didn’t pay for it. Also dude the nes days were justified considering the CRASH OF 1983. Learn your history.

To be fair, he also rushed the Virtual Boy to market, inadvertently created Playstation, and was responsible for the N64 sticking with cartridges. He was a great business man, but his notoriously stubborn attitude lead Nintendo into some big problems that could have been avoided towards the end of his tenure.

He wasn’t stubborn and none of those were problems. The PlayStation drama was because Sony made a one sided deal that could destroy Nintendo and yamauchi did the best decision and not take the deal. The N64 sticking with cartridges wouldn’t have been a problem.

The quote wasn't about who profited the most, it was about who sold the most consoles. It's fine that you think the console wars are stupid because Nintendo made more money, but yamauchi still made a fool of himself by underestimating the competition.

You are a complete fool and Yamauchi didn’t underestimate the competition. Nintendo did make more money and it was never about who sold the most consoles. It was about who profited the most.

You can pretty much chalk this up to the same reasons that Nintendo has lost support from every other 3rd party studio over the years.

No they didn’t dude.

N64 didn't adopt the CD format, which made manufacturing costs very high for publishers.

No it didn’t

This is a bigger part of it than people realize. If you lived through it, it's not hard to remember that third-parties hated Nintendo. It was a much different world, and when Nintendo was the only game in town they effectively part dictated how the market worked. Plus Nintendo was living fat off those cart royalties third-parties had to pay as well which endeared them to no one. Nintendo promoted carts as easier for consumers, but really they didn't want much cheaper CDs to disrupt the industry (and how they made money in it).



I was going to disagree with this, but considering it more I think you're right. If you read Nintendo Magic,Yamauchi picked Iwata because he "got" Nintendo and its place in the industry in the same way. Iwata's much more of a software engineer and far less confrontational, but his understanding of what makes Nintendo "Nintendo" isn't too dissimilar from Yamauchi.

Uh no he’s wrong.

False the Carts were cheaper and it had nothing to do with not wanting cds.

Well, it's kind of complicated.

• In 1991, Squaresoft asked Nintendo for bigger SNES cartridges in order to ship properly Romancing SaGa, which was going through some development hell. Nintendo refused for unknown reason (maybe because there wasn't much time). Some months after the release of Romancing SaGa (January 1992), Enix released Dragon Quest V using the same cartridge format Square asked to Nintendo. Of course Dragon Quest V was a much more important game, and probably Enix had much more bargaining power against Nintendo.
• Nintendo was working on a SNES CD add-on on which Squaresoft was developing Seiken Densetsu 2 (Secret of Mana in the West); the deal between Nintendo and Sony didn't go well, and the add-on developed into the PlayStation. Nonetheless, Squaresoft management felt that the game should have been on SNES, so the team had to work hard to make it fit on a cartridge... which meant to scrape up to 40% of what developed, including multiple routes, and large portions of the worldmap.
• Super Mario RPG is one of the best SNES games but the development was hard. Nintendo oversaw Squaresoft in everything, and that was difficult for a company having its on identity. Other than some communication problems and changes at the last minute, the Squaresoft logo disappeared from the NA boxart.

Then, Sony entered the market and offered good contractual terms (lower royalties, agreement on distribution in Western markets, financing -Digicube was basically created with the help of Sony) and the CD support. In 1996, Squaresoft released quickly the last six SNES games (Super Mario RPG, Radical Dreamers, Bahamut Lagoon, a new Front Mission, Treasure of the Rudras and Treasure Hunter G), because the company was setting the stage for the big debut on PlayStaton: Final Fantasy VII was announced in early 1996, and was released in January, 1997. In between, the first Squaresoft game for PS1: Tobal.

Nintendo didn’t refuse dude. Nintendo didn’t oversaw squaresoft in everything dude. Sony’s contract wasn’t good on any means dude.

As I understand it, it was all about the SNES disc drive and how Nintendo treated them. When Nintendo announced the Sony device, Squaresoft jumped onboard wholeheartedly. They were excited, Secret of Mana was going to be a huge game with CD audio, and they were well into development when Nintendo surprised them with the switch to Philips, giving no warning at all. Squaresoft had to go back and redo a lot of the work, because of how different the Philips device was, and then Nintendo did it again, canceling the Philips deal without telling Square. At this point, Square wanted to just cancel the game, but Nintendo enforced a contract Square had signed for a certain number of games on the SNES in a certain time period, so Square had to completely redo the music and then cram the rest of the game onto an expensive cartridge. In the process of making the game Square had caught the bug for larger, more detailed games, so many of the games they made for SNES after that were on expensive cartridges, with a retail price of $75(US), which affected sales.

After that experience, Square hated Nintendo, and when they found out Sony was making a real CD-based system, they were happy to jump ship, since they could make huge games that only cost $1 to manufacture. In the process they convinced other developers that Sony was the way to go, and that made Nintendo hate them back. After that there was a little war between the two companies, they had little respect for each other, and Nintendo even brought some of that into the public.

It was not how Nintendo treated them. They didn’t enforce a contract. Also square was against Nintendo day 1. They never became anti Nintendo. False. Square hated Nintendo day 1.

It's a long story, and Nintendo had many faults, it was not only because of the cartridges: http://www.unseen64.net/2008/09/06/square-vs-nintendo-eng/

They didn’t have many faults and those are FALSE

Its something i've always known about the Nintendo/SNES/N64 era vaguely but didn't fully grasp why. Now i understand. The President of the company was a fucking asshole who didn't give a fuck. It was a rule with an iron fist, and the only reason they got so far in those days was because they had a stranglehold on the market due to being the only major competitor for a long time.

Once Sony entered the scene seriously and didn't fuck up multiple times like Sega, it was an end to Nintendo's dominion.



Unfortunately so. That's what Iwata said in 2001, and that's what he was saying last year as well during their quarterly reports. With that in mind, its no wonder why Nintendo are dead last. Their Japanese branch can make damn good games though, i'll give em that.

They didn’t treat them like shit. Yamauchi was NOT an asshole and he was a smart man who had no trust with scummy third party devs. Nintendo didn’t rule with an iron fist. It was with a light hand. It wasn’t unfortunate and nope. Nintendo beaten Sony in the Wii era and now in the 8th and 9th gen. Nintendo isn’t dead last and stop lying. Also that’s not what iwata said in 2001. Nintendo did what they did in the 80s to prevent another gaming crash.

And that's why Nintendo didn't receive terrific 3rd party support since the N64 (semi-terrific for Gamecube).

That’s not why dude. Stop lying.

Nintendo was being a buster and square wasn't having any of it.

No they weren’t, the fault is on Square.

Jealousy. Search your heart. You know it's true.

False.

Depends what your going for. If market penetration is your aim you have succeeded, that was the bloody goal with the og Xbox.

For example MS spent over a billion dollars on the live infastructure during the original Xbox. Which at the time was the biggest outlay in telecommunications for a non Telco or governemt entity.

They knew that the og xbox wouldn't net them a profit, it gave them a toe in the market and set them up for the 360. Too bad they squandered their position this gen.

also why is it that Nintendo acolytes hate console numbers when talking about the GC but love console numbers when talking about the Wii? And no-one ever mentions attach rate during either gen.

last point? All those gaming PC's running windows circa 2001, do they have any bearing on "games"? If you include GBA seems only fair.

Xbox didn’t succeed in that and you Xbox acolytes aren’t exempt from making BS claims like sales don’t matter. Stop lying Bruh. The attach rate is false. Nintendo GameCube made a better profit than PS2 and Xbox.

Doesn't matter. In the eyes of the consumer the Xbox was more desirable, even if not by much. A first time entrant managed to make something more appealing than a seasoned player.

No it wasn’t. GameCube was way more desirable. And the Xbox didn’t make anything more appealing than a seasoned player.

It all started when Nintendo dumped Sony and they turned the SNES CD-Rom attachment into the original PlayStation. Sony's success with PlayStation and it crushing Nintendo 64 led to Microsoft jumping into the gaming console war with Xbox. Have to wonder how console gaming would be now if Nintendo never dumped Sony to begin with.

On a related note, while it would take another generation or two, am I the only one that finds it funny that Square, Capcom, Konami and im sure a few others are nowhere near what they were during the SNES/GEN era?

Majority of my SNES games back then were from those three companies and of course, Nintendo but now, not even close whatsoever. Oh well.

No it started when Sony tried to make a one sided deal with Nintendo that will benefit only Sony and Nintendo rightfully kicked them to the curve. The PS1 didn’t crush Nintendo 64.

Nope it is close.

IIRC the Thomson DVD drives were very prone to failure in the original Xbox (I had one, I believe it was the consoles that came with JSRF and Sega GT), but I doubt that there was 2 million returns and that's assuming that MS included those refurbs as shipped consoles, which is doubtful.

I assume that Nintendo did make more money than MS off home consoles during that period, but there's no way they made more money from GC and GBA than Sony made with the PS2 and PS1.

Yes they did make more money from the GC and GBA.

Nintendo has never been able to fully recover from Yamauchi tenure as far as 3rd party relations go. Nintendo still kind of operates under this Gung-ho samurai business where they are going to do their thing their way and not care what business trends are.

All false and Yamauchi did nothing wrong.

My precious podium? Ha.

Fact - Nintendo sold 21.74m Gamecubes

Fact - Microsoft sold 24m Xbox's

In terms of home consoles, Nintendo failed to outsell Microsoft's first outing in the home console market.

Profits are a different matter, because the Xbox was a huge money sink because of it's specs. And Nintendo was killing it with the Gameboy, not the Gamecube.

If selling less than your competitors and hiding behind your handheld for profit doesn't put Nintendo in last place when MS was setting an establishment for the Xbox platform, I think your precious soap box is worthless.

Nintendo didn’t fail to outsell anything. Profits aren’t a different matter and Nintendo was the biggest money maker. They were killing it with the GameCube and game boy. Also no it doesnt put Nintendo in last place dude and MS was worthless and your precious points are worthless.

Yamauchi gave zero fucks.

He started the "Fuck third parties, we can handle it on our own. They'll come to us." mentality that Nintendo still maintains to this very day.

All false on that.

You like to bring it up, right? Might as well do it here because I don't know what you're talking about.

Seriously, could anyone shed light on this?

Nintendo didn’t screw over Capcom.

lol yes

Square: "We want you to use discs. If not, we make FF for Playstation"
Yamauchi: "You're telling me what to do? faaaack u!"

Real Story:
Square: We’re leaving you to work with Sony.
Nintendo: Oh okay, best of luck to you.
Square: You’re not getting angry? FAAACK UUUU!

"What made Squaresoft get so angry at Nintendo?"

Hiroshi Yamauchi

False. It was Yamauchi wishing them best of luck in the nicest way.

I remember hearing that after Square's decision to make FF7 for the Playstation, Yamauchi was pissed and banned Square from releasing any games on Nintendo systems at least until he retired. I'm not sure if that's actually true though since I remember hearing that so long ago. But yes, that would seem to make a lot more sense than Square being offended by the use of cartridges.

Spoiler

Paper Mario is way better than SMRPG. Good riddance.

Doesn’t make sense and that’s not even true. They got pissed off bexause Nintendo told them good luck and that made Square mad because they were expecting Nintendo to get pissed but they didn’t.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Greener grass in the form of better hardware/medium.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I am sure everyone cares about answers some 9 years later.

 

[IFireflyl]

What a fucking necro.

 

[Dick Jones]

 

[BlackTron]

You are a complete fool and Yamauchi didn’t underestimate the competition. Nintendo did make more money and it was never about who sold the most consoles. It was about who profited the most.

Dude you just called someone a fool who hasn't even been on the forum since the year Switch came out. Who's the fool here?

 

[Danjin44]

Z Zapperman

 

[Zapperman]

I'm sure it's been brought up already since this thread is long enough by now, but your entire framing that it was Square who was "Angry" is wrong: Nintendo, namely Yamauchi, was furious when Square moved development to Playstation. He burned a lot of bridges with Square in interviews after that, saying he essentially didn't want their games on his system. The most infamous was his thinly veiled insult where he says he hates RPGs and their fans.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2006/03/14/top-10-tuesday-wildest-statements-made-by-industry-veterans



He wasn't exactly the most diplomatic face for a company. Fortunately Iwata was able to lure some of the companies back during the Gamecube/GBA era. As for why Square left in the first place? It just made good business sense for them. Square and Enix entered an agreement to support a single platform to make it a sort of "Ultimate RPG platform" to boost both companie's software sales. The ease and low cost of the PS1 along with all the storage space with the CDs made it a no-brainer. The N64 might've seen some support had Iwata been in charge at the time.

All false. Bruh Square being angry was RIGHT. Nintendo was NOT furious when Square moved the PlayStation, he didn’t burn any bridges with square. Also Iwata wasn’t trying to lure some of its companies back and it didn’t make good business for them. Also no the ps1 didn’t make it a low brained and iwata shouldn’t have been in charge. Square got pissed off against Nintendo for not getting mad at them.

Nintendo burned a lot of bridges back then. Namco was also really pissed off and basically leapt into Sony arms when the PS1 was released.

All false and they didn’t burn any bridges back then. Namco wasn’t pissed dude.

The YouTuber is wrong.
airmangataosenai is right.

The Youtuber is right
airmangataosenai Is wrong

Choice of carts for N64 has nothing to do with bad relationships with Squaresoft. They were both angry at each others, even before that, during SNES days. From what I read, out of redistribution of incomes from Mario RPG, about the way Nintendo was dealing with large carts (it seems that Square was denied larger cart because of their scarcity a couple of time, meanind they had to cut their games), etc.

If I'm not mistaken, the result was that Square wasn't even invited in the "dream team" Nintendo gathered for the launch of N64, and didn't received dev kits, which is a sure sign of cold relationships. Enix, on the other hand, was. When Sony approached Squaresoft for teaming with them, Nintendo probably didn't care much, but when Squaresoft and Sony convinced Enix to join them, it was a pretty bad blow, and Yamauchi must have enraged.

They WERE invited to the dream team dude and none of that is even true. Also Yamauchi wasn’t enraged by enix. It wasn’t a sure sign of cold relationships.

Square and Nintendo had their fights, mostly because Nintendo was a dick, but Square kept coming back to Nintendo because Nintendo was generally less of a dick to Square than they were to other publishers. Also, Nintendo was money, so most people couldn't afford to walk away from Nintendo.

Nintendo had this thing going on the SNES where you're supposed to ask them for (as an example) 2 million cartridges and give them a massive money order for that amount, and then Nintendo decides that you only "need" 500k units, so they arbitrarily sell you 500k and give you back your change (you have no say in the matter, Nintendo decides how big your game is going to be). It was crazy because you had to have enough cash in your bank account to buy a money order for 2 million units, even though you only want 500k. And if you tell Nintendo that you only want 500k (and put forward that much money), Nintendo will decide that you get 100k, and then your game bombs. If you really do want 2 million units, you need to ask (and pay for) 10 million units. At expensive cartridge prices.

Well, Square was apparently supposed to develop AND publish Mario RPG, but they decided to send Nintendo a message about this stupid policy, so they asked Nintendo for an amount of carts that Nintendo typically gave Square, not the amount that Square typically asks for. Nintendo got insulted and took the publishing duties away from Square. That might have something to do with why Square owns the name and Nintendo can't use it, because Square (not Nintendo) was originally set to publish it.

But that particular fight didn't end Nintendo and Square's relationship, nor did FF7's FMV necessarily demand that FF7 be made for PSX. FF7 got FMV added to the formula after Square moved. FF7 was originally slated to be made on SNES after FF6, but then it got cancelled so the developers could work on Chrono Trigger, and after Chrono Trigger they got pencilled in for FF7 on the N64, and started to experiment on how to use the analog stick. They never got past playing around with the analog stick before higher-ups at Square decided to give Nintendo the boot and move to Sony.

Sony had flirted with Square over the original Play Station (the Sony-made CD add-on for the SNES). This resulted in some fights with Nintendo and canned/shoehorned games, and a few business cards being traded back and forth.

When carts were announced for the N64, half the industry objected (the other half cheered for the death of Nintendo), but RPGs were singled out as the genre which would be hurt by carts the most. So Nintendo quickly put together their "64DD" idea, which was good enough to get Square and Enix to hesitate and say "I'm listening". Nintendo apparently asked Square and Enix for a wishlist of things they wanted for the 64DD (anything except CD), and they apparently asked for premade text fonts to be built into the system, to make it cheaper and easier for text-heavy games to be made for the 64DD. I remember at one point I read in an old magazine that Square and Enix were being listed as "design partners" with Nintendo on the 64DD. Nintendo really wanted to make them happy. At one point, I believe the 64DD was pencilled in for about four games, Zelda 64, FF7, DQ7, and Mother 3.

But Sony had an actual CD-based system and Square's business card, so they asked Square "Seriously, what are you doing bending over backwards to support these assholes who have proven time and time again that they don't give a damn about you. Nintendo's trying to meet you halfway? Fuck halfway. If you were our girl, we would give you everything you wanted and more."

So yeah, Square dumped Nintendo and moved to Sony. And apparently when Square told Yamauchi about it, he was okay with it, because everyone else dumped Nintendo a lot quicker, and it was the right move for Square.

But then Sony treated Square like rock stars, and there were interviews about how awesome Sony and PSX were, compared to the hell Square had to endure with Nintendo and LOL carts, and Sony produced and paid for ads for FF7 in America which specifically took shots against Nintendo and the N64 (ads made by Sony, in Square's name). Another thing which was rumored to be a major factor in pissing off Yamauchi was that Square's president apparently met with Enix's president for coffee, and Square convinced Enix to dump Nintendo too. Now Nintendo was left with no RPG support, and the 64DD which was built almost exclusively for Square and Enix looked pointless. Zelda 64 got shoehorned onto carts, kind of like what happened to Square's games on the original Play Station. Square gave Nintendo a second taste of what it was like to be one of Nintendo's "partners".

So Yamauchi lashed out against Square, and held a grudge for years. He only let them come back after Square's president was forced to step down.

It wasn’t because Nintendo was a dick. It was mostly because SQUARE was a dick. Nintendo wasn’t a dick to any publishers dude. All of the anti Nintendo stuff you said is wrong and Square didn’t experience hell with Nintendo. Also Yamauchi didn’t bribe square or Enid dude. Stop lying. Zelda 64 was revolutionary and did a better job than FF7. Yamauchi didn’t lash out against square

 

[Zapperman]

Forma what I know IT was a series of factors... Mainly the using of cartridges instead of CDs (especially since for a big part of the SNES gen,square and Nintendo were on war with each other because square needed bigger cartridges for their games,but needed to pass through Nintendo to obtain them..and sometimes Nintendo would refuse ,just to use those same bigger cartridges for some other first party product),the higher royalties that Nintendo demanded from his third party partners compared to what Sony was proposing.. And the fact that at this point in time,yamauchi-san clearly got the reputation of being a dick with his 'partners'...since at that time the SNES was on the top of the world and he though they could go away with anything...pretty much what happened with Sony and ps3,before they sorted things out

Yamauchi wasn’t a dick and you’re a complete fool. He never thought he can get away with anything.

They chose a format that Square's biggest games couldn't run on "after" informing them they're going to use CDs, how is that not a big issue?

False

my god there's so much misinformation here, it's almost as if we're witnessing the rewrite of a pivotal moment in gaming history.
every generation this question is asked by 'newer' gamers, and every generation the reasons and stories become even more uninformed, distorted, and outright fictional.

there's about a handful of people in this thread so far that have mentioned something that is specifically 'accurate'.
i've taken part in addressing this question in the distant past on other forums with a slew of links, newspaper clippings, interviews with square executives involved, etc.
the problem now is, because that was so long ago i no longer have those links at my disposal, unfortunately.

anybody who says 'cartridges' as the full and definite answer is wrong. that is NOT why square left nintendo. that wasn't even the straw that broke the camels back.
nintendo, up until the gcn, was very terrible with their treatment of most 3rd parties. i say most, because there were some developers like enix, who were treated like royalty in comparison.

from what i remember, square, too, had a very close relationship with nintendo. they enjoyed a fruitful partnership and made a lot of money off each other.
square's dissatisfaction started during the 16 bit era. again i don't have all the details anymore, but people mentioning Nintendo being 'cheap' to their close partner with examples of disallowing square the extra megs they needed for larger cartridges is absolutely CORRECT.
Square made plenty of requests of a similar vein; all of which were denied by nintendo. in an act of complete douchebag-ery, when enix asked for the same thing, nintendo gave it to them without question.
this didn't happen all at once. multiple requests throughout the generation were denied and it turned square off, ever so slightly




some of this is correct.
a few things though, from what i remember researching…

**your point about the cartridge orders is spot on. from my memory nintendo did indeed do this. ridiculous, really.
**by the time the SMRPG project rolled around, nintendo already felt a strain on their relationship with square. that's why they offered them the mario franchise; as a show of faith of some sorts.
**FF7 was never an active n64 project. that tech demo was nothing more than that. FF7 did start out a snes game though, and it was originally set in NYC, and the main character was a detective called 'joe' or something.
**square indeed flirted with sony a little during the snes cd rom debacle. SoM2 was originally planned for that platform but development was switched, then butchered in an attempt to fit into your typical snes cartridge.
** the point about Yamauchi being ok with square's departure is also true. his exact response was indeed "it couldn't be helped". the insult square 'felt' at yamauchi being ok with them leaving is also true. i used to have the article that linked to an executive confirming this. again that was years ago and i no longer have it.
** the point about most developers already leaving by the time square decided to jump ship is a half truth as far as i remember. true, most developers had already signed up to make games for playstation, not too many of them though, aside from namco and square, committed to the psx platform exclusively. they still had plans to develop n64 titles. it was only after squaresoft actively sought them all out and convinced them to drop nintendo (which happened very early in the generation), did they finally commit to playstation exclusivity. Onimusha for example was rumoured to have begun as a n64 project, which moved to psx. when capcom realised they couldn't fullfill their vision on that platform, they moved it to ps2 where it released.

Nintendo was NOT a dick to their third party developers dude even most. Nintendo being cheap is absolutely FALSE. Nintendo wasn’t a douchebag dude. And they didn’t do any of that crap. Most developers weren’t leaving at the time. Also capcom didn’t realize jack.

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



Possibly the greatest game ever made is available only on PlayStation.

Good thing. If it were available on cartridge, it'd retail for around $1,200.

Piss off. That isn’t the greatest game and it should’ve been on Nintendo. Also if it was available on cartridge it wouldnt be for $1,200.

i also want to re-iterate that Nintendo, despite popular fictional belief, was perfectly ok with square moving to playstation.
they even wished them well.

their 'bad blood' only started the moment squaresoft had secret meetings with enix to convince them to drop nintendo support.
note the key here, is not simply to "also develop for playstation", but to outright "drop" nintendo,
what people always seem to overlook is how close Nintendo & Enix were. Losing DQ to nintendo executives was like losing one of their own internal franchises.

despite the shift from n64 to psx, nintendo still continued to publicly say positive things about enix and actually complimented DQ7 when it released on playstation.
and yes yamauchi said all those insulting things about the jrpg. his intention however, was not to insult the genre per se (remember they loved DQ), but to insult square in perpetual retaliation. lol.

Yamauchi didn’t say those insulting things dude

Man, Yamauchi quotes always make for good entertainment, but the lasting damage his third party policies have done can't be denied.

That wasn’t damage and it can be denied because it NEVER HAPPENED.

What I remember from the time, is that Nintendo was a stupid company from what ive read in magazines.
They didnt support you in making games, they wanted lots of money from you to make the games.

Sony with its newcomer gave away free developerkits, they gave lots of support when you did your games. and the fee for making games were like none in comparsion.

guess thats why... and Nintendo has always been a greedy company. they wanted second hand games to be illegal already in the 80ies in scandinavia...

They weren’t a stupid company and they were trying the protect the industry from another gaming crash. They DID support you in making games, they didn’t want lots of money. Also Nintendo was never a greedy company and they didn’t wasn’t second hand games to be illegal in Scandinavia.

Oh sure. So basically the deal is that on the SNES Nintendo required that 3rd parties had their games made by Nintendo. (Sega did not require this.) This meant that every game produced on a Nintendo system required the 3rd party to pay an extra fee.(You'd pay your royalty which I think might have actually been higher than on say Sega but you also had to pay for the cart.) Worse was that Nintendo was a bit slow on production.(Not as much of an issue if you were making them yourself.) So this meant when ordering cartridges you had to be precise on how many you wanted. Order too few and now you're waiting month for your next order to go through Nintendo.(And most games sold the majority in the first couple of months.) Too many and you were stuck with extra carts that eat into your profits. (But of course Nintendo was paid up front so they got their money.)

Now what you have to remember is one of the games that really turned the SNES around, especially in the US, was Street Fighter 2 which did sell quite well. Of course SF2HF also sold a lot too. So when it was time to put out SSF2 they figured it would sell a lot too. Unfortunately it didn't and they ended up being stuck with I believe a million carts. So they tried to return them to Nintendo to get some of their money back. Pretty much they figured that Nintendo owes us a big favor for SF2.(I mean hell, they could have put it on a Sega system.) Pretty much Nintendo told them sucks to be you but we're not giving you any money back. Suffice it to say Capcom felt a bit screwed. (Especially as I mentioned putting the first SF2 on the SNES was a big thing and really helped out Nintendo.)

ALL FALSE. Also third party devs were making a lot of money on the games alone dude. capcom wasn’t screwed and Nintendo didn’t say you can’t get your memory back. Also all false. SSF2 did sell well.

It probably wasn't just that. Just about every third party hated Nintendo's draconian policies during the Nintendo era. They ruled with an iron fist.

Every third party dev didn’t hate Nintendo during the Nintendo era. They didn’t rule with an iron fist.

Nintendo was ruthless back in the day - they pissed off a lot of parties. Yamauchi did not fuck around.

That being said - I find the Paper Mario/SMRPG thing hard to believe. How could another company own the naming rights to a Mario game? Nintendo probably just wanted to call it something more interesting than "Mario RPG 2."

They did not piss of anyone and they were not Ruthless.

Sometimes developers can own the parts that they added to a franchise. Like, Rare created "Krystal" for the StarFox franchise, but if Rare hadn't given Krystal to Nintendo, Nintendo wouldn't have been able to use her in future StarFox games. And neither would Rare, for that matter. She would exist in limbo until Nintendo and Rare agreed to work together again and let her exist in the present reality (Rare avoided this situation by giving/selling Krystal to Nintendo).

Or, if Nintendo wanted to make a massively-superior remake of "Zelda: Wand of Gamelon", Nintendo would probably have to ask Phillips for permission. Phillips very broadly can't make any more Zelda games without Nintendo's permission, but Nintendo very narrowly can't make another Wand of Gamelon without Phillips.

"Geno" from Mario RPG had a small cameo in "Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga" (around the time Square and Nintendo patched things up), and the credits for the game say "Geno" Character Copyright SQUARE ENIX CO. LTD. It seems possible that maybe Square's rights extended to the very-generic name they came up with for Mario RPG? Or maybe Nintendo just wanted a better name after they came up with the "Paper" concept. I don't know, I'm just speculating.

All of that is false and Nintendo owns the right to all related Nintendo products

Nintendo might have been a dick to square, but we all know deep down it's true love.

They weren’t a dick to square.

It is arguable for the beginning, but there is no justifying it later on (in face of other options) thus Nintendo reaped what they sowed.

No it’s justifying for the beginning and later on and Nintendo didn’t reap what they sowed.

Yamauchi was pretty fucking bad lol

No he wasn’t.

Myamoto didn't want load times for a Mario game, so Nintendo went cartridge.

Square needed to go CD, so they went with Sony.

Basically the gist. I think any hard feelings were drawn from the fact they weren't going to work together anymore and were more on Nintendo's part towards Square.

No it was more on Squares part towards Nintendo.

They should have went with a 4x drive while everyone else has 2x drives. The Mario 64 DD prototype that was leaked didn't have bad loading times at all.

No they shouldn’t dude and It did have bad loading times.

Sure, loading times on N64 were way better but that was the reason they told to the public only. The real reason was Nintendo didn't want to turn down the monopoly they had on those sweet sweet carts they made so much money from before.

An N64 cart cost a third party close to $15 each to produce and had to be ordered months in advance. A PS1 CD cost $1 and could be ordered and have them ready in a matter of days. And people still question why third parties flocked away so bad from the N64.

The N64 carts in reality firm consumer only had two real advantages: shorter loads and more durability. It's pretty clear that for the vast majority didn't care for this and preferred the CD advantages.

They didn’t have a monopoly. Also an N64 car didn’t cost $15 each. Also no people have good reasons to question why third parties flocked from the N64
The N64 carts in reality had many major advantages. Also the vast majority DID care for this and didn’t prefer the CD advantages.

Seems that Nintendo doesn't have a good relationship with any third party.

Yes they do. The third party devs ruined their relationship with Nintendo.

"I have been saying this for some time, but customers are not interested in grand games with higher-quality graphics and sound and epic stories.
Only people who do not know the videogame business would advocate the release of next-generation machines when people are not interested
in cutting-edge technologies" - Hiroshi Yamauchi

Yamauchi was an idiot. I wouldn't want to do business with him either.

Yamauchi was not an idiot, you are. And I would do business with that man.

That has nothing to do with salt, they just went where it made sense for them as a business. And how do they refuse to do business with Nintendo? Their most Important IP in Japan as been Nintendo exclusive for years now.

It didn’t make sense for them as a business.

That would explain why N64 didn't have any first-party RPGs until the end...

False

Although Atari was a major problem that was actually a three factor problem.

The first was that Atari was terribly run throughout their enter history and post-Bushnell they hated third party developers (on consoles and their 8-bit computers) which meant no control over them on the console side and hence a free-for-all in quality terms. Silicon Valley companies are founder dependent in large part[1]. That also extended to Atari demands that popular games be tied to games they want to push (i.e. if you want the best sellers you also have to order, say, E.T.)

The second was that the broad genius of Warner Communications CEO Steve Ross did not extend to games: to wit the licensed video games such as E.T. via great expense were dumped onto understaffed short development schedules. It was not yet clear that Hollywood is a financing bank, not content for videogames.

The third, often overlooked in the great videogame crash, was then-Commodore CEO Tramiel's pricewar. It killed Texas Instruments, Tandy, badly wounded Atari, and had massive knock-on ripples. Among them, of course, bringing the C64 to console level prices, a key reason we remember the C64 as a sort of hybrid desktop computer/games console. Another being that distributors (indie to larger chain specialty shops) were badly weakened by Commodore, Atari's policies amplified that to crippling.


So most certainly it was Atari's fault, but only partially.


[1] A vastly larger point, but SGI failed without Jim Clark. Apple failed without Steve Jobs (not that he could have run it in 1985). Sun went down without McNealy. HP without HP. Etc... Not a rule, but Valley companies tend to do that.

Nope it was mostly Atari’s fault not partially. SGI didn’t fail dude. It wasn’t a three factor problem and none of those are true.

Nintendo has never been a company that concerns itself much over accomodating the needs of third parties. Their identity and perspective of the industry has remained the same even after Sega and later Sony started changing the rules of the game.



I can't say I'm too surprised, but the way I heard it the Nintendo and Capcom executives at the time had a very close personal relationship which is why Capcom remained very loyal to Nintendo and only showed token support to Sega cause they got too big to ignore. You would have expected them to at least have gotten treated a bit better in return.

All false and they didn’t remain the same. Nintendo treated their third parties fairly.

Many issues:

- Nintendo didn't provided storage cartridges with enough space for their games like they did for Enix in the SNES. As result, some games, like Secret of Mana, had it's content cut due to it's storage limitation.
- Square was heavily invested into CD-ROM technology because of the add-on Nintendo was originally planning to do with Sony and later with them and Philips. They back off allegating piracy issues and loading times, but the real deal was because they wanted control over the cartridge manufacturing and demand. This made Square pissed off, because this would waste many of their already invested work into this technology. Secret of Mana, for example, was originally a SNES add-on title. That amazing opening sequence, for example, was planned to be a CGI entrance.
- Super Mario RPG. It was originally planned for Square to publish it, not Nintendo. Nintendo backed off the deal and decided themselves to do it, disappointing Square. Which appeared to be the pinnacle of Nintendo/Square relationship, turned out to be a negative turning point.
- Nintendo not including Square into the N64 Dream Team. Given the proximity both companies had at that time, Square considerated this decision snobby and angered them even further.

Yes. Nintendo fuck up BADLY with Square and they paid a high price for it. Blame their departure only for carts in the N64 it's only a narrow view of the problem. It became a domino effect for third-party relationship in Japan as, pretty much, every single japanese developers left them after their departure.



Awesome post as usual from Cheerilee, but you're overlooking some major issues I mentioned which were pivotal for Square's changing of side. Nintendo's control over the cartrdrige manufacturing was an issue bothering third-parties ever since the NES days, something that motivate Namco to run away from them, and their decision to keep carts with the N64 was exactly to keep this practice intact, as it was very profitable and held third-parties under Nintendo's strict control. Sony's CD-ROMs were a better media? No doubt it was. But the real attraction here was getting free from Nintendo's manufacturing policies. Another issue, is that Nintendo didn't included a single japanese company on their Nintendo 64 Dream Team as it was composed only from western developers. Square and Enix, despite the 64DD being made with them in mind, were ignored. That's why Square departure started a chain reaction in the japanese development community as pretty much every single local major developer left Nintendo. On the other hand, on the west, Nintendo 64 got major support because Nintendo was actually major invested on that market and western developers.

It wasn’t an issue bothering third parties dude and it didn’t motivate namco to leave them. It didn’t held third parties under strict control. None of those are issues. Square and Enix weren’t ignored. That’s not why square departure started it. Nintendo got major support and not every single local major developer left Nintendo. All false.

Nintendo of old aren't the same company people seem to think are sound lads and a good laugh.

They were ruthless, from the restrictions they imposed to the way they would deal with developers.

Sega hit them a bit, but Nintendo of old (incidentally, the one that I will always prefer for their games) refused to change. They were stubborn. Set in their ways. Service Games was a shock, but they still, ultimately, were a much smaller company and their sales were a lot lower.

Nintendo made the ultimate mistake of pissing off Sony, though. Sony wanted to jack games in entirely after the incident, but a handful of executives kept the dream alive and used Sony' money to turn a disasterous CD add on into a standalone console and use it, and a bit of Sony cash, to attract developers to the platform, especially with low production costs of CDs compared to cartridges and none of Nintendo's restrictions.

Nintendo could bully Sega, if they wanted, but a multinational with a portfolio like Sony, at the time, was a different kettle of fish. Nintendo of old could no longer exist and, incidentally, I feel like my Nintendo also died. The Nintendo of today is a much tamer beast, trying to get developers on their side (but with poor results) but the Squaresoft/Nintendo falling out of old was probably more down to Nintendo's general disdain for publishers, their unwillingness to approach CD based console tech after the various projects fell through and just a company with more money offering an easier ride.

That's maybe all nonsense though.

Nintendo didn’t make the mistake of pissing off Sony dude. Nintendo could easily bully Sony dude and Nintendo didn’t die. Nintendo isn’t tamer and they aren’t trying to get developers in their side. Also it wasn’t down to Nintendo’s disdain for publisher’s nor their unwillingness to use cd console tech. And stop. It is nonsense.

Many issues:

- Nintendo didn't provided storage cartridges with enough space for their games like they did for Enix in the SNES. As result, some games, like Secret of Mana, had it's content cut due to it's storage limitation.
- Square was heavily invested into CD-ROM technology because of the add-on Nintendo was originally planning to do with Sony and later with them and Philips. They back off allegating piracy issues and loading times, but the real deal was because they wanted control over the cartridge manufacturing and demand. This made Square pissed off, because this would waste many of their already invested work into this technology. Secret of Mana, for example, was originally a SNES add-on title. That amazing opening sequence, for example, was planned to be a CGI entrance.
- Super Mario RPG. It was originally planned for Square to publish it, not Nintendo. Nintendo backed off the deal and decided themselves to do it, disappointing Square. Which appeared to be the pinnacle of Nintendo/Square relationship, turned out to be a negative turning point.
- Nintendo not including Square into the N64 Dream Team. Given the proximity both companies had at that time, Square considerated this decision snobby and angered them even further.

Yes. Nintendo fuck up BADLY with Square and they paid a high price for it. Blame their departure only for carts in the N64 it's only a narrow view of the problem. It became a domino effect for third-party relationship in Japan as, pretty much, every single japanese developers left them after their departure.



Awesome post as usual from Cheerilee, but you're overlooking some major issues I mentioned which were pivotal for Square's changing of side. Nintendo's control over the cartrdrige manufacturing was an issue bothering third-parties ever since the NES days, something that motivate Namco to run away from them, and their decision to keep carts with the N64 was exactly to keep this practice intact, as it was very profitable and held third-parties under Nintendo's strict control. Sony's CD-ROMs were a better media? No doubt it was. But the real attraction here was getting free from Nintendo's manufacturing policies. Another issue, is that Nintendo didn't included a single japanese company on their Nintendo 64 Dream Team as it was composed only from western developers. Square and Enix, despite the 64DD being made with them in mind, were ignored. That's why Square departure started a chain reaction in the japanese development community as pretty much every single local major developer left Nintendo. On the other hand, on the west, Nintendo 64 got major support because Nintendo was actually major invested on that market and western developers.

ALL FALSE AND LIES. Also it wasn’t a negative. Sony was going to backstab Nintendo dude. It wasn’t snobby or angered them. It wasn’t the pinnacle dude. Everything you said is wrong

Yeah, as already said it wasn't just the cartridge thing with the N64 it was a series of issues (and later Nintendo's reaction) that lead to Square jumping ship, not going to spend time with a long write up since everything is already pretty much been covered in the last 159 posts.



Missing some details but still a decent write up.



IIRC Squaresoft also requested larger carts for SD2/SoM after they were forced to move it but were denied which lead them to cutting as much as they did to shoehorn it onto a 16Mb cartridge.

It wasn’t a decent write up. It wasn’t a series of issues and. One of that is true. Squaresoft didn’t request larger carts and all false.

Dude you just called someone a fool who hasn't even been on the forum since the year Switch came out. Who's the fool here?

Bruh the only fools here are you and the other who came here. Stop lying.

What a fucking necro.

Piss off.

 

[TexMex]

Zapperman having an absolutely wild Saturday night.

 

[BlackTron]

Bruh the only fools here are you and the other who came here. Stop lying.

Piss off.

It's not a lie, bruh. I checked his profile he hasn't visited since 2017 bruh.

Gotta love dragging up a 9 year old thread just to say Yamauchi was actually a nice guy and then telling everyone to piss off out of it haha

 

[IFireflyl]

Piss off.

Or what? You'll cry like a bitch in some long-winded post that nobody cares about? Oh no!

Try being less of a cunt on the forums. Enjoy your time here.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Never heard about Square getting angry about anything back then.

I certainly don’t believe it coming from some YouTuber.

Edit: Oh shit this is an old bump lol

 

[ManaByte]

 

[Zapperman]

Never heard about Square getting angry about anything back then.

I certainly don’t believe it coming from some YouTuber.

Edit: Oh shit this is an old bump lol

False. Square was angry and they even admitted it was their fault

 

[Alex Anderson]

This only the second thread he's ever posted in lol