Here's the heaviest part of the N64/PSX war in the United States; from N64 launch onward :
GRAY=PSX
GREEN=N64
BLACK=SAT
(Click to make bigger)
Source NPD
Very nice graph. The N64 did quite solidly up until sometime in 2000, certainly... the reason why overall in the generation in the Americas it was 66/33 PS1/N64 was because of how the PS1 sold for many years longer (the N64 faded out in 2000-2002, the PS1 in 2000-2005...). That built up a lot of base to push its margin of victory well above where it had been during the core of the generation.
Also, just look at that Saturn graph. Right when FF7 released and Bernie Stolar said "The Saturn is not our future" at E3 1997, the line hits bottom and stays there except for a miniscule blip at December 1997. Thanks, Bernie, and Sega for getting into that state in the first place.
It was a somewhat competitive system in 1995-1996, as those solid Dec. 1996 sales show, but it bottomed out early thanks to Sega being stupid (and giving up), mostly.
FFV II seems to have been a really big factor and in Japan Saturn slowed down heavily after this launch.
I think it was the one-two punch of FF7 and the announcement that Dragon Quest VII would be a Playstation exclusive, really. Grandia was a good game, but it was no match for that pair. The Saturn indeed started fading in Japan after FF7's release; it did well there in '94-96, but afterwards, the Playstation really did take over.
Yeah that's another way of putting it. It was quite insane that the console just kept selling more and more when the generation should have been winding up. It sold over 1/3 of its total AFTER the PS2 was out, which is just unprecedented. These new massive game series popped up really late in its life, like Tony Hawk, Silent Hill, Spyro etc.
Yeah, the N64 was quite competitive in the '90s and sold well, but faded out quickly after that, while the PS1 just kept selling and selling and selling...
In the Americas Nintendo shipped more SNES than N64
SNES- 23.35m
N64- 20.63n
Maybe N64 outsold SNES in US only.
Yeah, considering that those are Americas numbers, not US only, it's entirely possible that those numbers are correct, but that also the N64 sold more than the SNES did here. The N64 did well in the US, but it'd make sense if it wasn't nearly as successful as the SNES was in other parts of the Americas.
(On an unrelated note, it'd be interesting to know for sure whether the SNES or Genesis sold more in the US, and the SNES or Genesis/MD more in the Americas as a whole. We legitimately do not know the answer to either one of those questions.)
Other than the PS2 (which was strong out the gate, and remained that way for close to a decade), all of Sony's consoles have back-loaded sales patterns.Nintendo comes out of the gate strong, releasing the majority of their big first party titles in the first 3 years or so of a console's lifespan. Sony takes awhile to gear up, and relies a lot more on third party software to drive sales (especially in the cases of the PS1 and PSP).
NPD is US only, while Nintendo shipment numbers are the entire hemisphere. Both statements could be right.
Good points here, you're probably right on both counts.
1997 = Blast Corps, Doom 64, Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing, Mario Kart 64, StarFox 64, Turok Dinosaur Hunter.
These compete just fine.
San Francisco Rush as well, as well as some successful second-tier games like Bomberman 64. Yeah, the N64 had a great 1997 lineup.
That's why Nintendo lost that gen. I understand their reasoning for wanting to stick with carts, but cheap CD production and memory constraints of carts saw devs (especially Square with their CG heavy games) ultimately decide to go to Sony - not to mention Nintendo's arrogance with 3rd parties at the time. If Nintendo went with CDs, I really believe that gen would've turned out much differently.
Nintendo did fine in the US using cartridges. In Japan maybe not having CDs made more of a difference, but here? The advantages are so much greater than the negatives, going with carts was a great decision!
GAF, the only place where even past console wars get fought over.
If you think that, you've never been to a classic gaming focused forum. Just look at sites like Sega-16 and probably Atari-Age...