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If PlayStation1 Never Happened....

...do you think the game market would have crashed during the 5th gen? Or at least had contracted? Everything else still staying the same: Saturn being what it was before PlayStation specs came out, N64 still being delayed until 1996, etc. Or do y'all think it would have ended up more like things played out between 360 and PS3 for Saturn and N64?

Just curious. And if you can, please do elaborate on your opinions!
 
I think that Nintendo would still be the top dog.

I truly believe that the Dreamcast would've been more of a success and that Sega would also still be in the hardware game.

MS may have never entered the game, as their introduction was helped greatly by some of the greatest minds from Sega after the fall of their hardware division.
 

Servbot24

Banned
Well Nintendo probably never would have been desperate enough to make the Wii. That alone would be a seismic shift.

People will always want to play games, but without Sony would the industry be as big as it is today? Hard to say if Nintendo, MS or Sega would have filled Sony's shoes, but certainly less innovation would have been inspired.
 

10k

Banned
Nintendo would still be treating third parties likes shit and be arrogant until someone else would come along and become what the PS1 would (Xbox?).
 
Nintendo would still be king with Sony technology to boot.

Nintendo would still be treating third parties likes shit and be arrogant until someone else would come along and become what the PS1 would (Xbox?).

Microsoft wouldn't have bothered making a console if the PS1 wasn't around.
 

Mr-Joker

Banned
Meh, The world would still kept turning and nothing of value would have been lost.

Though Nintendo would have eventually have a monopoly on the gaming market since there was no saving Sega after the disaster that was the Sega Saturn and they still would have left the console market.
 

zeemumu

Member
Nintendo would be twice as powerful and the GameCube probably would have been made with better hardware (no tiny discs). And there would be no competition in the handheld market.
 
I'm pretty sure someone else would've came into the market to take it's place. But I do agree, Sony made the market as big as it is today.

And MS came in from the ex-sega team, so I guess there's that.
 

Nephtes

Member
Final Fantasy VII and CG cut scenes would not have become a thing.

No Advent Children, One Wing Angel, Sephiroth fan girls, none of that.

Game systems that can be turned on without a game in them wouldn't have happened as early as it did.

No Crash Bandicoot.

No Metal Gear Solid.

This seems like an awful alternate reality...
 

Phreak47

Member
hqdefault.jpg


You still don't have Sega BluRay yet?
 

Roo

Member
Nintendo would still be treating third parties likes shit and be arrogant until someone else would come along and become what the PS1 would (Xbox?).

Funny how SNES Nintendo had basically everyone on board treating 3rd parties like trash that they didn't even hesitate to abandon Nintendo when they saw Sony approaching the gaming market.

Being cocky certainly bit them in the ass.
 

tsab

Member
Sega wouldn't be dead and Shenmue 7 would get released this year :( and Nintendo wouldn't have to churn out pokemons and marios so close to each other
 

ChipotIe

Banned
Probably referring to the SNES CD-ROM system that was made by Sony.

That's what I thought, but it wasn't Sony that beat Nintendo to the punch with the PS1 using CD-ROM. Nintendo dropped it themselves by choice. Would they retroactively go back and decide to use CD-ROMS if PS1 never happened what they're trying to say? Wasn't Nintendo's decision to not use them afterall the impetus for the creation of the PS1 in the first place?

That's why I'm confused by the quote.
 

shandy706

Member
Nintendo would have never been stabbed in the back by an evil corporation. @(*!*(^&!

Truth 1:
I was a Nintendo Fanboy for many years in the 90s. I remember Nintendo fans spewing far worse hate to Sony than any one here has given Microsoft and the X1.


Truth 2:
I'm glad it happened because I spent an entire summer playing Destruction Derby with friends after it came out. Still one of my favorite games ever.
 

gelf

Member
Final Fantasy VII and CG cut scenes would not have become a thing.

No Advent Children, One Wing Angel, Sephiroth fan girls, none of that.

Game systems that can be turned on without a game in them wouldn't have happened as early as it did.

No Crash Bandicoot.

No Metal Gear Solid.

This seems like an awful alternate reality...

I can understand Crash Bandicoot not existing but the others had every chance of still happening in some form without a Sony console. No Playstation doesnt wipe Hideo Kojima from history. He may have still made Metal Gear Solid, maybe waiting a generation but still.

The opposite also applies I wonder if Saturn doing better would have meant even more amazing 2D games for that system, since that was its strength.
 

halfbeast

Banned
I'd imagine that nintendo would've still been mainly 2D sprite based on their N64 console. a game like Mario 64 would've been made around the gamecube era.

there would've been probably a lot of (failed) western attempts at the console market similar to the CD-i/3DO/Jaguar debacle.

then again without sony forcing nintendo to appeal from a different angle, we might have nintendo phones now.
 

tebunker

Banned
That's what I thought, but it wasn't Sony that beat Nintendo to the punch with the PS1 using CD-ROM. Nintendo dropped it themselves by choice. Would they retroactively go back and decide to use CD-ROMS if PS1 never happened what they're trying to say? Wasn't Nintendo's decision to not use them afterall the impetus for the creation of the PS1 in the first place?

That's why I'm confused by the quote.
No the reason the deal fell apart was due to licensing and controlling interest disagreements between the two companies.

Nintendo just wanted Sony for the hw manufacturing and Sony wanted in to gaming. Once that fell apart Sony still got in to gaming.

To be honest I don't think things would be all that different had the PSX not existed. Technology changed so fast and someone else would have stepped in and other companies would have continued to evolve.
 

WillyFive

Member
If there was no Sony Playstation, we can assume Sony and Nintendo didn't terminate their partnership and ended up releasing the SNES CD; and eventually the Nintendo Playstation, the SNES with a built in CD drive. This system would have been released only one or two years after the original SNES launched (around late 1992/1993), and might have taken over as the main SKU. Sony would gain profit on each disc sold (which Yamouchi hated in real life, but not enough to terminate the contract in this timeline). This system would have competed with Sega's own Genesis add-ons, and may have been succesful; causing the release and existence of more CD-based titles than we had in real life.

It's tough to say what would have happened after that though. Nintendo and Sony keeping their partnership would mean that while Sega of Japan and Sega of America were fighting within itself to create a version of the Saturn; Nintendo would have basically little competition for a while. With no need to create a game to compete with the fancy 3D graphics of the PS1, Donkey Kong Country would probably never have been made; and if it did, it probably wouldn't have used the expensive Silicon Graphics pre-rendered sprites.

Just the same, the Virtual Boy would probably not have been made either; without the race to create a 32-bit console out in time for 1995, it would have been a pointless and costly diversion from the real next-gen console Nintendo and Sony would have wanted to do for the second half of the 90's. This next-gen console would obviously have used Sony's CD format (which they would still profit from), and because of that Nintendo would not have lost various 3rd party partners to the competition.

Sega's own infighting would still make the Saturn fall apart, so Nintendo would regain the monopoly they had in the NES generation for the second half of the 90's. The Dreamcast would probably also had suffered a similar fate, since the hype for the next-next-generation system from Nintendo and Sony would be immense (which would also have featured Sony's DVD format). They probably wouldn't get real competition until Microsoft created the Xbox.

However, would there have even been an Xbox? The major impression the PS1 left on the gaming landscape was by expanding console game from the traditional kids audience into the new teen audience. By marketing itself as the console you play when you "outgrow" Nintendo; it not only took Nintendo's aging audience, but it expanded the market considerably into an age group that before didn't care about videogames. This teen audience is the same one that would love "mature" games such as Halo and Project Gotham Racing (adult gamers were mostly cornered into the PC market), and the Xbox was branded to appeal to that audience.

Without the market expanding into that age group, if Microsoft decided to enter the console market; they would have had a peculiarly different system. Since the Sony PS2 would not have been taking away the type of game developers that would make games for the Windows platform, some four engineers in the DirectX team wouldn't even have made the pitch to Bill Gates for a DirectX-based game console! However, if we can imagine that the marketing team at MS saw the potential for expanding the market; it might have been them that would have tried to make a system to the teen audience, and they would have had a similarly vast (but not identical) success to that of the PS1.

Anything after that is free range.
 

Mman235

Member
Someone else would have probably stepped in and took it's place with a (relatively) low-priced CD-based system with a 3D focus. Of course a lot of the specifics and probably the hardware itself would be very different as a result...
 

Muffdraul

Member
That's what I thought, but it wasn't Sony that beat Nintendo to the punch with the PS1 using CD-ROM. Nintendo dropped it themselves by choice. Would they retroactively go back and decide to use CD-ROMS if PS1 never happened what they're trying to say? Wasn't Nintendo's decision to not use them afterall the impetus for the creation of the PS1 in the first place?

That's why I'm confused by the quote.

Yeah, apparently he thinks it was Sony who broke the deal with Nintendo on the SNES CD ROM add on. Which is the opposite of what happened.
 

ShirAhava

Plays with kids toys, in the adult gaming world
Sega partnered with Microsoft would be the only home console manufacturer. Sonic is the most popular animated character of all time. Nintendo would be regulated to the handheld ghetto. Mario games would be panned for being the same old tripe over and over again. Arcades now called 'Neo Geos' would still be alive and well. Games for Windows would actually be worth a damn. Steam doesn't exist. The only smartphone on the market is the 4G model of the SegaStation Bita. Al Gore wins 2000 election, 9/11 doesn't happen, The Call of Duty series is filled with gritty photorealistic hedgehogs who shoot first, run fast and consume copious amounts of chilli dogs.
 

Alchemy

Member
It has interesting implications for Sega, because the Saturn would have ended up being the cheaper system to physically make and ship games for unless Nintendo bit the bullet and transitioned to CD with Sony's help. We're basically left with two weird scenarios:

The N64 ends up with CDs thanks to Sony, which makes the system both immediately better and instantly worse because developers wouldn't be able to work around the low memory by streaming from the cartridge. Few developers actually used this however, so probably ends up being a big win for Nintendo. It would keep Square around as well, and probably end up dominating that generation.

Or...

N64 still uses cartridges and third parties end up on the Saturn thanks to CDs. Dealing with the cost of manufacturing and shipping cartridges is a major turn off, and Publishers would probably push developers towards the Saturn. The Saturn is a pain to develop for, but money talks and there would be real world cost implications with CDs vs Cartridges that trump development cost estimations. Sega ends up with Final Fantasy, and while Sega doesn't roll in cash because of the way the Saturn was built they don't bleed out and would actually be able to support following console generations.
 

sniperpon

Member
I can understand Crash Bandicoot not existing but the others had every chance of still happening in some form without a Sony console.

Totally; what eventually became Metal Gear Solid was actually a 3DO title, platform changed part-way through development. You can even see the Metal Gear cast being teased on some 3DO promotional material prior to the platform shift.

If Sony had never entered the market, potentially everything from that point on would have changed, so it's completely impossible to know. I suppose the 3DO might have been able to hang on; I knew some Software Etc. employees at the time, and they said the 3DO was selling great at $300, they couldn't even keep it on the shelves. It was once the PSX hit that the 3DO sales really hit the skids. Who knows, maybe the M2 would have even come out.

The Saturn is an interesting question; I guess it would have come out as the 2D-exclusive powerhouse it was originally intended to be. For niche people like me who never wanted the game industry to become a mass culture thing in the first place, the industry probably would be a better place today in that alternate timeline.
 

StoopKid

Member
Meh, The world would still kept turning and nothing of value would have been lost.

Though Nintendo would have eventually have a monopoly on the gaming market since there was no saving Sega after the disaster that was the Sega Saturn and they still would have left the console market.

smh

Keep up the good fight.
 
I think that Sony's success ultimately started a huge domino effect, including the introduction of Microsoft to the game. I think the Nintendo/Sega rivalry would have went on longer and that we'd have more arcadey games in the home. Ultimately, we'd have slowly gotten closer to where we are today though, with or without Sony. I'd love to know exactly how things would have played out though.
 

ascii42

Member
Final Fantasy VII and CG cut scenes would not have become a thing.

No Advent Children, One Wing Angel, Sephiroth fan girls, none of that.

Game systems that can be turned on without a game in them wouldn't have happened as early as it did.

No Crash Bandicoot.

No Metal Gear Solid.

This seems like an awful alternate reality...

I feel like a lot of those would have gone to the Saturn instead, particularly FFVII. As such, the Saturn would probably have been a lot more successful.
 

kingkaiser

Member
hmm, Final Fantasy 7 on the Sega Saturn...interesting thought.

Nonetheless, without the PSone ever happening the chances for Sega still producing consoles would be pretty good, I think.

Nintendo propably would have never left the hardware race, without the desperate need for a blue ocean market.

Microsoft wouldn't have entered the console market, thus making the PC an even more flourishing platform than it is now.

Overall I think, I would prefer that alternate timeline.
 

VVV Mars VG

Member
Sony saved us in many ways and pushed technology forward.

In Europe we'd have been stuck with the 32X, the Saturn would have seen a much delayed release with the market to itself for some time. I don't see as big an impact on Nintendo, they would have always gone with cartridges which was a flawed approach.

Sega the biggest loser then, if the Dreamcast had of been released it might have succeeded. But then that system failed in large part to not supporting DVD.

So to conclude, technology was pushed forward on all fronts and gaming would not be where it is today without Playstation.
 

Into

Member
Third parties would not be able to get away from the awful practices and treatment that Nintendo was known for, they would be forced to make games for N64 and live under the same roof they were trying to get away from.

Playstation is really that escape that they needed, Nintendo was the drunk alcoholic father and Sega was the unreliable mother.
 

Some Nobody

Junior Member
Most of us wouldn't be gaming and adults gaming would be a rarity rather than the norm.

Don't let PC-GAF and Nintendo-GAF tell you this isn't true. Well, for the West. For the East not so much, but I've got way too many friends whose origins in gaming come from the PS1. I started on the SNES, but I would never have stuck with the hobby if FF7 and the J-RPG era of the PS1 wasn't a thing.
 
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