Cataferal said:
People who are coming into this thread and finding themselves confused by the proliferation of votes in favour of the Saturn need to remember three things:
1) 2D games from that era have aged much better than 3D titles. Nintendo were all about showing off their hardware's virtues in utilizing SGI microcodes (Fast3D and Turbo3D), which left very little encouragement for 2D offerings. Meanwhile, the Saturn's complex chipset facilitated equal amounts of both, and a majority of the classics still revered today tend to be predominantly sprite-based (Guardian Heroes, Dragon Force, SF, Bomberman etc...).
Focusing only on the 2d games makes sense (Saturn/PSX 2d does look a lot better than its 3d, no question), but it doesn't change the fact that the Saturn had lots of 3d games, and Saturn 3d is nowhere near as good as N64 3d, and nor are 3d Saturn games as good as N64 ones.
On the other hand, the few 2d games the N64 does have look good and mostly play well.
2) The Saturn was to the Japanese market then as the PSP is to it now. It may be hard for us in the West to imagine, but with the help of that Segata Sanshiro ad campaign, the Saturn was the number 1 best-selling console in the region for a spell (between 94-96). That is of course until Sony's game catalogue gained traction over there.
I don't know if it was really the market leader, but at least it shared the lead with the PSX from '94 to '96, yes. Then FFVII and the DQVII Playstation exclusivity announcement, among other things, helped bring down the Saturn. Even in Japan Sega itself only supported the system for four years, which is less than Nintendo supported the N64 in Japan (4 years 10 months in Japan; meanwhile it was 4.5 years in the US, while Sega supported the Saturn in the US for about 3 years, maybe a month or two more depending on when Shining Force III came out.).
So yeah, the Saturn did do well in Japan for a couple of years, but by '97 that ended. The N64 ended up selling close to as many system in Japan as the Saturn had, I believe, though I forget exactly how many Saturn sold there. On the other hand, the PSP held its status through the generation, so it's not an entirely even comparison.
3) It's cool to vote for the underdog. Not a criticism; much like the effect of nostalgia, the cult, niche appeal of these games (and not to mention the rarity) does add a certain spice to all its exclusive titles. This is why Treasure have recently been lambasted on Japanese forums for releasing Radiant Silvergun on XBLA; shmup afficionados paid top dollar for the privilege of playing that game a few years ago, and as a consequence it became something to savour. Now it can belong to anyone for $10, it's perhaps lost that edge.
I think a perhaps more important reason than this is that for some reason, on GAF it's apparently cool to dislike the N64. Not everyone goes for it, but I have frequently seen for some time now lots of N64 hate -- "bad games" threads often have mentions of lots of N64 games whether or not they deserve it, Rare's collapse after leaving Nintendo has led many people to retroactively hate everything they made back when they were still great and Rare made some of the best popular N64 games, etc... I'm not sure what all of the reasons are, but it does seem like unfair criticism against the N64 is sadly common on GAF, and the more some people say it the more others listen.
Saturn, however? It's got the hardcore 2d games, and wasn't popular enough here for many people to actually remember hating it (unlike the N64 and PSX, who of course had large fanbases who bashed the other system), it was just ignored a lot of the time... which now works to its benefit. A lot of people had N64s, but how many had a Saturn? So it feels completely fresh while the N64 doesn't, that perhaps also helps it now.
Overall, I adore my Saturn - but I must admit to preferring Nintendo's first party output. It's a tough call, but considering most N64 games have either been ported, remade, or improved on with subsequent sequels, I think you can get by without buying the original console these-days. However, with all the licensing issues that surround franchises like Daytona, and considering the source code for games like Panzer Dragoon Saga has since been lost, the same can't be said of the Saturn. It's the only place you can find these experiences.
So many people say that lots of N64 games have been ported, but I think that just shows that people need to play more N64 games... some of the better games have been, but plenty of others still haven't. I think a lot of people here are forgetting about a lot of the N64's library. This applies somewhat to the Saturn too, though -- it does have more to it (quality game wise) than 2d fighting games and shmups, you know, though some of that depends on how well you can tolerate Saturn 3d... it is poor quality, but if the games are good I can usually enjoy them anyway. The same is true for the Playstation, Saturn 3d is only slightly worse than PSX 3d. But anyway, it's not just the Saturn. The N64 also has quite a few games that have not been ported and I at least would say are definitely good games.
Lion Heart said:
List of Nintendo 64 games- 387
List of Playstation 1 games- 2,418
The mind boggles
Amazing isn't it, so many more games, but the N64 still had the better library...
LaserBuddha said:
Did you not have either of the previous Nintendo consoles?
True, but I do think the PSX ramped up the volume of shovelware compared to past consoles. There are good reasons for it, too, I think. First, every console generation has sold more in total than the generation before it, so more people were playing games than before. Second, the Playstation had lower fees than cartridge-based systems, or the Saturn for that matter, so it was cheap to make games for. Now, having low fees doesn't guarantee success -- the 3DO had very low development fees, but it obviously didn't win -- but it helps. Development and production costs were low, so publishers could pump out more games for the system for less money. The N64, however, being on cartridges, had much higher, unavoidable, production fees and timetables, and on top of that Nintendo had higher licensing fees as well. Those factors served to reduce the volume of shovelware on the NES and SNES, versus the Playstation, and when combined with the huge number of systems sold -- the Playstation sold more than twice as much worldwide as the 4th gen winner, the SNES, had -- it naturally led to a lot of low budget, low quality games.
Still though, of course you're right that the NES and SNES had a lot of it... but Playstation had more.
Oh, and no, the N64 wasn't entirely free of shovelware. There certainly were some bad, low budget games on the system, lame licensed kids' games most notably. There were just many, many times fewer of them than there were on Playstation. (As for the Saturn, it had its share of shovelware too. Lots of Playstation ports for instance, in its US third party library.)
It's practically a time trial racing game with some 2D and platforming thrown in.
