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Why did the N64 fail in Japan?
- Thread starter bishopcruz
- Start date
Hayama Akito
Member
200 games in six years is really a bad number. Even in the USA the console has about 320 games, comparing to the 3000+ games available worldwide in PlayStation.
Damn, even the 3DO has around 320 games.
bishopcruz
Member
Good answer.
So, let me get this right, even in Japan Nintendo was picky about the games that came out on its consoles? I thought this was more a US thing. I had thought this wasn't the case as I knew Clock Tower began on the Super Famicom, and Sweet Home was a Famicom classic was it not. Hell, the SMT games got their start on Nintendo hardware.
As for the Yamauchi comment, he seriously said that? So he was against the most popular genre in Japan? That's nuts, anyone have any articles or stories on this? I never knew it and that's kinda huge. It's also interesting that its previous biggest competitor in Japan, NEC and Hudson just shit the bed with their 32 bit offering.
Massively popular is a bit of an overstatement. Saturn sold about 6 million units in Japan, and I think dreamcast was the same, if not a little worse. They did have strong hardcore followings, but they were at best a strong second place that gen, and were dead before the end of it.
It didn't really have that much trouble in the US, that was it's strongest market by far. It had a little drop off but nowhere near as bad as Sega, or even as bad as the fall off from PS2 to PS3.
Final Fantasy VII was originally designed around the Nintendo 64 if i remember correctly, then their reluctance to lose the cartridge ensured that their was no way squaresoft could pull it off without the extra space that a cd dreive enabled.
intheinbetween
Member
this
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
I really think SEGA just lost from trying to constantly go head to head with Sony. As cant even really compare in terms of assets one has available. Granted SEGA still might have owned the arcade scene, game centers in general were slowly dying off therefore that source of revenue was also dwindling. The arcade division still exists and is good at what they do with innovation / making popular titles, but still cant support everything off of it.
In the end instead of totally going and deep sixing themselves by constantly fighting, throwing in the towel was perhaps a smart move seeing how they managed to pull through and still exist today.
SirIgbyCeaser
Banned
Probably because it did not play CD's.
buying CD's was huge at the time.
buying CD's was huge at the time.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Its not like folks really used their PSs as cd players anyways. Since a lot of folks had CD walkmans.
The problem really stemmed from nintendos poor support and the cost of producing cartridges.
Anticitizen One
Banned
Did the Sega Saturn do better than n64 in Japan? Did it get more support/last longer there?
Hayama Akito
Member
At the beginning Nintendo was so obsessed in a so-called "just quality games" policy that, around 1994/5, they create the "Dream Team", a very small group of developers who they will just "make games exclusive for Nintendo 64 with the supervision of Nintendo".
http://videogamereview.tripod.com/n64/history.html
At the time a lot of horror and otaku-based games were developed only by small companies, even the first Clock Tower was a pretty low-profiled game at the time who Human was not the big company that it was in the past. Nintendo was cautious about his "family" image in those days and really wanted only AAA-companies around N64 production. I remember some time ago i read an article about the N64 with Yamauchi confessing in 2001 that he wanted the N64 to be the most hardest console to program/develop so only expert companies will approach to it. A really bad politic who was turned in Gamecube.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2006/03/14/top-10-tuesday-wildest-statements-made-by-industry-veterans
- "Years after Square jumped off the Nintendo ship to support PlayStation with a series of smash-hit Final Fantasy role-playing games, Nintendo's retired president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, made some hilarious comments about the booming genre - and about the people drawn to it. "[People who play RPGs are] depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games," he noted in a 1999 interview. Yamauchi - who incidentally has prided himself on the fact that he has never played a videogame - went on to call RPGs as a whole both "silly and boring." Square Enix's Final Fantasy and DragonQuest RPGs continue to rank amongst the highest-selling games whenever they are released in Japan or America."
sixteen-bit
Member
It was more successful yes, but it wasn't supported as late as the 64. The final Saturn game came out in 2000 I think. Of course, the Saturn was also released before the N64.
A Black Falcon
Member
What? No, as far as I can tell the N64 has only four mahjong games, even in Japan... but you are right about RPGs certainly.
This post is much better. Nice summary. I'd guess that that last point is the most important one, though. If the N64 had had Dragon Quest, it'd have done much better in Japan...
This is important as well. From before the system launched, there was a big focus on Western games, as with the whole "Dream Team" thing. At the same time though, their Japanese relationships were falling apart, and if they tried to stop it, they failed.
In Japan the Dreamcast flopped from launch, not only after the PS2 released. The DC had a bad launch in Japan, and never recovered (something like 2% marketshare...).
Anticitizen One
Banned
wow Saturn got games even in 2000 after Dreamcast came out? I think in America they stoped releasing games for it in Summer '98
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Please do read through the thread before asking questions, its not like this is pages long as others.
Since your question basically got answered here with the various posts.
Generally about 196? Japan titles for the N64
About 1000+ Japan titles for the Sega Saturn. NOT OFFICIAL NUMBER read note - (might have to change this looking up more data now, the list I pulled from also included titles that were made / not released in public, but also didnt include some games which were released.) Number most likely is smaller than this. List below of what has been released in Japan though since its not totaled dont really want to bother with doing a count by hand so to speak.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/saturn/916393-saturn/faqs/17851
(Ran the list through word and looked up the line count which hits about 1700ish. From there looking at the text and removing spaces and whatnots from the count and you still would potentially have 1000+ titles)
Huge difference right there in software library alone.
Well Sega also released Dreamcast in 1998 while Nintendo didn't release Gamecube until 2001. The final Japanese N64 game was released in 2001.
Hayama Akito
Member
No, i am pretty sure they had more. I remember watching on Nico Douga about a franchise based on an anime series with mahjong battles. N64 also has a lot of Go and other Japanese board games, maybe i need to insert all those games in my "60 titles" comment.
Yes, is true, but it had some sale moments, the nail in the coffin was the PS2.
A Black Falcon
Member
If this is even remotely true then a LOT of games must be missing here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/n64/list-227 Otherwise, you're remembering it wrong.
That was true here as well, but in the US the DC actually was doing okay for a while, before the PS2. I think that in Japan it never was, beyond its small seriously hardcore fanbase who kept buying dating sims and shmups for years after its discontinuation.
Yeah, the Saturn did well in Japan from launch until early '97, but things started turning around after FF7's release and the announcement that DQ7 would be a PS1 game. As for which system lasted longer in Japan, though, when did the last Saturn game release? The N64 had about five years of first party support, and 5 1/2 yeras of third party support, in Japan (July '96 to June '01 for first party, and to December '01 for third party). The Saturn had four years of first party support (Dec. '94 to Dec. '98, but when did the last third party game release? Whether it outlasted N64 or not, launch-aligned, depends on how far into 2000 its last game released.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Heres the list of sega saturn games. since the guy didnt go and add what the total number is aint gonna count this myself. But can say for sure that the sega saturn outnumbers the N64s library by far. Esp with how many games were actually good.
Will remove that other number from previous post.
Will remove that other number from previous post.
Blergmeister
Member
In a way the N64 was the precurser for the original Xbox. People had it for multi player and for shooters.
Japan traditionally cared about JRPGs which went to the PS1 due to the disk drive (among other reasons.)
So the shooter box did well in America while the JRPG box did well in Japan.
Japan traditionally cared about JRPGs which went to the PS1 due to the disk drive (among other reasons.)
So the shooter box did well in America while the JRPG box did well in Japan.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Not really, they just dont care about the Zelda franchise all that much period. Its the West that has the infatuation with the series really. Over here they just like Mario / Mario Kart really. Metroid, Star Fox, F-Zero really isnt all that popular either.
You should have seen how fast the last 2 zelda games on the handhelds went to wagon sale. Esp the one with the train spirit tracks? Oh man that shit was in the bargin bin faster than greased lightning.
Hayama Akito
Member
Interesting, i will check it out! because i saw those games in the N64 Zen Soft Catalog in Nico Douga (全ソフトカタログ
but maybe i'm wrong. I was impressed when i saw too many board games on those series.I know, i was one of them (lol).
bishopcruz
Member
That is an interesting point, I just read that History of the N64 article, and the focus on B-tier western devs is interesting. The fact that no Japanese developers were on this "dream team" is interesting as well.
The question then is, were relations with Japanese third parties so strained by this point that no one wanted on board, even early on? Or was Shu Yoshida just so damn good at his job that he had them all lined up, and Sega had the rest?
Another idea might be what kind of impact the backing out of the Sony CD-ROM deal had with the industry as a whole. I have heard it was considered extremely bad form in the business magazines there at the time, and as such really hurt their image. Was ther an impression that Nintendo couldn't be trusted?
Yeah, I very much get the impression that Yamauchi was a crazy person. It's incredible that Nintendo was able to gain the success it did for 10 years treating third parties like shit if that was the case though. I know the SFC didn't do as well as the Famicom overall, but how much of a threat was NEC at that time. I have heard different stories with the PC-Engine being a smash hit, to the PC-Engine being a very strong niche. How well did the CD-ROM2 and its offshoots sell?
Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.
bishopcruz
Member
Fire Emblem is still popular there as well no? I also thought the Famicom/Advance wars series was also big.
Another interesting thing that has come out in this thread is Nintendo's image as a kiddie company. I had assumed this was a western invention, but knowing that it was the case in Japan as well is quite curious. When did this start, and was it an issue during the 16 bit era?
This is the reason why I bought a N64. My taste with 8 years were terrible.
ROM-based cartridge manufacturing was a terrible ordeal for publishers. They were not just expensive, but the lead times between placement of an order and stuff leaving the factory could be several months. It made it extremely hard to do timely sales-based restocks, or to produce just the right amount for launch in the first place. The only rational choice is to guess conservatively and produce few units, and never restock.
You could see some of the same effects on the GBA and to a lesser extent the NDS. I.e. if you were not Pokemon or Mario or Dragon Quest, if your game was sold out once, it was never coming back. Ever. Good for collectors, awful for everyone else.
You could see some of the same effects on the GBA and to a lesser extent the NDS. I.e. if you were not Pokemon or Mario or Dragon Quest, if your game was sold out once, it was never coming back. Ever. Good for collectors, awful for everyone else.
N64 had a lot of good PC ports for its time though like the ID games and it had the only console port of Starcraft.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Fire Emblem the latest one was pretty popular. The others am not too sure on numbers. From what I understand though is that the hardcore followers are the main purchasing power behind that series.
Advance Wars is more big in the west really.
They did get stuck with that image, but seems that its kinda softened with all the titles they have let come out on the handhelds mainly from the GBA era things improved and even further in the DS. 3DS took a while for devs to transition over from the DS when it was doing so well as is plus with the large userbase too. Seeing how slow the 3DS was initially had a lot wary to be the first ones through the door. Though thats all changed now that the platform has legs and a decent backing of titles.
The consoles on the other hand just really seem to be platforms for mario & other nintendo IPs more than anything else. Looking at the history from a gamers perspective you can see the pattern of general "fire & forget" that nintendo does with their consoles. If we as the consumers can see this its only 10 fold on the side of development, which explains why everyone is so wary with jumping on board. Esp can be seen now with the WiiU over here.
JordanN
Banned
It's amusing how Nintendo's systems have performed better in the West but they still throw themselves head over heels for Japan. /commentary
But the lack of RPG's was really dumb. Nintendo would have to be either naive or super arrogant to miss that (but this was something going on since the SNES days so being naive might not be an excuse).
But the lack of RPG's was really dumb. Nintendo would have to be either naive or super arrogant to miss that (but this was something going on since the SNES days so being naive might not be an excuse).
BlastProcessed
Neo Member
Saturn had arcade games, like Virtua Fighter 2 which was huge in Japan. Shumps like Radiant Silvergun, the best fighting game ports, RPGs, and lots of niche games that Japan loved. It's ironic how well the Saturn did over there compared to the US. Still one of the most under-appreciated consoles of all time by the general gaming community.
A Black Falcon
Member
Well, some of the "Dream Team" studios were A-tier and some were B-tier (I'd definitely call Midway an A-tier publisher that generation, and Lucasarts as well), but yeah, they were all Western. Quite significant fact.
That's a good question. Nintendo started to repair its Japanese relationships with the Gamecube, but as I've explained in detail before, the tragedy is that while doing so they abandoned almost all of their Western relationships, both second and third party. I think that that was a pretty serious mistake; yes, Microsoft's entry took away the shooter fans and maybe Nintendo couldn't have stopped that, but they could have at least TRIED to hold on to something, instead of just abandoning it all, from Rare to Factor 5. I quite dislike many of their decisions there. But the Japanese relationships they built were key to their recovery in Japan with the DS and Wii, so the move helped them there for sure, at least... but the cost overseas didn't have to happen, it's not like Nintendo couldn't afford to do both! They have money. I know Nintendo built up Retro and kept NST, but those are much smaller than the teams that preceded them, and Nintendo has nothing like a Midway now, in terms of Western third-party support.
The changes for Nintendo have been good as well as bad, I just wish that they could have somehow had both (good Japanese AND Western support). Ah well.
Good question, though the media format itself (that is, that CDs were more suited to RPGs, which has been Japan's favorite genre for decades) was probably more significant, I'd guess.
Yamauchi wasn't crazy, he was a great businessman. Remember that he came in as the head of a playing card company, and retired the richest man in Japan (for a while)... he clearly was a great businessman.
As for the PCE, finding accurate PCE/TG16 sales numbers is surprisingly difficult. It sold some number of millions worldwide, maybe 6-10 million range, with probably a million at most (all systems combined) in the US. How much exactly in Japan? I don't know. It definitely was competition for the SNES, and finished well above the Genesis in Japan, but the SNES did win big overall... it wasn't like the West, where there were two very close systems. It was less of a blowout than the NES, but still NIntendo won by a lot in Japan. Still, it would be great to know how much the PCE systems added together ACTUALLY sold.
Yamauchi said one time in an interview that they didn't need RPGs because they were for social outcasts , he also said when asked if Square were ever to return to Nintendo , "We don't have a contract with Square and its unlikely that we ever will again". At the time the GBA had just come out and Square wanted in that market badly. Square didn't come back until Iwata took over.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Me too! All my friends at school had PS1s and talking about Final Fantasy 7 and 8 and shit, I was like "yeah whatever I got Quest 64 hold dat shit!"
;_;
(but they all came to my house to play Goldeneye and Smash Bros, so fuck yeah)
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Its a Japanese born & bred company. There is no reason as to why their main focus shouldnt be Japan initially. They got lucky with the Wii, but generally a huge amount of cash also came from the explosion of the DS which started from the brain age series which got the system into the hands of the general public. Then from there those people wandered out into other titles. From that sparked the huge developer support which really pushed the DS into the limelight. Though for some reason the DS never really caught on in the west which a lot of gamers in the know were distraught over seeing how many titles japan had vs the US. Hell even the 3DS is still treated like a red headed stepchild. Where in Japan its going on the same route as the DS did now that more folks are onboard with the system as the DS's days of glory have passed.
it was a smash hit insofar that it was the only console to actually capture any sort of marketshare against Nintendo when they illegally monopolized the game market in Japan. the problem with the PC-Engine is that it didn't have really good third party support in it's earlier years with most developers dreading ever "betraying" nintendo. Most games that were from third-party properties (e.g. Son Son, Pac-Land, Galaga '88) were licensed and ported/developed in-house by NEC Avenue.
Because of FFVII.
I remember that, we all thought it was to be FFVII for a good while, but it was just a tech demo of what Nintendo had and those were FFVI characters ie: Locke, Terra and Shadow.
But yeah cartridge was the decision that made Square and then the rest flock to Sony. One Final Fantasy went there everyone followed.
bishopcruz
Member
It very well could have been an issue like what Sony had with the Vita, Nintendo simply assumed support. As far as the dream team games, I still woul dhave loved to have seen that Robotech one, sigh, high school me is sad again.
You make an interesting point. N64 seemed very western focused, and Gamecube was very Japan focused, even though it did worse in all territories than the N64 did. It looks like at times Nintendo has a very bad case of tunnel vision, and locks down one one particular thing is considers important to the near exclusion of all else.
Was there an issue with third parties when it came to the GBA? It seemed they had great Japanese support on that little beast throughout its lifespan, and that continued on to the DS. Gamecube was huge improvement as car as Eastern third parties was concerned.
The changes for Nintendo have been good as well as bad, I just wish that they could have somehow had both (good Japanese AND Western support). Ah well.
But the fact that Nintendo ended up never going with CDs can pretty much be traced back to the horrible handling of the CD-ROM add ons and its desire for complete control over every part of the equation. We've discussed that a lot in this other thread. and that lead me to making this thread.
Being a crazy person does not mean you're a bad business man. Sometimes it's quite a boon. The man had balls of steel no one can deny it, but he definitely had problems in dealing with partners, he was very much about the stick, and not the carrot from everything I have read.
It really is a shame, PCE was this weird middle ground between the Japanese PC market and the consoles. The sheer number of CD-ROM games suggest a massive attach rate of the peripheral though. I wish we knew more. Nintendo clearly took the 16 bit era, but the NEC was a hell of a plucky upstart.
IHaveCandy
Banned
Nintendo was not e.
Fire Emblem always had it's audience but it wasn't massive. It was that loyal niche base that Nintendo could cater too and depend on for some good sales without putting in huge resources towards it.
In fact Nintendo gave the studio that developed FE: Awakening one main instruction, make a game that could sell over 200,000 copies. If it failed to do so then the franchise was likely over. The game was great, did good business over there and I think actually did superior over here.
sixteen-bit
Member
Final Fight Revenge came out on March 30, 2000. I don't think that was the last 3rd-party game but it was one of the last.
The 64 DD is what us gamers like to call "epic fail"
Zoe
Member
Mahjong is not "4 player games." It's a very specific kind of game, and while it's understandable to not know how it's played, you'd have to have been living under a rock to have never even heard of it before.
bishopcruz
Member
See this is stuff I wish we had some more concrete information on. I've read things that suggest that Nintendo was nearly as draconian with the Famicom as it was with the NES, yet I have also read things that suggest that it was nearly as open as the 2600 ended up becoming as there was very little control over how carts were produced and how they were locked out.
I know 3rd party support was painful for the PCE, especially when it came to HuCards. Was there something special about the CD-ROM add on that allowed for more companies to jump on board without pissing off the big N?
JordanN
Banned
I see it as missed market opportunity. They had more presence where it would actually make money for them. Japan's industry was (or is) shrinking so it seems weird to devote so much resources if you're not into the idea of pride.
Of course, for the handhelds it makes sense (but that's because that's where the support is) but for home consoles? Uhhh....
Ultimately this. While more powerful, games were easier to produce and develop on CDs.
Final Fantasy VII being the big defector.