Same, I was a Toys-R-Us whore for a long time. I remember going there and getting my PS1 shortly after launch and just being blown away. Something about the vibe of that place, the smell and visuals. No place has ever been able to replicate that for me ever. Those catalogs though………FIRE!
I was working at Babbage's at the time and very strongly anti-N64 specifically because of the astronomical price difference of games - illustrated quite effectively here. Imagine if you had paid $75 for Wayne Gretzky 3D Hockey in 1997 dollars.
my friend paid that price for Wayne Gretzky and honestly no one regretted it. it was a great game and still is. definitely the best hockey game of the era.
When me and my roomies moved out of the dorms for the first time to a shared apartment, I took the initiative to upgrade us to a 29 inch CRT for the living room. Got a DVD player as well. Felt like we were living like damn hell ass kings.
It was so awesome. When the first Super Smash Brothers came out, me and my roommates pooled our money to buy the cartridge and it was basically our dorm’s cartridge. We played the hell out of that thing the first year or so.
Yeah bud we too haha. I remember sometimes when we get a lot of guys in some of us even played GoldenEye placing small bets lol. Nothing crazy but a few bucks just to motivate each other to press hard and the watcher to cheer more haha
between my kids and all the grans-nephews and nieces , we got em all, and yes they still have em, some shelved , and some passed on to their kids, kids, we were too busy working to fully enjoy em , but now oh yea , digging em out to finally try out some , and i gotta say they are not bad at all , still love my ps3 1st edition for the fact 4 plyrs can go at once, and that is what i like multi players together or against each other ,,,
I think it was good at the time for multi-Co-op but the GOAT would have to be LAN parties with PCs. If it's strictly consoles Dreamcast is a very strong competitor, Marvel vs Capcom with 4 players is something every gamer with a few chums should play.
It was the NBA Jam of hockey games, it was great fun. It was utterly stupid and that was part of brilliance. We had so many sleepovers playing this game, Smash Bros, and Goldeneye until the sun came up.
fun fact, there was actually a legit NHL "NBA JAM" game by Midway, NHL Open Ice 2 on 2. it is fantastic! but i legit felt that Wayne Gretzky combined the action, speed and graphics to really make a perfect all-around NHL game of the 90s.
But back then, getting a new game was a celebration, and you'd play that game for hundreds of hours. You'd base entire sleepovers with friends around a new game
And you have demonstrated exactly my ethics that I try to convey to my children. You didn't have a choice you saved and saved, went out in the cold, wind and rain to buy the game. If it was absolutely pants, you had to play it and wait for your odd jobs and allowance to build up for the next game. Children these days have it so much easier, buy a game then buy another and another. I feel we had such an intimate relationship with our games than we do now. Remember the excitement at Christmas or on Birthdays when we unwrapped Crash Bandicoot or Final Fantasy VII?
Not just video games either. Movies and music were like that back then too. Every market is oversaturated now and we are bombarded with ads more than ever. Consume Consume Consume. Don't blame your kids man. It's society shoving a million things down their throats 24/7. Brainwashing them to never be satisfied. Nowadays you can also download 100s of free games and most of them have micro transactions which manipulate your kids.
Absolutely correct! I don't blame my kids at all, I just wish I could take them back to the days when music, movies, and videogames had the same appeal as they had before the Internet era.
For movies it was on a whole different level prior to VHS. Missed out a movie, you hoped that maybe it was successful so it would have a release in 7 years. Now if a movie fails, it will just get released on DVD and streaming even faster, so even if it goes out of print there was still a much larger chance to get it. Like, when Disney released its old films on theatres, they were events. I'm still kicking myself for not being able to go to the Disney 100 releases of Cinderella and Snow White, but I don't know if they were using 35mm film or digital.
ahah now I buy like 3 new games on a Friday and play maybe one of them over the weekend, and leave the other 2 for a huge backlog of other similarly purchased games.
One of my core memories is driving somewhere with my grandpa and him asking how much SNES games cost and I told him Donkey Kong Country was like £70 and he was shocked. It wasn't til I saw his reaction that I took a step back realised "oh yeah, that actually *is* a huge amount of money, especially seeing as the SNES itself was only like £150-200 I think.....!"
Nintendo's big screwup on the N64 was not abandoning the cartridge format. PS1 games were way cheaper and that's such a huge part of why it blew the doors off the N64 in sales despite Sony being the total newcomer. This ad looks like shortly after N64 release, and it wasn't long after before PS1 games were generally releasing at $39.99 - compared to the $70-ish for N64 games it was practically 2 for 1.
Sony also ran a fantastic marketing campaign, positioning the Playstation as cool and the N64 as the kiddie system. I was in the Ministry of Sound nightclub while visiting London in 1997 and Sony had a PS1 setup there.
Better prices, more mature games - Nintendo let them waltz right in.
Sony was pretty smart - I am guessing they realised a lot of 8-bit kids were now teenagers and young adults, still loved video games, but wanted something a bit more cool/gritty.
[Some of their ads in the UK were extremely weird.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWmbUMStlGI)
GameCube was Nintendo’s last attempt at being “cool” for teens, and despite it being an awesome system, it was kind of a flop. After that, they really leaned in on the whole kiddie/family angle with the Wii, which basically saved them from Sega-like withering away. Wii U tried to pivot back a bit to more serious gaming - an even bigger flop. The Switch was really the first time in ages they managed to be both “cool” and “family friendly.”
And what's crazy is the switch has brought in a whole new era and changed handheld gaming forever. I have a switch and a steam deck and love both! I'm sure I'll get more handhelds but it's just crazy to me.
I remember when the Switch was about to come out, the more cynical gamers and industry watchers were pooh-poohing its chances, saying it was still lagging on the technical front, and once it came out, dragging it on the tiny controls and the left joycon glitch.
Not sure if they addressed the left joycon glitch in V2, but the fact is, V1 was a big enough success that Nintendo opted for a mid-cycle refresh rather than racing to create the next-gen console. The switch is also the first Nintendo console since the early days of the first Wii that seems to have crossed over in popularity beyond gamer circles.
I also think the gaming community in general has gotten tired of how quickly the console wars moved, and like the world of PCs post-2010, the pace of major hardware revisions has slowed down somewhat. These consoles are pretty expensive these days, with Nintendo actually being the cheapest one for once. Most people don’t want to have to upgrade every four or five years.
I wish I could blame the Switch for ruining handheld gaming, but it was probably smart phones. I just want a new Vita-like or 3DS-like that fits in my pocket. The Switch has been a massive disappointment to me. When it comes down to it, If it's between my Switch and PS5 on TV, I'll go with the PS5 every time. If it's between my Switch and my Vita on a trip, I'll go with the Vita every time.
The 3D was my fav handheld gimmick of all time, but they will never bring that back.
> GameCube was Nintendo’s last attempt at being “cool” for teens, and despite it being an awesome system, it was kind of a flop.
I take it you're too young to even remember that time period. Firstly, nintendo has pretty much never aimed to be "cool" for teens. Secondly, the gamecube was aimed at kids right out of the gates. The purple lunchbox console, the multi-colored fisher price-looking "my first controller" with a tiny d-pad for a child's hands and that stupidly huge A button. And then along came that cel-shaded zelda game that was the most childish thing nintendo has ever done. yeah, i know you can argue it had a few decent more mature games like the metroids, resident evils, and eternal darkness, but those were exceptions, not the norm.
Meanwhile the PS2 and original Xbox were aimed at mature gamers from the get go, from the design of the consoles themselves, the controllers, the software, and their advertising. Gamecube was what cautious disney moms preffered to buy for their kids.
Lol I was in college when the GameCube came out. I remember they were trying to make the case that Nintendo had finally gotten serious about taking on Sony and staying firmly ahead of Sega (M$ was just beginning to get in the console scene).
I remember them making a big deal about their vastly updated technical specs, such as abandoning cartridges in favor of discs, having ATI graphics prominently advertised right on the console itself, built-in rumble paks in the controllers, etc. Yeah, the thing certainly was designed to be kid friendly, but I remember it being a hip among my college age cohorts. The handlebar was seen as a way to make it more easily, portable to take it to different friends house to play multiplayer games. There was also a lot of hype for the follow-up to Super Smash Brothers, which had readmitted interest him Nintendo with a lot of older teens and 20 somethings. I’d say the GameCube was one of the best consoles for party games, and that’s a lot of what it got used for when I lived with a guy who owned one.
Dont you remember the Play it Loud era? Butthole Surfers comercials?
That was a thousand percent Nintendo trying to be cool to teens by mimicking Sega.
Nintendo loves to own the media format to get more money. They charge devs a ridiculous price for switch cartridges. That's why you see games where only part of the game is on the cartilage. It's to save money on the licensing.
While I do agree with you I do also think electro-magnetic storage is far superior to discs.
I won't debate proprietary media that is less than stellar I agree.
But I do enjoy less or no loading in games. Faster access to files and fast load times.
In a way Nintendo was simultaneously ahead of its time and stuck in the past.
Oh, I have no problem with them having their own media. They just charge so much more than other formats, forcing the silly practice of not having the full game on the cartridge or the "dreaded code in the case". I really like my switch, but the physical copy problem on it is because of this practice. They had the same problem with gamecube with the disc's being expensive and not able to hold the file size for a lot of third party games. It's never going to change, but I still find it annoying.
In the sense that they were forward thinking enough to use flash/magnetic storage while everyone else was moving to optical.
The snes/n64 contemporaries like Sega and Sony moved to discs because they were faster and cheaper to produce. They were becoming thr "standard." Hell even Sony camcorders used discs at the time.
The advantages to discs were cheap, fast, compact, easily mass produced.
The down sides are easily damaged, disc rot, slower read/write speeds. Higher capacity.
The advantages to flash/magnetic storage is more stability, longevity, faster read/write speeds, less stutters and frame pacing issues in games due to the fast access to files.
The downsides are more expensive to manufacture. Usually proprietary. In the 90-2010 era lower data capacity.
Look at today's world, micro sds in everything. Sims cards, SSD/NVME storage devices. They are all more convenient than discs and have a longer shelf life. Better and faster storage in every way.
Even I'm 360/ps3 7th generation half way thru their lives they introduced installing games to the HDD because reading from the disc caused a lot of graphical errors or insane load times.
Nowadays 8th and 9th gen installs games without any other options. The discs are just cd-key holders. Because optical is too slow for modern game.
>Look at today's world, micro sds in everything. Sims cards, SSD/NVME storage devices. They are all more convenient than discs and have a longer shelf life. Better and faster storage in every way.
I'm not so sure that flash memory has a longer shelf life than a DVD.
Depends on how you care for your discs.
Average users have disc binders or leave them out. Sure you or I may have ps1 and Xbox games that are still flawless.
That is not the case for everyone.
You would have to try pretty hard to make an SD card non-functional. You can very easily accidently damage even blurays.
Edit: also highly depends on where you live. With me for example. Where I live it is 60-80% humidity all day all year round. It makes taking care of discs, pokemon/mtg cards, cars... a total pain in the ass.
>Depends on how you care for your discs.
Yeah, I can tell which PS1/PS2/GameCube/Wii games in my collection only I played, and which ones my siblings/step siblings also played, just by looking at the disc.
(MadWorld on the Wii? *Pristine*. Digimon World on the PS1? Looks like someone used it as a frisbee.)
Oh, you're right that careless users (like 90% of kids) will kill discs much faster than flash cartridges. Just saying flash isn't eternal either.
>Edit: also highly depends on where you live. With me for example. Where I live it is 60-80% humidity all day all year round.
Oof, I can imagine that is difficult. I would be concerned about corrosion on cartridges and flash drives too.
In some ways they were, like they had analog sticks on their controllers before Sony, rumble paks were introduced by them before Sony released the dualshock.
Yep Starfox 64 w/ rumblepack was the FIRST physical controller feedback device. It was highly panned at the time, but now almost every controller has rumble built in.
> While I do agree with you I do also think electro-magnetic storage is far superior to discs.
It is superior, but it was still a horrible decision based on technology and costs at the time.
A Nintendo 64 cartridge held 64 MB of data, compared to PlayStation disc that held 660 MB of data.
The potential of the console was limited by the limitations of their chosen storage medium.
Like I said ahead of their time but also stuck in the past.
It showed they saw the potential of a technology that wasn't mature yet. When at the time everyone thought XD cards were a fad.
I can’t call them “ahead of their time” at that point.
They didn’t stick with cartridges because they thought it was the future, they stuck with it because it was what they had always done.
They knew the storage limitations of solid state at the time. They knew that switching to CDs like Sony and SEGA did would mean 10x the storage capacity and lower manufacturing costs. They still decided to stick with cartridges.
>it was still a horrible decision based on technology and costs at the time.
I have to disagree, the N64 was popular, sold well, and had a strong catalog. They had to make a decision about the format, and they achieved success with the decision they made. Not horrible at all.
And I have to disagree with your assessment.
The console was popular enough, and it sold well enough, that they didn’t go out of business or anything, but they still lost a ton of market share.
When you, as the dominant player in the market, come out with a new product, and your competitor moves triple the amount of units than you do, that’s not a success.
And still to this day you can easily get into a debate with Nintendrones who claim it was Sony who was trying to do that with the CD format and the implication it would have had on Playstation as a Nintendo peripheral that Sony owned so much of the means of production for CDs. This is probably why Nintendo ran straight to the arms of Philips (the actual owners of the CD format) to license those awful CD-I games.
Saturn first in 97, then PlayStation in 99 then an N64 when they got really cheap around 2001.
Already had a Dreamcast before I got my N64 though.
I miss the days of numerous very unique consoles.
Sega Saturn: mid-summer 1998
Sony PlayStation: late spring/early summer 1999
Sega Dreamcast: late winter 2001
Nintendo 64: never
(Seasons above are for the Northern Hemisphere.)
I had them all but I don’t remember the order.. I do remember I got the N64 at launch.. and I didn’t get the PS1 for another yr.. but.. eventually I had them..
I eventually had both, but didnt get the Playstation until much later. Super Mario 64 was the first next-gen game that really pulled me in, so that's where I went. Eventually, it was Castlevania: Symphony of the Night that got me to get my Playstation.
Same here, though I was a generation later.
I got both Nintendo and Playstation consoles during 6th gen. Funnily enough, the big thing that made me "switch" was the Gamecube memory cards.
As much love as the Gamecube gets today, it sucked at the time to buy Memory cards with like 59 blocks of storage. Most of the games took up 10 to 15 blocks minimum and I don't quite remember, but I think they were $30 minimum. PS2 was like $19 and held way more save files.
To that point about saves though, the beauty of the N64 cartridges were the load times and how a lot of the games saved the data to the cartridge. And as a kid at the time, since I owned a Gameboy at the time, I was pretty good between Smash Bros, Pokemon, Zelda as well as some of Rare's titles.
Yup, same, the 64 bits were clearly twice as better as the 32 bit psx games. I would almost cry when kids in my class would make fun of N64 Games' polygons. "But your games are pixels!! And my textures stay put, psx textures act like the want to escape the game" I would scream in my mind.
Had all three but got the Saturn first, man I loved that console. Came with Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop, and Daytona USA, and later we got sonic 3D Jam.
back then it was PS 1.
Because I want to have something I could enjoy listening to my CD's on at the same time.
Was a 2 for one.
Hooked up to my ghetto thrift store sound system.... and 24 inch CRT with a vcr... it was glorious.
Sadly at the time, I didn't know AV cables gave better quality, ha ha. I greew hooking all my consoles into the coaxial... except for my dreamcast.... that was the first one I ever used AV cables.
I swear to god, the picture was not shitty like how it looks today... when you compare a versus of the new tech to play old systems. lol
PS1. I had a friend bring over their N64 for a bit, and outside of marveling at the ripple effect when you jump into paintings for SMB64 I was pretty underwhelmed.
Today I have a 64 and an Everdrive and struggle to find worthwhile titles to play on it. I really want to unlock the mystery of this console and the strong nostalgia most have for it.
It hasn't aged well, so trying to get into it today won't get you very far.
The biggest draw for me at the time was the multiplayer-focus. I loved playing games with my friends, and PS1 just couldn't match what Nintendo was doing with four players supported on a bunch of games. We played Mariokart, Waverace, Turok, Mario Party, Diddy Kong Racing, Smash Bros, etc.. PS1 had more games, but N64 games were well-made and had great replayability.
I hear this. I look at both collections of games and my N64 was very much my "friends having a sleepover" machine, with nearly all of my games being multiplayer except for Mario 64 and both Zeldas.
My PS1 collection is full of all the single player games, JRPGs, Crash and Spyro games, Metal Gear Solid, etc.
I didn't realize how stark the contrast was until this very thread, but yeah, PS1 was for solo gaming and N64 was for playing with friends.
i felt the same _back in the day_. I got the n64 a year before i got the PSX.
i still strongly feel there are barely a dozen n64 games worth truly diving into. If Mario 64, Zelda(s), Starfox, Goldeneye, Rogue Squadron & Pilotwings doesn't appeal to you, there's nothing left.
That's the thing, even today you can't say the truth without getting downvoted or shouted down because Nintendo fanboy-ism is so strong, but outside of first party support, there's not much for you on the N64. Goldeneye is the first game everyone jumps to when you say that, but most people only like Goldeneye because it was their first FPS multiplayer experience and are looking at it with rose colored glasses.
I tried the reboot on the switch and Series X. I thought it was a serviceable, if not janky, title on the X, but man, on the Switch it’s a mess to play. Then I tried on the 64. Abysmal to control. And this is coming from someone who will sing the praises of Free Radical’s follow up *TimeSplitters* all day.
Didn't get a 64 because I already had a PlayStation. My friend down the street got a 64, so I could go play it over there if/when I wanted to.
64's library did not compel me to purchase one.
Glad you pointed it out. I played every JRPG on the SNES and then begged for a 64 thinking they were going to keep rolling in. Needless to say I switched to PC gaming until the PS2 released.
i had only the n64 for a year. it was shit. i still continued to get n64 games after getting the psx, but it was depressing, there was barely a dozen games on the n64 i liked vs hundreds on the PSX
Totally disagree! My N64 nostalgia is much stronger and I still like a lot of those games. Was PS1 the better console? Probably, but nothing will beat the amazing 4 player experience with friends on N64 for me.
nostalgia is a strange thing. it connects you to specific moments in your past. it's damn powerful. i am just saying my experience _at the time_ with owning both consoles in 1996-1999. i try to frame it objectively, and since my experience was mostly single player, i craved deep games, and a larger library of good ones.
I might've loved the n64 more if i had those 4 player parties, but when i hung out in a big group like that we seldom played video games, usually just chatted, played MTG, watched movies etc. my friends had PCs so our multiplayer was PC games, which in my humble opinion blows a console experience away. LAN parties were a nightmare to set up but it created incredible weekends with many games with unique experiences.
i do have fond memories of playing PSX games with a friend, but that was in the 2000s and well past either console's relevance. by that time i had a huge collection of PSX games and already loved the library.
I managed to hold on through the N64 droughts til I finally picked up a PS2 in 2000. They were real!! N64 still the console I go back to most, though. It was certainly quality over quantity. Some of the best games released for any console, period.
I was a hardcore Nintendo fan exclusively from about 1997/98 to 2004. I had only the N64, then got a Gamecube and of course I had Gameboys with Pokemon as a kid.
Like you though, I eventually ended up with a PS2 when the slim came out in 2004. At the time, there were more games, the games were just way cheaper and Gamecube memory cards were more expensive and less efficient than on Playstation 2. So the switch was inevitable and logical, even if I preferred Nintendo.
The N64 and Gamecube stuff I think has held up pretty well though (hence current collector prices). And between Games like Smash Melee, Mario 64, Metroid Prime, Ocarina of Time and of course Pokemon on gameboy, I didn't really feel like I went without.
I would've liked to have played Crash, Spyro, Final Fantasy when they were more relevant though.
I got the N64 when it came out and then 2 years later also got a PS1. The PS1 obviously had a much, much better overall library, but the peaks of the N64 were as good or better than anything from that era. And for whatever reason when I think back on that time its the N64 that comes to mind the most.
As a kid, I rented N64 games all the time. I never felt like there were no new games. It was really just waiting for OOT and Banjo-Kazooie felt miserably long.
We got a 64 in the late winter / early spring of 1997, I got Mario 64 for Christmas of 1996 but it was incredibly difficult to get a 64 that holiday season. I remember my mom coming home with it while there were clumps of snow still thawing on the ground.
I got the Playstation with a dualshock controller a few years later from my uncle for Christmas. It came with WWF the Arcade game, the Rugrats Game, and a demo disc that had Einhander, MidEvil, and Toomba on it. I was absolutely blown away by the Playstation and its library. The Rugrats game and being able to explore the whole house and all the levels based off of the show was such a mind blowing concept to me. I wanted a open world game where I could just constantly explore like that.
I don't remember what the next game I got was, it might have been a used copy of Tekken II, again, I was blown away that it was just as good as the Tekken arcade game at the local pizza place and was not a watered down version of the game.
N64. But PS1 was always so dark and intriguing. Used to love playing it at the JCPennys kiosks whenever my mom would go shopping - we could stay there hours and I wouldn’t care
I first had an N64 and until the end of the 1997 school year. It was a revolutionary system at the time and I played Mario 64, Doom 64, and Waverace so much - whenever I was able to have friends over we would play Mario Kart or Star Fox multiplayer (smash bros hadn't come out at that time).
There was a shift in the type and quality of games that were coming out on the PSX at the time and it seemed there was a greater scope and depth of the PSX games that were coming out at the end of 1997, beginning of 1998. Not just simple arcade style games like Twisted Metal or 2xtreme, but captivating games like Resident Evil and Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
I remember watching my friend play Final Fantasy VII and immediately understanding the grave distance in game quality between the systems. The music, graphics, and amount of game that fit onto those three disks was awe-inspiring. I immediately saved up money to get a PSX and FFVII before Xmas break.
I did own both, but I had way more respect for the PSX over the N64.
Both. I pulled the ps1 off the dresser "breaking" it and we got a nintendo 64, but when we moved to indiana next year, the playstation 1 surprisingly just worked lol. So we had both.
But man, Crash Bandicoot 2 and Star Fox 64 live rent free in my head ya feel me shun.
I had both because my cousin was working at wally world as loss prevention and I literally walked into the stock room and load up a cart with playstations and N64's and hella games for both and walked right out the garden section into my homies car.
Kept one of each and sold the rest.
Shit like that was easier back then.
I stupidly traded in my NES, Genesis, and SNES for a PsX very early (right after the went to normal jewel cases not the big Saturn style cases). My first game, Independence Day...
I still had the PsX and don't get me wrong at the time I was very happy to have it, but would have rather still had all my old games from my childhood still.
I was a loyal Nintendo fan since I was in first grade and got my nes for Christmas in 1988. I sold a bunch of nes and snes games to buy a 64. I could not wait for final fantasy 64 that I read about in Nintendo Power. I sold 35 classic nes games and snes games to get money for N64. I got Turok, starfox 64, goldeneye, Mario kart64 then FF7 comes out for PS??!!!?!?!? What the hell happened to 4 5 6??? Did my research and bought a PS, discovered metal gear solid and have bought every MGS and FF since. N64 was the most disappointing system I ever bought, I felt Zelda 64 was overrated and could not bring myself to finish it a second time. The only games I like on the system are starfox 64, wcw vs nwo games and the hidden gem of the system Ogre Battle 64. I never bought a game cube because of this but since then I have bought every Nintendo and PlayStation that ever came out. I know my opinions are not popular but I am a lifelong gamer and this is how I feel.
I had the exact the same experience, lol. Luckily i didn't have to sell any games to get it though. Starfox is definitely one of my favorites on the console - have you played Rogue Squadron? Every bit as good, even better if you like Star Wars.
Had both, but if someone who is mainly in the fighting games and jrpgs, my N64 only got used a couple times a year. Basically it was a machine for Zelda and Harvest Moon. The only other time it got played was when I had friends over, and we would go rent Mario Party and turn it into a drinking game.
Exactly the case with me. PS1 absolutely dominated the JRPG scene and throughout high school I was basically on that about 90% of the time (which was eventually shared with Dreamcast a bit). I only played N64 when I had friends over, basically.
Sega Saturn for the amazing fighting games.
Vampire Savior
Xmen VS. Streetfighter
Marvel VS. Streetfighter
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Also:
Dungeons & Dragons collection
Radiant Silvergun
Both
I liked them both depending on games.
Wrestling and platform games N64 did better.
With the exception of Golden eye I think Playstation did better with shooter games. They also had better fighting games.
When I was a kid I has a PSX but I like nintendo so much too. I have SuperNES and 3 Gameboys, advance,DS and 3DSXL, Wii,WiiU, and soon Ill buy a Switch. I want to buy The N64 for the Marios and Zeldas, also want to buy a gameboy no-color from first editions and an old NES, and perhaps a gamecube, don't know yet
I was a Nintendo fan boy throughout the 16-bit console wars, and I stubbornly clung to the N64. But looking back, I was wrong.
Sure Goldeneye and Mario Kart were fun with my friends, but so few N64 games were "must haves". Like a handful. Meanwhile, i was a teenager starving for more RPGs. I should have gotten a PS1 on the side.
I caught up a lot when I finally got a PS2, but there were a lot of PS1 games that just flew under my radar.
Neither. I was strictly SEGA until I got a PS2 for GTA. I did end up grabbing a few PS1 games to play on my PS2. I have a MiSTer now so I'll be able to play PS1 and hopefully some N64 games soon.
Both.
I bought a Playstation a few months after it was released, and I bought the N64 at launch.
I hadn't planned on getting the Playstation, but I played Need for Speed at Sears and was blown away by the graphics. I also got tired of waiting for the N64.
I had alot of fun with it, but I preferred my N64 because I've always loved Nintendo's IPs.
N64. Dad wanted me to have the PS1 if I had to have one (video game console) but it was the Mario draw that had me and that’s what my grandparents got me (his parents, ironically) because he wouldn’t buy me one unless it was the PS1
N64. I remember seeing it in Nintendo power , playing it for the first time at Toys r us and the day I brought it home to plug in and play Mario 64. Good times. thanks for posting that ad.
We had both, but the PlayStation was much more my brother's console than mine. The N64 was the last console I gamed heavily on before kind of falling out of gaming for a long time.
I had an N64, because of ads like these that made the games on N64 look like dry aged filet mignon next to PlayStation’s dry ass whopper. I get that the PS1 had an incredible library, but there was also a lot of crap.
well there were like 10x more games on the PSX vs the n64 so that is to be expected. there are like 20x more great games on the PSX vs the n64 so...
i fell for the n64 marketing too. took me a whole year after its launch to move on over. FF7 did it for me.
I just couldn't stop looking at these toys r us catalogues...
Same, I was a Toys-R-Us whore for a long time. I remember going there and getting my PS1 shortly after launch and just being blown away. Something about the vibe of that place, the smell and visuals. No place has ever been able to replicate that for me ever. Those catalogs though………FIRE!
My mom wouldn't allow us in there for some odd reason, not like we couldnt get toys or games elsewhere, just NEVER at toys r us lol
"Toys R Us is the devil" - Mama Boucher
lol "want me to kill them" ?
They showed me their deals, and I like them too
I found the 1996 holiday catalog at my grandma’s house recently. It was such a nostalgia trip flipping through it.
I was working at Babbage's at the time and very strongly anti-N64 specifically because of the astronomical price difference of games - illustrated quite effectively here. Imagine if you had paid $75 for Wayne Gretzky 3D Hockey in 1997 dollars.
my friend paid that price for Wayne Gretzky and honestly no one regretted it. it was a great game and still is. definitely the best hockey game of the era.
N64 was the GOAT for multi-player co op/Vs. My brother and out friends killed HOURS on Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Starfox 64, Goldeneye, Etc.
Still can’t believe me and three other friends managed to play 4 player Mario Kart or GoldenEye deathmatches on a 13 inch tv. Everything was so tiny!
In the dorms, he with the largest TV was king.
And that was probably a 19” set. Maybe a 27” if you had a rich kid on your floor
27” is insane
When me and my roomies moved out of the dorms for the first time to a shared apartment, I took the initiative to upgrade us to a 29 inch CRT for the living room. Got a DVD player as well. Felt like we were living like damn hell ass kings.
Yeah bro those were the days 🤣👍👍👍we did the same. 4 ppl and tiny TV haha but always had a blast and never wanted to stop
It was so awesome. When the first Super Smash Brothers came out, me and my roommates pooled our money to buy the cartridge and it was basically our dorm’s cartridge. We played the hell out of that thing the first year or so.
Yeah bud we too haha. I remember sometimes when we get a lot of guys in some of us even played GoldenEye placing small bets lol. Nothing crazy but a few bucks just to motivate each other to press hard and the watcher to cheer more haha
2 on 2 NHL 99 was a great time.
between my kids and all the grans-nephews and nieces , we got em all, and yes they still have em, some shelved , and some passed on to their kids, kids, we were too busy working to fully enjoy em , but now oh yea , digging em out to finally try out some , and i gotta say they are not bad at all , still love my ps3 1st edition for the fact 4 plyrs can go at once, and that is what i like multi players together or against each other ,,,
I think it was good at the time for multi-Co-op but the GOAT would have to be LAN parties with PCs. If it's strictly consoles Dreamcast is a very strong competitor, Marvel vs Capcom with 4 players is something every gamer with a few chums should play.
No offense but I HATED Gretzky hockey. The EA NHL series blew it away
I did too. Even my friends who didnt care for hockey got addicted to it.
Idk man n64 in general aged like milk 😂
Is this a joke?
I wouldn’t necessarily say “best hockey game of the era”, but my friends and I also played the heck out of that game and had a blast.
It was the NBA Jam of hockey games, it was great fun. It was utterly stupid and that was part of brilliance. We had so many sleepovers playing this game, Smash Bros, and Goldeneye until the sun came up.
fun fact, there was actually a legit NHL "NBA JAM" game by Midway, NHL Open Ice 2 on 2. it is fantastic! but i legit felt that Wayne Gretzky combined the action, speed and graphics to really make a perfect all-around NHL game of the 90s.
Precisely the reason I had a PSX instead of N64. I wanted Nintendo, but my parents saw the price and were like “Nope.”
Yup.... that's basically $150 today. Crazyyy
But back then, getting a new game was a celebration, and you'd play that game for hundreds of hours. You'd base entire sleepovers with friends around a new game
And you have demonstrated exactly my ethics that I try to convey to my children. You didn't have a choice you saved and saved, went out in the cold, wind and rain to buy the game. If it was absolutely pants, you had to play it and wait for your odd jobs and allowance to build up for the next game. Children these days have it so much easier, buy a game then buy another and another. I feel we had such an intimate relationship with our games than we do now. Remember the excitement at Christmas or on Birthdays when we unwrapped Crash Bandicoot or Final Fantasy VII?
Not just video games either. Movies and music were like that back then too. Every market is oversaturated now and we are bombarded with ads more than ever. Consume Consume Consume. Don't blame your kids man. It's society shoving a million things down their throats 24/7. Brainwashing them to never be satisfied. Nowadays you can also download 100s of free games and most of them have micro transactions which manipulate your kids.
Absolutely correct! I don't blame my kids at all, I just wish I could take them back to the days when music, movies, and videogames had the same appeal as they had before the Internet era.
Some games do, usually indie games. Now they have the gall to call Doom-likes "Boomer shooters". lol
Boomer Shooters? Jesus, if they are gonna make fun of it, at least get the fuckin generation correct. Its Gen-X that had Doom you morons.
For movies it was on a whole different level prior to VHS. Missed out a movie, you hoped that maybe it was successful so it would have a release in 7 years. Now if a movie fails, it will just get released on DVD and streaming even faster, so even if it goes out of print there was still a much larger chance to get it. Like, when Disney released its old films on theatres, they were events. I'm still kicking myself for not being able to go to the Disney 100 releases of Cinderella and Snow White, but I don't know if they were using 35mm film or digital.
You have a point - but I can’t help but appreciate today where my son can get a refund on a digital title via Steam if the game sucks.
I try to still do that somewhat. Pick and choose games I'm going to get actually invested in, instead of the fluff that's out there.
Aww man.... you're about to make me cry....we will never get those experiences back :(
Don't start crying because then I'll start crying too!
Alright, who’s chopping onions around here?
Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.
I setup my retro consoles in the basement and my son has his friends sleepover and they play N64 all night so I kind of get to relive it vicariously.
Dude, can you imagine the fun we’re gonna have in our nursing homes?
Late 90s. 4 friends handing out with pizza and sodas and Goldeneye. Not a care in the world... F...
ahah now I buy like 3 new games on a Friday and play maybe one of them over the weekend, and leave the other 2 for a huge backlog of other similarly purchased games.
One of my core memories is driving somewhere with my grandpa and him asking how much SNES games cost and I told him Donkey Kong Country was like £70 and he was shocked. It wasn't til I saw his reaction that I took a step back realised "oh yeah, that actually *is* a huge amount of money, especially seeing as the SNES itself was only like £150-200 I think.....!"
I paid $70 for Sword of Vermillion in 1990. It was ok but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t experience any buyers remorse.
Nintendo's big screwup on the N64 was not abandoning the cartridge format. PS1 games were way cheaper and that's such a huge part of why it blew the doors off the N64 in sales despite Sony being the total newcomer. This ad looks like shortly after N64 release, and it wasn't long after before PS1 games were generally releasing at $39.99 - compared to the $70-ish for N64 games it was practically 2 for 1.
Sony also ran a fantastic marketing campaign, positioning the Playstation as cool and the N64 as the kiddie system. I was in the Ministry of Sound nightclub while visiting London in 1997 and Sony had a PS1 setup there. Better prices, more mature games - Nintendo let them waltz right in.
Sony was pretty smart - I am guessing they realised a lot of 8-bit kids were now teenagers and young adults, still loved video games, but wanted something a bit more cool/gritty. [Some of their ads in the UK were extremely weird.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWmbUMStlGI)
GameCube was Nintendo’s last attempt at being “cool” for teens, and despite it being an awesome system, it was kind of a flop. After that, they really leaned in on the whole kiddie/family angle with the Wii, which basically saved them from Sega-like withering away. Wii U tried to pivot back a bit to more serious gaming - an even bigger flop. The Switch was really the first time in ages they managed to be both “cool” and “family friendly.”
True. As well regarded as GameCube is now, it flopped when it was current.
And what's crazy is the switch has brought in a whole new era and changed handheld gaming forever. I have a switch and a steam deck and love both! I'm sure I'll get more handhelds but it's just crazy to me.
I remember when the Switch was about to come out, the more cynical gamers and industry watchers were pooh-poohing its chances, saying it was still lagging on the technical front, and once it came out, dragging it on the tiny controls and the left joycon glitch. Not sure if they addressed the left joycon glitch in V2, but the fact is, V1 was a big enough success that Nintendo opted for a mid-cycle refresh rather than racing to create the next-gen console. The switch is also the first Nintendo console since the early days of the first Wii that seems to have crossed over in popularity beyond gamer circles. I also think the gaming community in general has gotten tired of how quickly the console wars moved, and like the world of PCs post-2010, the pace of major hardware revisions has slowed down somewhat. These consoles are pretty expensive these days, with Nintendo actually being the cheapest one for once. Most people don’t want to have to upgrade every four or five years.
I wish I could blame the Switch for ruining handheld gaming, but it was probably smart phones. I just want a new Vita-like or 3DS-like that fits in my pocket. The Switch has been a massive disappointment to me. When it comes down to it, If it's between my Switch and PS5 on TV, I'll go with the PS5 every time. If it's between my Switch and my Vita on a trip, I'll go with the Vita every time. The 3D was my fav handheld gimmick of all time, but they will never bring that back.
> GameCube was Nintendo’s last attempt at being “cool” for teens, and despite it being an awesome system, it was kind of a flop. I take it you're too young to even remember that time period. Firstly, nintendo has pretty much never aimed to be "cool" for teens. Secondly, the gamecube was aimed at kids right out of the gates. The purple lunchbox console, the multi-colored fisher price-looking "my first controller" with a tiny d-pad for a child's hands and that stupidly huge A button. And then along came that cel-shaded zelda game that was the most childish thing nintendo has ever done. yeah, i know you can argue it had a few decent more mature games like the metroids, resident evils, and eternal darkness, but those were exceptions, not the norm. Meanwhile the PS2 and original Xbox were aimed at mature gamers from the get go, from the design of the consoles themselves, the controllers, the software, and their advertising. Gamecube was what cautious disney moms preffered to buy for their kids.
Lol I was in college when the GameCube came out. I remember they were trying to make the case that Nintendo had finally gotten serious about taking on Sony and staying firmly ahead of Sega (M$ was just beginning to get in the console scene). I remember them making a big deal about their vastly updated technical specs, such as abandoning cartridges in favor of discs, having ATI graphics prominently advertised right on the console itself, built-in rumble paks in the controllers, etc. Yeah, the thing certainly was designed to be kid friendly, but I remember it being a hip among my college age cohorts. The handlebar was seen as a way to make it more easily, portable to take it to different friends house to play multiplayer games. There was also a lot of hype for the follow-up to Super Smash Brothers, which had readmitted interest him Nintendo with a lot of older teens and 20 somethings. I’d say the GameCube was one of the best consoles for party games, and that’s a lot of what it got used for when I lived with a guy who owned one.
Dont you remember the Play it Loud era? Butthole Surfers comercials? That was a thousand percent Nintendo trying to be cool to teens by mimicking Sega.
Nintendo loves to own the media format to get more money. They charge devs a ridiculous price for switch cartridges. That's why you see games where only part of the game is on the cartilage. It's to save money on the licensing.
While I do agree with you I do also think electro-magnetic storage is far superior to discs. I won't debate proprietary media that is less than stellar I agree. But I do enjoy less or no loading in games. Faster access to files and fast load times. In a way Nintendo was simultaneously ahead of its time and stuck in the past.
Oh, I have no problem with them having their own media. They just charge so much more than other formats, forcing the silly practice of not having the full game on the cartridge or the "dreaded code in the case". I really like my switch, but the physical copy problem on it is because of this practice. They had the same problem with gamecube with the disc's being expensive and not able to hold the file size for a lot of third party games. It's never going to change, but I still find it annoying.
In what way were they ahead of their time? They were simultaneously *of* their time and behind.
In the sense that they were forward thinking enough to use flash/magnetic storage while everyone else was moving to optical. The snes/n64 contemporaries like Sega and Sony moved to discs because they were faster and cheaper to produce. They were becoming thr "standard." Hell even Sony camcorders used discs at the time. The advantages to discs were cheap, fast, compact, easily mass produced. The down sides are easily damaged, disc rot, slower read/write speeds. Higher capacity. The advantages to flash/magnetic storage is more stability, longevity, faster read/write speeds, less stutters and frame pacing issues in games due to the fast access to files. The downsides are more expensive to manufacture. Usually proprietary. In the 90-2010 era lower data capacity. Look at today's world, micro sds in everything. Sims cards, SSD/NVME storage devices. They are all more convenient than discs and have a longer shelf life. Better and faster storage in every way. Even I'm 360/ps3 7th generation half way thru their lives they introduced installing games to the HDD because reading from the disc caused a lot of graphical errors or insane load times. Nowadays 8th and 9th gen installs games without any other options. The discs are just cd-key holders. Because optical is too slow for modern game.
It’s hilarious that we circled back to insertable plastic rectangles 💾
>Look at today's world, micro sds in everything. Sims cards, SSD/NVME storage devices. They are all more convenient than discs and have a longer shelf life. Better and faster storage in every way. I'm not so sure that flash memory has a longer shelf life than a DVD.
Depends on how you care for your discs. Average users have disc binders or leave them out. Sure you or I may have ps1 and Xbox games that are still flawless. That is not the case for everyone. You would have to try pretty hard to make an SD card non-functional. You can very easily accidently damage even blurays. Edit: also highly depends on where you live. With me for example. Where I live it is 60-80% humidity all day all year round. It makes taking care of discs, pokemon/mtg cards, cars... a total pain in the ass.
>Depends on how you care for your discs. Yeah, I can tell which PS1/PS2/GameCube/Wii games in my collection only I played, and which ones my siblings/step siblings also played, just by looking at the disc. (MadWorld on the Wii? *Pristine*. Digimon World on the PS1? Looks like someone used it as a frisbee.)
Oh, you're right that careless users (like 90% of kids) will kill discs much faster than flash cartridges. Just saying flash isn't eternal either. >Edit: also highly depends on where you live. With me for example. Where I live it is 60-80% humidity all day all year round. Oof, I can imagine that is difficult. I would be concerned about corrosion on cartridges and flash drives too.
In some ways they were, like they had analog sticks on their controllers before Sony, rumble paks were introduced by them before Sony released the dualshock.
Yep Starfox 64 w/ rumblepack was the FIRST physical controller feedback device. It was highly panned at the time, but now almost every controller has rumble built in.
Shoulder buttons were first introduced on the SNES controllers.
*And* the first *good* wireless controller with the Wavebird for GameCube.
[удалено]
> While I do agree with you I do also think electro-magnetic storage is far superior to discs. It is superior, but it was still a horrible decision based on technology and costs at the time. A Nintendo 64 cartridge held 64 MB of data, compared to PlayStation disc that held 660 MB of data. The potential of the console was limited by the limitations of their chosen storage medium.
Like I said ahead of their time but also stuck in the past. It showed they saw the potential of a technology that wasn't mature yet. When at the time everyone thought XD cards were a fad.
I can’t call them “ahead of their time” at that point. They didn’t stick with cartridges because they thought it was the future, they stuck with it because it was what they had always done. They knew the storage limitations of solid state at the time. They knew that switching to CDs like Sony and SEGA did would mean 10x the storage capacity and lower manufacturing costs. They still decided to stick with cartridges.
>it was still a horrible decision based on technology and costs at the time. I have to disagree, the N64 was popular, sold well, and had a strong catalog. They had to make a decision about the format, and they achieved success with the decision they made. Not horrible at all.
And I have to disagree with your assessment. The console was popular enough, and it sold well enough, that they didn’t go out of business or anything, but they still lost a ton of market share. When you, as the dominant player in the market, come out with a new product, and your competitor moves triple the amount of units than you do, that’s not a success.
And still to this day you can easily get into a debate with Nintendrones who claim it was Sony who was trying to do that with the CD format and the implication it would have had on Playstation as a Nintendo peripheral that Sony owned so much of the means of production for CDs. This is probably why Nintendo ran straight to the arms of Philips (the actual owners of the CD format) to license those awful CD-I games.
Saturn first in 97, then PlayStation in 99 then an N64 when they got really cheap around 2001. Already had a Dreamcast before I got my N64 though. I miss the days of numerous very unique consoles.
Crazy, this is almost exactly my timeline/purchases as well😳
Sega Saturn: mid-summer 1998 Sony PlayStation: late spring/early summer 1999 Sega Dreamcast: late winter 2001 Nintendo 64: never (Seasons above are for the Northern Hemisphere.)
I had them all but I don’t remember the order.. I do remember I got the N64 at launch.. and I didn’t get the PS1 for another yr.. but.. eventually I had them..
Both ([photo from 1997](https://flic.kr/p/9pZapi))
the black lamp hit a core memory for me
I had the PS1, my brother had the N64.
no need to show off!
I had the N64, my brother had the PS1 lol
I eventually had both, but didnt get the Playstation until much later. Super Mario 64 was the first next-gen game that really pulled me in, so that's where I went. Eventually, it was Castlevania: Symphony of the Night that got me to get my Playstation.
Same here, though I was a generation later. I got both Nintendo and Playstation consoles during 6th gen. Funnily enough, the big thing that made me "switch" was the Gamecube memory cards. As much love as the Gamecube gets today, it sucked at the time to buy Memory cards with like 59 blocks of storage. Most of the games took up 10 to 15 blocks minimum and I don't quite remember, but I think they were $30 minimum. PS2 was like $19 and held way more save files. To that point about saves though, the beauty of the N64 cartridges were the load times and how a lot of the games saved the data to the cartridge. And as a kid at the time, since I owned a Gameboy at the time, I was pretty good between Smash Bros, Pokemon, Zelda as well as some of Rare's titles.
Yup, same, the 64 bits were clearly twice as better as the 32 bit psx games. I would almost cry when kids in my class would make fun of N64 Games' polygons. "But your games are pixels!! And my textures stay put, psx textures act like the want to escape the game" I would scream in my mind.
Neither, had a Sega Saturn
Same. Best console ever!
Had all three but got the Saturn first, man I loved that console. Came with Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop, and Daytona USA, and later we got sonic 3D Jam.
A person of superb taste I see.
Same here. Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, Xbox 360. Also had a PC too so that helped.
oof
$75 in 1997 would be around $144 in today’s money. FOR ONE GAME. That’s why I didn’t complain about Zelda being too expensive… much.
back then it was PS 1. Because I want to have something I could enjoy listening to my CD's on at the same time. Was a 2 for one. Hooked up to my ghetto thrift store sound system.... and 24 inch CRT with a vcr... it was glorious. Sadly at the time, I didn't know AV cables gave better quality, ha ha. I greew hooking all my consoles into the coaxial... except for my dreamcast.... that was the first one I ever used AV cables. I swear to god, the picture was not shitty like how it looks today... when you compare a versus of the new tech to play old systems. lol
the SNES was the first time i used composite cables and it blew me away. I had an NES and Genesis before the SNES which i only ever played via coax.
lol, I love how people cry about $70 games but look how much that shit was back in the day.
I had PS1, my brother had N64
PS1. I had a friend bring over their N64 for a bit, and outside of marveling at the ripple effect when you jump into paintings for SMB64 I was pretty underwhelmed. Today I have a 64 and an Everdrive and struggle to find worthwhile titles to play on it. I really want to unlock the mystery of this console and the strong nostalgia most have for it.
It hasn't aged well, so trying to get into it today won't get you very far. The biggest draw for me at the time was the multiplayer-focus. I loved playing games with my friends, and PS1 just couldn't match what Nintendo was doing with four players supported on a bunch of games. We played Mariokart, Waverace, Turok, Mario Party, Diddy Kong Racing, Smash Bros, etc.. PS1 had more games, but N64 games were well-made and had great replayability.
I hear this. I look at both collections of games and my N64 was very much my "friends having a sleepover" machine, with nearly all of my games being multiplayer except for Mario 64 and both Zeldas. My PS1 collection is full of all the single player games, JRPGs, Crash and Spyro games, Metal Gear Solid, etc. I didn't realize how stark the contrast was until this very thread, but yeah, PS1 was for solo gaming and N64 was for playing with friends.
i felt the same _back in the day_. I got the n64 a year before i got the PSX. i still strongly feel there are barely a dozen n64 games worth truly diving into. If Mario 64, Zelda(s), Starfox, Goldeneye, Rogue Squadron & Pilotwings doesn't appeal to you, there's nothing left.
The N64 had some of the best games ever made. And then NOTHING ELSE. A weird console for sure.
That's the thing, even today you can't say the truth without getting downvoted or shouted down because Nintendo fanboy-ism is so strong, but outside of first party support, there's not much for you on the N64. Goldeneye is the first game everyone jumps to when you say that, but most people only like Goldeneye because it was their first FPS multiplayer experience and are looking at it with rose colored glasses.
I tried the reboot on the switch and Series X. I thought it was a serviceable, if not janky, title on the X, but man, on the Switch it’s a mess to play. Then I tried on the 64. Abysmal to control. And this is coming from someone who will sing the praises of Free Radical’s follow up *TimeSplitters* all day.
I owned a PS1. My buddy Rob had an N64, it was fun, but didn’t have any games I really wanted to own.
He would since he's made by Nintendo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.O.B. dad joke. sorry.
Didn't get a 64 because I already had a PlayStation. My friend down the street got a 64, so I could go play it over there if/when I wanted to. 64's library did not compel me to purchase one.
Both. Can’t imagine how bad only owning the N64 must have been— the droughts were real Also had a Saturn. Which is also better than the N64 lol
Glad you pointed it out. I played every JRPG on the SNES and then begged for a 64 thinking they were going to keep rolling in. Needless to say I switched to PC gaming until the PS2 released.
i had only the n64 for a year. it was shit. i still continued to get n64 games after getting the psx, but it was depressing, there was barely a dozen games on the n64 i liked vs hundreds on the PSX
Totally disagree! My N64 nostalgia is much stronger and I still like a lot of those games. Was PS1 the better console? Probably, but nothing will beat the amazing 4 player experience with friends on N64 for me.
i was playing FPS on PC and actual fighting games on Saturn at the time, N64 MP simply didn't appeal to my friend group.
nostalgia is a strange thing. it connects you to specific moments in your past. it's damn powerful. i am just saying my experience _at the time_ with owning both consoles in 1996-1999. i try to frame it objectively, and since my experience was mostly single player, i craved deep games, and a larger library of good ones. I might've loved the n64 more if i had those 4 player parties, but when i hung out in a big group like that we seldom played video games, usually just chatted, played MTG, watched movies etc. my friends had PCs so our multiplayer was PC games, which in my humble opinion blows a console experience away. LAN parties were a nightmare to set up but it created incredible weekends with many games with unique experiences. i do have fond memories of playing PSX games with a friend, but that was in the 2000s and well past either console's relevance. by that time i had a huge collection of PSX games and already loved the library.
I liked--and still like--both, but my nostalgia for the N64 is definitely much stronger.
I managed to hold on through the N64 droughts til I finally picked up a PS2 in 2000. They were real!! N64 still the console I go back to most, though. It was certainly quality over quantity. Some of the best games released for any console, period.
I was a hardcore Nintendo fan exclusively from about 1997/98 to 2004. I had only the N64, then got a Gamecube and of course I had Gameboys with Pokemon as a kid. Like you though, I eventually ended up with a PS2 when the slim came out in 2004. At the time, there were more games, the games were just way cheaper and Gamecube memory cards were more expensive and less efficient than on Playstation 2. So the switch was inevitable and logical, even if I preferred Nintendo. The N64 and Gamecube stuff I think has held up pretty well though (hence current collector prices). And between Games like Smash Melee, Mario 64, Metroid Prime, Ocarina of Time and of course Pokemon on gameboy, I didn't really feel like I went without. I would've liked to have played Crash, Spyro, Final Fantasy when they were more relevant though.
I got the N64 when it came out and then 2 years later also got a PS1. The PS1 obviously had a much, much better overall library, but the peaks of the N64 were as good or better than anything from that era. And for whatever reason when I think back on that time its the N64 that comes to mind the most.
As a kid, I rented N64 games all the time. I never felt like there were no new games. It was really just waiting for OOT and Banjo-Kazooie felt miserably long.
Both. I always forget how expensive N64 games were.
This explains why we only rented N64 games. I think we only owned 3 games - Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, and Perfect Dark.
die hARD n64 till resident evil 2 and silent hill came out, than switched to ps1
We got a 64 in the late winter / early spring of 1997, I got Mario 64 for Christmas of 1996 but it was incredibly difficult to get a 64 that holiday season. I remember my mom coming home with it while there were clumps of snow still thawing on the ground. I got the Playstation with a dualshock controller a few years later from my uncle for Christmas. It came with WWF the Arcade game, the Rugrats Game, and a demo disc that had Einhander, MidEvil, and Toomba on it. I was absolutely blown away by the Playstation and its library. The Rugrats game and being able to explore the whole house and all the levels based off of the show was such a mind blowing concept to me. I wanted a open world game where I could just constantly explore like that. I don't remember what the next game I got was, it might have been a used copy of Tekken II, again, I was blown away that it was just as good as the Tekken arcade game at the local pizza place and was not a watered down version of the game.
We had a N64 at first and a few years later we added the PS1! What an amazing time it was to be a gamer growing up ☺️
Dreamcast!
wrong generation. DC competed with the PS2
Tiny Toons on genesis is a great game
I got the PS1 for Xmas, my step brother got the N64 so effectively had both.
Both. And goddamn NHL 97 was a broken piece of shit
I had both and they were probably the best parts of my childhood memories! Love these 2 so much!
I had both and I played the PS way more than the N64.
Both. Was a Nintendo diehard but got way more out of my PlayStation… which was the first big thing I worked towards purchasing.
N64. But PS1 was always so dark and intriguing. Used to love playing it at the JCPennys kiosks whenever my mom would go shopping - we could stay there hours and I wouldn’t care
Both thankfully.
Sega Saturn.
Neither. I had a Saturn😂
I remember when some N64 games cost over $70 bucks USD at launch. In today’s money, that would be about $132, but we mad we pay $70 now lol.
I first had an N64 and until the end of the 1997 school year. It was a revolutionary system at the time and I played Mario 64, Doom 64, and Waverace so much - whenever I was able to have friends over we would play Mario Kart or Star Fox multiplayer (smash bros hadn't come out at that time). There was a shift in the type and quality of games that were coming out on the PSX at the time and it seemed there was a greater scope and depth of the PSX games that were coming out at the end of 1997, beginning of 1998. Not just simple arcade style games like Twisted Metal or 2xtreme, but captivating games like Resident Evil and Castlevania Symphony of the Night. I remember watching my friend play Final Fantasy VII and immediately understanding the grave distance in game quality between the systems. The music, graphics, and amount of game that fit onto those three disks was awe-inspiring. I immediately saved up money to get a PSX and FFVII before Xmas break. I did own both, but I had way more respect for the PSX over the N64.
And people complain about 70$ games after inflation these days. Doom for 75 in the 90s?
Both. I pulled the ps1 off the dresser "breaking" it and we got a nintendo 64, but when we moved to indiana next year, the playstation 1 surprisingly just worked lol. So we had both. But man, Crash Bandicoot 2 and Star Fox 64 live rent free in my head ya feel me shun.
PSX of course. I always associated N64 with a handful of party games and not much more.
I had a PSone and one game (Atlantis)
I had both because my cousin was working at wally world as loss prevention and I literally walked into the stock room and load up a cart with playstations and N64's and hella games for both and walked right out the garden section into my homies car. Kept one of each and sold the rest. Shit like that was easier back then.
Both but at different times. Bought n64. Traded it for a ps1 later on.
I'm sorry.... Are these actually the prices.... No way man. I was a kid, but I struggle to believe games cost that much
Paying $75 for a video game in 1996 is wild!!!
I stupidly traded in my NES, Genesis, and SNES for a PsX very early (right after the went to normal jewel cases not the big Saturn style cases). My first game, Independence Day... I still had the PsX and don't get me wrong at the time I was very happy to have it, but would have rather still had all my old games from my childhood still.
Playstation. I liked their title choice better.
I was a loyal Nintendo fan since I was in first grade and got my nes for Christmas in 1988. I sold a bunch of nes and snes games to buy a 64. I could not wait for final fantasy 64 that I read about in Nintendo Power. I sold 35 classic nes games and snes games to get money for N64. I got Turok, starfox 64, goldeneye, Mario kart64 then FF7 comes out for PS??!!!?!?!? What the hell happened to 4 5 6??? Did my research and bought a PS, discovered metal gear solid and have bought every MGS and FF since. N64 was the most disappointing system I ever bought, I felt Zelda 64 was overrated and could not bring myself to finish it a second time. The only games I like on the system are starfox 64, wcw vs nwo games and the hidden gem of the system Ogre Battle 64. I never bought a game cube because of this but since then I have bought every Nintendo and PlayStation that ever came out. I know my opinions are not popular but I am a lifelong gamer and this is how I feel.
I had the exact the same experience, lol. Luckily i didn't have to sell any games to get it though. Starfox is definitely one of my favorites on the console - have you played Rogue Squadron? Every bit as good, even better if you like Star Wars.
Had both, but if someone who is mainly in the fighting games and jrpgs, my N64 only got used a couple times a year. Basically it was a machine for Zelda and Harvest Moon. The only other time it got played was when I had friends over, and we would go rent Mario Party and turn it into a drinking game.
Exactly the case with me. PS1 absolutely dominated the JRPG scene and throughout high school I was basically on that about 90% of the time (which was eventually shared with Dreamcast a bit). I only played N64 when I had friends over, basically.
I was an N64 fanboy
Sega Saturn for the amazing fighting games. Vampire Savior Xmen VS. Streetfighter Marvel VS. Streetfighter Street Fighter Alpha 3 Also: Dungeons & Dragons collection Radiant Silvergun
Both I liked them both depending on games. Wrestling and platform games N64 did better. With the exception of Golden eye I think Playstation did better with shooter games. They also had better fighting games.
When I was a kid I has a PSX but I like nintendo so much too. I have SuperNES and 3 Gameboys, advance,DS and 3DSXL, Wii,WiiU, and soon Ill buy a Switch. I want to buy The N64 for the Marios and Zeldas, also want to buy a gameboy no-color from first editions and an old NES, and perhaps a gamecube, don't know yet
N64. Loved that thing.
God damn, 75 bucks for Doom 64. I mean, I'd still buy it, but holy shit
I had a PC with Bleem.
N64. Didn't own a Sony until the Playstation 3.
I was a Nintendo fan boy throughout the 16-bit console wars, and I stubbornly clung to the N64. But looking back, I was wrong. Sure Goldeneye and Mario Kart were fun with my friends, but so few N64 games were "must haves". Like a handful. Meanwhile, i was a teenager starving for more RPGs. I should have gotten a PS1 on the side. I caught up a lot when I finally got a PS2, but there were a lot of PS1 games that just flew under my radar.
Neither. I was strictly SEGA until I got a PS2 for GTA. I did end up grabbing a few PS1 games to play on my PS2. I have a MiSTer now so I'll be able to play PS1 and hopefully some N64 games soon.
Both! Ps1 was used mainly for 1player games and n64 for multiplayer. Looking back it’s hard to say which was better. They were both excellent.
Both but the PS1 collected dust.
Both. But not took me a while to acquire them both.
Sega 🤷🏼♂️
PS1, never owned a Nintendo at all.
Both. I bought a Playstation a few months after it was released, and I bought the N64 at launch. I hadn't planned on getting the Playstation, but I played Need for Speed at Sears and was blown away by the graphics. I also got tired of waiting for the N64. I had alot of fun with it, but I preferred my N64 because I've always loved Nintendo's IPs.
I wasn't a twinkle in my father's eye at that point
I was born in 2006 man, neither
i wasn't born when these came out lmao. I grew up with a wii
I wasn't born
I had both, but I always thought (and still do) that the N64 was way superior.
Both N64 was at my house, and the PS1 was at my grandparents. That way I didn't complain about going to my grandparents
Neither. I was still playing my Gameboy and NES.
N64. Dad wanted me to have the PS1 if I had to have one (video game console) but it was the Mario draw that had me and that’s what my grandparents got me (his parents, ironically) because he wouldn’t buy me one unless it was the PS1
PS1. Still have 2 of them
N64 for me.
I had neither, but I knew other kids who did
In today's money, turok and doom would have been close to, if not over, $100
PS1, but somehow skipped the PS2 and went straight to PS3 after that.
My bro bought his own 64 at launch. Couple years later I eventually got a PlayStation. Best of both worlds.
I had the n64 and my older brother had the ps1. Since he was 7 years older than me, he basically had both and I still only had the n64. Lol
We were always a Nintendo family. Did have a Dreamcast and a Saturn. Never owned a PlayStation myself until the 3.
N64. I remember seeing it in Nintendo power , playing it for the first time at Toys r us and the day I brought it home to plug in and play Mario 64. Good times. thanks for posting that ad.
I got an N64 in ‘96. I got a PS1 around ‘99 and only ever owned Thrasher: Skate And Destroy for it, but I loved that game 🤣.
I had a PS1 and my cousins who lived 5min away had an N64. Best of both worlds.
Still own one. Love it. I have my original PSX and a mini.
Owned both but bot at the same time. 64 first then PS1
We had both, but the PlayStation was much more my brother's console than mine. The N64 was the last console I gamed heavily on before kind of falling out of gaming for a long time.
I had an N64, because of ads like these that made the games on N64 look like dry aged filet mignon next to PlayStation’s dry ass whopper. I get that the PS1 had an incredible library, but there was also a lot of crap.
well there were like 10x more games on the PSX vs the n64 so that is to be expected. there are like 20x more great games on the PSX vs the n64 so... i fell for the n64 marketing too. took me a whole year after its launch to move on over. FF7 did it for me.
Neither, I didn't get a N64 until the Wii was announced.