Poll of the Day > I think Nintendo's choice to go with cartridges with the n64 is a mistake they

(+) Yeah! (+)

are still paying for to this day. With the NES and SNES, they were on top and people played them cause it had the best games. not just from Nintendo, but from everyone. Then the n64 came out, and developers left for playstation. In the very next generation they used discs but the damage was already done. and they never recovered. starting with n64 onward, people only play nintendo consoles for nintendo games. and they never got back the third party support. history might have been different if the n64 had used discs

the playstation wouldn't exist. and I bet neither would xbox. and sega would still be around but nintendo would be on top most likely

Gamecube, Wii, Switch, and their handhelds are all colossal successes. Seems like theyre not paying much of a price for making the 64 a cartridge system, if any.
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I don't think disc vs cartridage is an issue in todays tech. i think their storage space is what is what is holding them back more.

that and the switch is basically portable ps3. When next gen consoles comes out in 2 years or so it will kill the switch, because more major publisher will stop making 12+ year old tech games and move on to the next gen games. We will get a ton of shovelware for the switch. Nintendo is just lucky that majority of the ps4/xb1 games so far can run on 360/ps3. Looking at you all you remastered games and ps4 games that were also on the vita.
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Few things:

1) At the time the N64 was using cartridges, they were *still* superior to CDs in terms of performance. The ps1 had massive load-times whereas the N64 did not. The largest benefit for CDs was cost.

2) A lot of the decision to abandon the N64 for the ps1 had less to do with the cartridges and more to do with Sony's less stringent approval system. Even if the N64 had gone with discs, that wouldn't change.

3) Technically speaking, the only reason Sony wouldn't have been an issue would have been because they were originally going to provide the technology for the N64's CD system. However, there were cost issues with the choice.

In general, while carts are going to be more expensive than discs, the storage issue isn't quite the same as it was and carts certainly make more sense for things like handhelds. Sony's PSP even ditched the UMD system for carts with the Vita before getting out of the handheld market.
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But practically every first and second-party N64 game ever made was made that way DUE to how space compressed cartridges were.

Nintendo's biggest mistake meant that they had to design games around it. Much like how they are with the Switch today.