As I don't want to add to the 32X thread as it should be a more Sega thread. There is a discussion saying that Pokemon saved the N64, this is indeed false, although Pokemon games did well on the N64 they didn't save it. Although Pokemon at the time was making Nintendo the vast majority of it's profits the N64 was still selling okay but still poorly against the Playstation. In japan, the top ten best selling N64 games were these and you can see two pokemon games but there are other titles that sold better. Mario Kart 64 - Nintendo - 2.24 Super Smash Bros - Nintendo / HAL - 1.97 Super Mario 64 - Nintendo - 1.92 The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time - Nintendo - 1.46 Pokemon Stadium (Japanese) - Nintendo / HAL - 1.37 Pokemon Stadium 2 (Japanese) - Nintendo / HAL - 1.14 Mario Tennis 64 - Nintendo / Camelot - 1.10 Donkey Kong 64 - Nintendo / Rare - 1.10 Mario Party 2 - Nintendo / Hudson Soft - 1.07 Kirby 64 / HAL - Nintendo - 1.07 America was like this Super Mario 64 - Nintendo - 6.87 GoldenEye 007 - Nintendo / Rare - 5.77 Mario Kart 64 - Nintendo - 5.52 The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time - Nintendo - 4.08 Donkey Kong 64 - Nintendo / Rare - 3.31 Pokemon Stadium - Nintendo / HAL - 3.16 Super Smash Bros - Nintendo / HAL - 2.93 Diddy Kong Racing - Nintendo / Rare - 2.89 Starfox 64 - Nintendo - 2.76 Star Wars Episode 1: Racer - LucasArts - 2.30 And Europe and Australia/NZ was like this Super Mario 64 - Nintendo - 3.10 GoldenEye 007 - Nintendo / Rare - 2.19 Mario Kart 64 - Nintendo - 2.11 The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time - Nintendo - 2.06 Pokemon Stadium - Nintendo / HAL - 1.35 Banjo-Kazooie - Nintendo / Rare - 1.23 Diddy Kong Racing - Nintendo / Rare - 1.08 F1 World Grand Prix - Nintendo / Video System - 1.05 Donkey Kong 64 - Nintendo / Rare - 0.86 Perfect Dark - Nintendo / Rare - 0.82 Total top ten... Super Mario 64 - Japan, 1.92; USA, 6.87; Others, 3.10; Total - 11.89 Mario Kart 64 - Japan, 2.24; USA, 5.52; Others, 2.11; Total - 9.87 GoldenEye 007 - Japan, 0.13; USA, 5.77; Others, 2.19; Total - 8.09 The Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time - Japan, 1.46; USA, 4.08; Others, 2.06; Total - 7.60 Super Smash Bros - Japan, 1.97; USA, 2.93; Others, 0.65; Total - 5.55 Pokemon Stadium - Japan (POkemon Stadium 2), 0.95; USA, 3.16; Others, 1.35; Total - 5.46 Donkey Kong 64 - Japan, 1.10; USA, 3.31; Others, 0.86; Total - 5.27 Diddy Kong Racing - Japan, 0.91; USA, 2.89; Others, 1.08; Total - 4.88 Starfox 64 - Japan, 0.61; USA, 2.76; Others, 0.63; Total - 4.00 Banjo-Kazooie - Japan, 0.56; USA, 1.86; Others, 1.23; Total - 3.65 One pokemon game... Hmm. Things that are rather stark are the fact that only 2 games in the top tens by region are third party Star Wars Racer by Lucasarts and F1 World Grand Prix by Video System, currently the best selling Wii games are also by Nintendo so that doesn't bode well... Japan didn't buy games for the N64 unless they featured Nintendo Characters, they also hated Goldeneye.
Pokemon probably didn't do much for Nintendos consoles, but I bet they sold ass tons of Game Boys, Game Boy Colors, Advances, DSs, etc. Hell, I'll be honest here. The main reason I wanted a GBC was for Pokemon Red and Zelda: Links Awakening DLX. Yeah, I wanted and bought Stadium, but by that point, I already HAD an N64 anyway. Besides giving you Pokemon you couldn't normally obtain in the portable version, it was rather boring, imo. And I admit, I was hyped for Pokemon Snap. Biiiiig Mistake. That game alone was the main reason I never bought another Pokemon product, ever again.
i would have thought that Perfect Dark had a greater influence amongst the older buying public.. and that Pokemon was mainly for the kids..
No, it's been established that's a ridiculous statement. Even combined, the Pokemon N64 games didn't sell as much Mario 64, Kart, Goldeneye, or Zelda OoT in the US.
The only thing that surprises me here is that mario kart sold that much. I always thought that game sucked... Anyways, I would like to see the books of nintendo and take a look at the numbers and then calculate the percentage of profits that came from pokemon alone at the time. I wonder how nintendo could've been if without the big cash flow coming from that franchise...
the n64 didn't need saving, it was doing fine. Second place behind sony's behemoth isn't bad at all if you ask me.
Even Nintendo's Yamauchi hinted (in a Tips N Tricks transcript) that without Pokemon, the N64 would have had a much much more difficult go at things in Japan. It's pretty obvious really...Pokemon turned out to be a surprise hit for Nintendo. Just look at how much they had to milk that damn franchise in the mid-late 1990's with everything from games, to movies, to tie-in products. Without Pokemon, what else did the N64 have going for it aside from the 2 Zelda games and Mario 64?
I do think Pokemon helped Nintendo out at a time they really needed it. However I don't see Pokemon and the N64 having much to do with eachother. It also seems to me that people tend to act like the N64 bombed or something. The N64 was a very popular and mainstream system. It was not the success the Playstation was, but it also wasn't some monster flop (VirtualBoy). It had some great titles, mainly produced by Nintendo or their second parties. I am surprised that Perfect Dark didn't sell anywhere near as many copies as Goldeneye. Ofcourse I'm also surprised by what passed for a decent framerate in 007 and PD64. Those games were borderline unplayable framerates. I never had Mario Kart 64 myself. I always thought it was a cool game though. I think the main games I played were StarFox 64, Smash Bros, and PD64. One thing the N64 beat the hell out of every other console in was party gameplay. It introduced the 4 player split screen games that were so awesome. I loved playing StarFox 64 and blowing up my friends. Or running and gunning in PD64. Or the mayhem of the SSB. That's what I remember the N64 for. It's kind of sad that even after all that, the PS2 still didn't really have any 4 player split screen fun games to play. GC had pretty much reincarnations of the same N64 games which was nice.
You can get a lot of publicity with a known product, but as I said before, the financial contributions from the pokemon franchise to nintendo were so vast that may have helped to pay for past mistakes like the VirtuaBoy... In any case saying that pokemon was irrelevant at the time is completely false.
I assume everyone is aware that in terms of Japanese sales the N64 sold less units then the Sega Saturn? 5.7m for the Saturn compared to 5.3m for the N64. Oh and the Saturn was around for 4.5 years compared to the 6 years the N64 was...
Yet another instance of you saying something stupid and trying to worm out of it. Nobody was saying Pokemon was irrelevant in the late 90s, you were saying it "saved" the N64. Obviously you were wrong, just drop it.
The other funny thing to note was the fact that for the first year of the N64 life it sold more units in Japan then the Saturn and Playstation did in their first year. It However trailed off very quickly after that.
The N64 is saved !?! Its about time. Ohh wait nevermind.. N64 Lame duck of its generation. N64 worst Nintendo console. N64 just slap a Disney label on it and get it over with N64 at least it makes a good doorstop Ok now you can lock it.
Couldn't agree with you more, although Mario 64 and Zelda and Pilot Wings were great, Nintendo's insistence on clinging to cartridges was what made the N64 not as good as it could have been. Nevermind "Pokeman", a cd rom would have "saved" the N64, even though in America it didn't need "saving". American kids snapped it up like there was no tommorow.
