So, what *were* the causes of the delay of the N64?

The N64 was initially pegged for a 1995 release, but it got delayed and delayed until mid-1996. I remember reading everything I could about it and being super excited, and regretting every announcement of delays.

I've never heard anything more about *why* there were delays beyond the mere statement that delays took place. Is there any actual clarification or is it all speculation?

Nintendo internal divisions? Disagreements over whether the N64 should have a CD-ROM? Sheer lack of concern for the competition? A back-to-the-drawing-board emergency? Something else?

Also, it would be cool if there was any discussion or mock-ups by Nintendo of any early plans they had for a CD-ROM next-gen console - or did they decide quite firmly with cartridges early on and didn't even bother considering it?

 

Software.

"After 19 months of intense development, we have attained our two main goals for Nintendo Ultra 64: to develop a chipset capable of delivering the world's best video game experience, and to do it at a price that can deliver a hardware set below $ 250 retail," said Howard Lincoln, then-chairman of Nintendo of America. "However, we have made a conscious decision not to rush Nintendo Ultra 64 to market. Instead, we've decided to give our software developers additional time to maximize the power of this system in their game creation."

More here: http://www.1up.com/news/day-history-nintendo-64-born

Even with the delay, it launched only with Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64. I guess it was worth it, since Mario 64 became an instant classic.

 

If the N64 would have launched in 1995 it would have been more successful. Although that's only if it still had Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64 to go with it.
I'm actually glad that they waited another year, they were able to give us one of the best launch games for a console ever - Super Mario 64.

 

Here's some interesting read on wikipedia:

The console was originally slated for release by Christmas of 1995. In May 1995, Nintendo pushed back the release to April 1996.[4] The prospect of a release the following year at a lower price than the competition lowered sales of competing Sega and Sony consoles during the important Christmas shopping season.[26]:24

In its explanation of the delay, Nintendo claimed it needed more time for Nintendo 64 software to mature,[7] and for third-party developers to produce games.[4][27] Adrian Sfarti, a former engineer for SGI, attributed the delay to hardware problems; he claimed that the chips underperformed in testing and were being redesigned.[7] In 1996, the Nintendo 64's software development kit was redesigned as the Partner-N64 system, by Kyoto Microcomputer, Co. Ltd. of Japan

Some more reading here: http://videogamereview.tripod.com/n64/history.html

 

We were promised a Silicon Graphics workstation.........

look what we ended up with.

 

Remember this was the generation where programmers had to switch from working from 2D to 3D environment. They had to come up with lot of new game play mechanizes. Nintendo had seen what happened when Sega rush out the Saturn, there were few of games for it. Also remember all of the early N64 games were designed for what was the expected spec of the N64. They had no real N64 hardware to test it on, only SGI workstation. I am assuming those extra months allow them to fine tune the games with the real N64 hardware.

 

Sega Saturn was more than just a rush job, Sega hacked on a bunch of chips to make Saturn sound more superior than the competing Playstation but it created a whole new problem that made Saturn a pain in the butt to program. On top of that, Sega couldn't consolidate the chips into fewer packages for smaller design and lower manufacturing cost so the cost of Saturn remained stuck at high price over the years while Playstation had a few improvement and eventually very cheap PSOne came out.

 

Quoting Wikipedia:

Apparently the N64 sold the most units in the USA. That explains why it's cheap here and basically everyone I know grew up with one... except me. I had a Atari 7800, PS1, and PS2 at the time. I didn't even know about the N64 until I was about 12, years after it was discontinued. I have one now and love it.

To stay on topic, maybe the N64DD had something to do with the delays?

 

The 64DD itself was delayed for years. It eventually came out in 1999, but there really wasn't any point for it to exist. If it would have been priced lower and if it would have used CD's, maybe it would have been a bit more successful.

 

Wii U Launch day..........was when I got my N64

 

You really don't like Nintendo, do you?

I'm not sure the 64DD was ever really supposed to come out. I think it was just announced to assuage the concerns about how small N64 carts are compared to the CDs that Sega and Sony used. And by the time it came out, RE2 was about to come out in North America, and it used a cart the same size as the discs the DD used (64MB).

 

Enjoy your ultra-cheap Nintendo 64 emulator. Dat frameskipping

 

LOL! like seriously, why do people loves those crappy Nintendo 64 emulators?? it isn't really hard to go out to your local salvation army, Goodwill or yard/garage sales

 

They wanted the developers to better utilize the Super Mario 64 controller... oh wait, no, the N64 controller. I kid, but they have pretty much admitted the controller was designed for SM64. Which I'm fine with, considering it is IMO one of the greatest games ever made.

We shall never forget it.

 

The Real thing is far more enjoyable and only a handful of games are going at insane prices compared to other systems of that generation and before. (Looking at you rapidly increasing saturn prices)

 

And you allways have an ED64Plus chinese flashcard for 60 bucks that run all the games of the catalog except 1 or 2.

 

I read an interview with some Rare game developers, and they said that when they wrote Goldeneye, they were writing and testing it on what they thought was going to be the N64 hardware, but when the N64 was released, it turned out to be much less powerful than they were expecting. I don't know if that explains why the finished game has such ugly NPC faces and hands, though.

Goldeneye, the game, was originally planned to be a platform game on the SNES, then a VIrtual Cop type on-rails shooting game on the (still to be released) N64. It's amazing to think that one of the best and most influential games of all time might have ended up as a soon forgtten generic game in a different genre.

The N64 is my favourite console, with my two favourite ever games (Perfect Dark, and Goldeneye), but back in the day it was often very disappointing how long you had to wait between releases of good games, whilst the Playstation (the N64's biggest rival) had a steady stream of good and varied games. Not that I ever regretted being an N64 owner, as it's best games were, to me, better than anything I saw on any other machine of the time (PC included), but the game droughts, and the way the N64 never saw many of the great games that were cross platform with the PC and Playstation (such as Driver, The Sentinel Returns, GTA, etc) were very annoying.

 

Goldeneye looked great back then. Remember most of us played on a CRT using composite, S-Video, or RF. You couldn't see faces on those things even if it was a higher rez!

N64's release date was not an issue. Sure Sony got out ahead of them, that wasn't the issue. The killer was keeping a cartridge format instead of going optical. That prevented a lot of popular cross-platform games from coming onto the system. In addition, Nintendo continued to desire exclusive titles, to its detriment. It was weird, most of my friends who I grew up with had "graduated" from SNES or Genesis to PS1, but they sort of gave up on video games (besides sports). Those who remained "gamers" or younger than I, mainly had an N64. The multiplayer games were tons of fun.

 

Driver on Playstation was horrible anyway, couldn't see where I was going at all it was that pixelated.

 

They probably wanted the software to be more mature, if mario 64 was rushed, it wouldn't be the killer app they needed.

Nintendo knows their market is software driven.

Look at Sega Saturn, they rushed to market and had terrible game available for 6 months.
Same for dreamcast, all I had for 3-6 months was crap like blue stinger.