Talk:Nintendo 64

Discontinued dates for the N64

I found the other dates which I presume the N64 Discontinued in.

Source: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64

• Japan: April 30, 2002
• Australia: May 11, 2003
• Europe: May 16, 2003
• North America: November 30, 2003
• Korea: 2003
• Brazil: 2003
• China: December 31, 2016 (iQue Player)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by LeoBeyene (talk • contribs) 20:39, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

WP:USERG. Simple, Fandom and other open wikis are not reliable sources. -- ferret (talk) 21:25, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Oh... I'm sorry about that. I didn't know about "reliability" or sources and citations. -- LeoBeyene

Proposed merge of Nintendo 64 technical specifications into Nintendo 64#Technical specifications

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Not notable enough on it's own, and also seems overly detailed for what it's describing (goes into heavy detail on the GPU and some other things which may not be interesting to most people). ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 17:02, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Note that I first asked about this at WT:VG to see if it would be worth my time starting a merge discussion. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 17:47, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

MergePer reasons above + Reasons discussed in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games. PerryPerryD 17:47, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• Merge - per nomination and Wikiproject conversation linked by PerryPerry above. Sergecross73 msg me 18:08, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
• Merge and also merge Nintendo 64 programming characteristics for the same reasons. This is way too technical for a generalist encyclopedia. We're not a how-to guide for programming on N64. Axem Titanium (talk) 01:13, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Axem Titanium: I was actually planning on proposing a merge for that one after this one had closed to simplify the merge discussion (I doubt anyone would oppose to that but agree with this nom but you never know). ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 01:40, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• Merge per nom and WT:VG. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 09:54, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
• Merge per nom and WT:VG.Newfiebluejay (talk) 13:01, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Competition

It's occurred to me that the lead's description of the Saturn as one of the primary competitors for the Nintendo 64 doesn't make much sense. Outside of Japan, the Saturn was no longer a serious contender by the end of 1997: third party support had completely dropped off, with the Saturn's most loyal third party publishers announcing well in advance that they were going to finish what they could put out in time for Christmas 1997 and that would be it, and Sega had already announced the Dreamcast was coming, killing confidence in the Saturn. Outside of Japan, the Nintendo 64 didn't launch until late 1996 or later. So with the exception of the Japanese market, the Saturn and Nintendo 64 only competed for about a year, much of that during the N64's "honeymoon period" when competition was essentially irrelevant. (And even in Japan, the PlayStation overshadowed the Saturn as a competitor.) Basically, the N64 arrived just as the Saturn was saying goodbye.

So, I'm proposing that we remove the Saturn from that statement, possibly replacing it with the Dreamcast, which at least shared the market with the N64 for its entire lifespan. Martin IIIa (talk) 15:43, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Please tell me why "Most of [my] assertions [...] are completely mistaken".

And no, this discussion is not about why the PS2 is a N64 competitor console, but about why the Saturn is not.

Ok, anyway, now you are cordially invited to make arguments why the PS2 should be described as a primary N64 competitor console.

My arguments why I think this is clearly not the case still are that in terms of console generation, performance, success, target group and lifespan, the PS2 was in a completely different, not comparable league. In addition, I couldn't find any reliable media coverage according to which the N64 competed with the PS2.

Again: Just because the N64 was discontinued after the launch of the PS2 doesn't mean it "competed" with it. According to this logic, the NES would have competed with the Genesis, the SNES with the PS1, and the GameCube with the Xbox 360.-- Maxeto0910 (talk) 20:53, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

"(T)he Saturn was no longer a serious contender by the end of 1997 ... Outside of Japan, the Nintendo 64 didn't launch until late 1996 or later." According to an April 1998 financial report (p. 7), Sega's consumer product sales (i.e., its home consoles/software, excluding its arcade business) experienced a staggering 75.4% decline outside of Japan during March 1997–March 1998 relative to the previous year, which neatly coincides with the Western launch of the Nintendo 64. Correlation does not equal causation, but one way to interpret this data is that American and European consumers who had still been on the fence regarding their preference for a fifth generation console in 1995–1996 overwhelmingly chose Nintendo over Sega after the former finally threw its hat into the ring, and that the N64 was thus the final nail in the Saturn's coffin. In that sense, the competition between the two consoles, though short-lived, is not historically insignificant.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk)

Maxeto0910 - The trouble is that your assertions, in addition to being incorrect, are too vague and broad to comment on concisely, and speaking specifically of your edit summary assertions, they have nothing to do with your removal of the PlayStation 2 from the statement anyway. Whether the Saturn or the PlayStation 2 was more of a competitor has no bearing on whether either was a primary competitor.

The discussion is clearly marked "competition", and please tell me you aren't going to argue that it makes sense to WP:EDITWAR over one item in a list while another item in the same list is under discussion on the talk page after an edit summary directed you there.

Of course the NES competed with the Genesis, the SNES with the PS1, and the GameCube with the Xbox 360. Comments like that make me wonder if you are just trying to shoehorn all console history into discrete console generations for the sake of oversimplification.

TheTimesAreAChanging - The competition was significant to the Saturn, but not to the Nintendo 64. This is similar to how we might list the PlayStation as a primary competitor of the Neo Geo CD, but listing the Neo Geo CD as a primary competitor of the PlayStation would be ludicrous.--Martin IIIa (talk) 12:37, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Again: It would be nice if you could explain to me why my assertions are incorrect instead of accusing me of it again and again.

And in what way are they too vague and broad? The PS2 was one console generation (5th vs 6th) above the N64, had much more raw computational power (<1 vs 6.2 GFLOPS), sold about 5 times as many units (32 mio. vs >155 mio.) and was way longer on the market until it was discontinued (6 vs 13 years).

"Whether the Saturn or the PlayStation 2 was more of a competitor has no bearing on whether either was a primary competitor."

I never used this as an argument for why the PS2 isn't a N64 competitor console, I just wanted to make it more clear with this comparison.

Sorry, but 2 explained and constructive reverts clearly don't meet the definition of an "edit war", especially since I came to the discussion page after you directed me here the first time.

No, the NES clearly didn't compete with the Genesis just because it was still on the market after the Genesis launched. There was virtually no competition between Nintendo and Sega promoting the NES over the Genesis or vice versa. That came with the SNES. The same applies for the other examples. Your approach is an oversimplification, as it is (nearly) solely based on release and discontinuation years and doesn't take into account market circumstances sufficiently. And yes, console generations are indeed a classification of consoles that competed against each other, see Home video game console generations.-- Maxeto0910 (talk) 17:59, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

P.S.: I also tend to keep the Saturn as a N64 competitor console in the lead, as it clearly competed against the N64. Even if the competition didn't last for long; that doesn't matter, as it's still competition.-- Maxeto0910 (talk) 19:00, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

I have to be honest, Maxeto0910: The level of ignorance you're claiming here makes it very difficult to hold a conversation with you. You're claiming ignorance of fundamental points such as what "competition" means (by claiming the PS2 did not compete with the N64 because it overpowered and outsold it), what edit warring is (by claiming that it doesn't count as edit warring so long as the editor leaves an edit summary and decrees his own revert "constructive"), of edit time stamps (by claiming that you came to the talk page after I directed you here the first time rather than after I reverted you again and repeated my directive to use the talk page), of basic console history (by claiming the NES and Genesis were never promoted against each other), and what "oversimplification" means (by claiming it's an oversimplification to say competition is defined by anything more than generational classification). Incidentally, at the time the N64 was categorized as the first console of a new generation, so by your own definition the Saturn and PlayStation did not compete with the N64 at all.

So, I'm not sure what more I can say beyond look up the words "competition" and "oversimplification", check out WP:Edit warring, read up on some console history (try the search term "Sega does what Nintendon't", for instance), and then form an opinion on which consoles competed with which. Martin IIIa (talk) 00:33, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

I will spare myself the polemics and simply comment on the points you raised, which you either took out of context or did not understand.

1) You have brazenly picked out the two points which alone don't make sense. I mentioned them along with a number of other aspects to make clear that the PS2 wasn't a N64 competitor console in any respect. Yes, of course the PS2 was overpowered compared to the N64 because it was a console of the next generation and basically launched when the N64 was pretty much at the end of its lifespan. What I way trying to say is that these two systems are simply not properly comparable, regardless of which standards are applied (except, of course, your release/discontinued date approach, which doesn't make much sense).

2) Of course, it was not edit warring, at least not started by me. I explained in detail why the PS2 can't be considered a N64 competitor console in any way. You undid my edit and simply directed me to the talk page (well, indirectly; you did not explicitly say that and for what reason I should come to the talk page, but only that you opened a discussion) without a proper explanation why my arguments were wrong. Basic principle of epistemology: If reasoned evidence is presented and you believe it to be false, it is your responsibility to prove it rather than simply removing it without further explanation. If anyone here should have engaged in edit warring, it's you, because you insisted on ignoring this principle and instead undid my edits without proper explanation.

3) Just as I said: As long as you don't make arguments, there's no basic for a discussion. You have to make arguments why the points I mentioned in my edit summaries were wrong. And when there are different reasoned oppinions, we can discuss them on the talk page. However, as I said, you just undid my edits without any explanation related to my points, so there was nothing to argue about, which is why I didn't came to the talk page for so long. You would have had to refute at least one of my argumentation points on the talk page (or at least in the edit summary); before that, there is no reason for me to go to the talk page, because there is no basis for discussion.

4) No, I didn't claim that it's oversimplification "to say competition is defined by anything more than generational classification." I was just saying that it is a gross oversimplification if the indicators that define competition are solely or predominantly based on release and discontinuation years, as yours are most of the time. Console generations, however, take into account market circumstances, which is why they are far superior in making statements about which systems competed against each other and are largely seen as a meaningful indicator, in contrast to just comparing when two systems were released/discontinued.

5) "Incidentally, at the time the N64 was categorized as the first console of a new generation"

Categorized by whom and when? What is considered a console generation (especially retrospectively) is not defined by the manufacturers, but by media coverage and the general public opinion.

6) That's quite funny, because Sega's marketing campaign "Sega does what Nintendon't" shows well that my approach makes more sense, as Sega promoted its Genesis over the SNES with this term, and that's just what I was saying. You claimed that the NES competed with the Genesis, and I said it didn't and argued that "There was virtually no competition between Nintendo and Sega promoting the NES over the Genesis or vice versa. That came with the SNES." This campaign is a prime example.-- Maxeto0910 (talk) 00:34, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Yeah…no. “Genesis does what Nintendon’t” was a 1990 advertising campaign. The SNES was introduced in North America in 1991. The whole point of the campaign was that the Genesis was 16-bit and the NES was not. Your ignorance of video game history is not helping your position. Indrian (talk) 12:52, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Just wrong. The campaign was introduced in the early 1990s, but not exactly in 1990. The point was to show that the Genesis was geared more towards adult/mature gamers compared to the SNES, which had a child/family friendly image: https://www.sega-16.com/2006/09/retroinspection-mega-drive/

Sega even made a TV commercial in which they compared several Genesis games with Super Mario Kart on the SNES: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=65E53rNC1io

To not even inform oneself rudimentary about this and then accuse a person with over 30 video game consoles and hundreds of video games from the last 45 years of ignoring the history of video games is just pathetic and embarrassing, sorry for the harsh choice of words, but there is no other way to express it in this context.--Maxeto0910 (talk) 14:39, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

You have no clue what you are talking about. Embarrassing indeed. Indrian (talk) 15:13, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

I have indeed no clue what you're trying to say. If your point is that I got the start of the campaign wrong by a few months, then congratulations; you corrected one (probably by far the most trivial side point) of 6 points in my last comment to Martin IIIa. Ok, I'll give you the point that SEGA was already competing with the NES during this campaign (albeit only for the first few months, hardly portrayed that way by SEGA itself (most likely because it would be awkward for SEGA to compare a new current-gen (Genesis) to an old last-gen console (NES)), and the campaign had its clear peak in competing with the SNES, as the vast majority of retrospective coverage is about this competition and that time took up most of the campaign's length of existence). If you now explain in what way the PS2 was a main competitor console to the N64 (that is the reason why this discussion exists), you would have actually contributed something constructive to the discussion.--Maxeto0910 (talk) 16:12, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

I could care less about your little spat over the N64 versus the PS2, but I do take notice when people start thinking that owning a lot of old video games suddenly makes them a historian. Since subtlety is apparently not your strong suit and you keep compounding your ignorance with every statement, I will spell it out for you more clearly. You did not "get the start of the campaign wrong by a few months:" "Genesis Does What Nintendon't" was a 1990 campaign. I'm sure a few straggler ads ran in 1991, but it was specifically targeted at the NES in Fall 1990 with the goal of building an install base before the SNES came out at the end of 1991. In 1991, Sega had a new campaign (since you don't seem to know how advertising works, I should interject here that companies frequently drop old campaigns for new ones, and Sega was turning them over frequently in this period trying to find one that resonated). That campaign used the slogan "Leading the 16-bit Revolution" and focused on two things primarily: the cheaper price of the Genesis versus the SNES and the release of Sonic. THIS was their first targeted campaign directly taking on the SNES. You can see some of these ads at the beginning of this reel. That Mario Kart ad you are so proud of is part of the "Welcome to the Next Level" campaign, which launched in 1992 after Sega changed ad agencies. So to summarize, Sega launched three consecutive ad campaigns between 1990 and 1992 targeting the market in three different ways. It's not one monolithic blob of advertising as you seem to believe. I hope that helped. If not, I can try to simplify the explanation even more for you. Indrian (talk) 16:55, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree with TheTimesAreAChanging - Sega and Nintendo were very much in contention, the Saturn and the N64 were part of the same console generation and Sega tried to do the same thing by releasing the Dreamcast early. Sega tried to beat their competition to the market. Check out some old issues of NextGen, EGM, etc in archive.org and you will see they very much covered a horserace amongst these consoles. Andre🚐 01:19, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

I've been doing a lot of reading and writing about the Saturn lately actually. It's been quite interesting to see how many multiplatform games Saturn got with PS1 back in 1995. And then throughout 1996 momentum slowed and games started to be cancelled. And in 1997, support fell off a cliff. And that exactly when the N64 was being revealed, promoted, launched, and on the market. Back then, the industry couldn't handle 3 separate platforms, and Nintendo squeezed out Sega. (And even in 1998 when Saturn was on life support, they were still competitors. They weren't competeing well, but competing poorly is still competing. They were still undeniably there.) So all in all, I feel very strongly towards them being considered competitors. Sergecross73 msg me 01:36, 14 September 2022 (UTC)