2 of 13

Write now Article Tools

Page 2 of 3

of third party developers entered the game, padding the system with gaming history's best franchises. Mega Man, Contra, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior they all began on the ol' 8 bit NES.

Though new companies like Sega would steal a bit of the pie, fighting solidly with iconic characters and titles of equal quality, Nintendo was not dethroned. Furthermore, Nintendo's expanded territory into handheld gaming, powered first by Tetris and later by the original, addicting, and social-friendship-endorsing Pokemon series kept gamers addicted and loyal. Sega CD and 32X came and went; the SNES beat them all. New installments of historic franchises set up camp on the 16 bit cart format.

It wasn't until Sony dug a surprise foothold that Nintendo's sales began to slow, and oh man, did they slow. The Playstation, using the newest CD-ROM format delivered exactly what gamers craved; sharp graphics, clear sound, and domestic development teams for lower overall prices. Nintendo countered with their cartridge-based Nintendo 64but games were trickier to develop for and pricier to produce, which publishers passed onto consumers.

Friendly developers left in a hurry. Developing on a format almost considered archaic compared to these newfangled CD's sent Squaresoft to Sony, producing everyone's favorite RPG, Final Fantasy 7. Street Fighter's next installment hit the PS1 as well, and new types of games like Parappa the Rapper and Dance Dance revolution made good use of the sound-friendly media format. Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima's cinematic masterpiece of espionage gaming, battered the sales charts and took home consoles with it.

The N64 years were rough, but by no means did Nintendo die. Their tried and true killer appsMario, Zelda, and Pokemonkept them afloat while fabulous in house developer RARE brought us Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie and Conker; enough games to please most. Super Smash Brothers wasn't quite Street Fighter, but did the job well enough, and a pair of exclusive, niche RPG'sOgre Battle 64 and Paper Mario-kept sales afloat.

Naturally, Sony followed the Playstation with the Playstation 2, a more powerful console that sported a DVD playerthe new thing at the time. So Nintendo countered with the Gamecube. Hoping to reclaim its lost fan base, the cube included four party-friendly controller ports and a more powerful GPU than the competitor, but sold far, far less consoles than Sony.

It appeared Nintendo had been too little, too late. A few developers came back,

• << previous page
• 1
• 2
• 3
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Nintendo's past, present and questionable future?
We want to hear your view. Write now!