Ben Gilbert: evaluation

Transcript context

…Yes, it's a 32-bit system. It just blows away the Super Nintendo on every dimension here. Much more storage availability for games and game developers by using the CD format, much more powerful processor. It's clear that this is going to be a big investment from Sony here, and they're going to be a big player in the industry. Nintendo, again, probably in hubris, tries to compete directly with Sony here in response. They go off, and they partner up with legendary Silicon Valley company, Silicon Graphics (SGI) as we talked about on the Andreessen series back in the Acquired canon, to build the N64. They're going to leapfrog the 32-bit generation and go right to 64-bits with the N64. But, (1) it comes out too late. The 64-bit doesn't come out until 1996, after the Playstation has already had a year plus to be on the market and establish both the install base lead and the third-party developer network. (2) The N64 famously uses cartridges again instead of CDs. They have a very particular way they love doing things, which I think was partially an anti piracy thing. They cared so much about stopping piracy that they were willing to hamstring developers into needing to use a much more constrained format in the cartridge than CDs because they thought, well, CDs are just going to get pirated, and we don't have as many mechanisms to prevent that. Yup. Third part of this, yes, the N64 was a very powerful 64-bit system, but it required very expensive silicon graphics hardware to develop for that the PlayStation did not. Really, the whole thing is just a giant FU to third-party developers who already hate Nintendo. At this point, everybody pretty much abandons Nintendo for the Sony platform. The N 64 would sell 33 million units in its lifetime. That's about half of what the NES sold, versus the PS1's 102 million units. Nintendo just gets the floor wiped with them by Sony here, which was obviously predictable.…

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