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Comment by jimmaswell | Hacker News Reader

The N64 looked way better, loaded faster, had a better controller, and to me had a better game library as a whole. The PS1 had comparatively horrible architectural choices like no built-in z-buffer, texture filtering, or floating point processing. Apparently N64 sold less per year available though. What did everyone see in the PS1?

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>What did everyone see in the PS1?

storage space for CD quality audio, storage space for full-motion video, on-board full motion video decoders, cheaper media costs, easier media to deal with on development side, and most importantly a game library that catered more towards 'adultish' fans.

I remember reading back when these consoles were current that the biggest draw for most consumers was the fact that full-motion-video was a first class citizen on the PS1, and it was a huge technical wow for people. FMV was difficult on the N64 due to size and codec constraints, so it was rarely done -- and when it was if was usually subpar compared to the PS1 version of the same game. Resident Evil franchise was notorious for this phenomenon.

I think the demo disks with the PS magazines are often overlooked as well.

You've unzipped me. That silent hill demo scarred me for life.

Games. Nintendo lost Square to Sony, and Dragon Quest from Enix kinda petered out and eventually shipped on PS1. The effectively had a huge catalog of RPGs that n64 was sorely lacking. There was also a comparative lack of 'mature' themed games. And the catalog was smaller, about 5x so. Even Zelda was not a launch title. Probably because the cards were substantially more expensive than CDs.

There was also a supply issue early on in the n64's lifecycle, I seem to recall it being just shy of Tickle-Me-Elmo hard to find.

The ps1 was also easier to pirate, double edged sword though it be.

Sony marketed the device to an older generation e.g they had PlayStation demo station in night clubs. Until Sony entered the gaming market, consoles were largely considered a children toy.

Personally, watching a friend roam around the world map of final fantasy VII, I had never seen a game like that in my life. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Even goldeneye couldn't talk me out of getting a PS1 after that.

Same, that was the only reason I bought a PlayStation.

Maybe N64 had a better library of games to you, but for others PS1 had Silent Hill, MGS, FFVII, Gran Turismo, Tomb Raider, Tekken, all games that define their genre even 20 years later.

Yeah, I still remember playing Tekken for the first time at my friends house, which was over 25 years ago. It was truly jaw dropping for the time.

I failed to also mention Resident Evil. Shameful.

The PS1 also had much more memory available for texture data - there was a set of trade offs for both consoles. Personally I loved both - but the PS1 turned out some really impressive game’s that weren’t possible on the N64 (at least not without looking like blurry messes) even discounting the benefits a CD-ROM had for storing large amounts of data.

I seem to recall PS1 games being cheaper than N64 games which allowed kids to purchase more. Allowances in the 90s were on average between 5-20/wk. PS1 games were more like $40 compared to N64 games which were usually $60.

CDROM had massive amounts of storage compared to a cartridge, and production costs were far lower as well, leading to much better profits.

> What did everyone see in the PS1?

Mod chips.

Games that show violence, guns, monster gore, zombies in a nutshell more games.

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