The video game industry continues to grow and evolve in monumental ways, but the aspect of a war between the different consoles in the industry has been around since the very start. Nintendo held an early dominance in the console market, but the PlayStation marked Sony’s jump into the game, which forever changed the industry.
Sony’s PlayStation had to compete against the Nintendo 64, which was also a turning point for Nintendo in many ways. Both of these consoles were pivotal machines during the ‘90s and they helped change video games in substantial ways that are still felt today. The Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation are beloved consoles, but they both come with their own specific advantages and deterrents.
10 Nintendo 64: Four-Person Multiplayer Was The Standard
The Nintendo 64 features a wide library of titles for all players, but one of the serious advantages of the console is that it made four-person multiplayer the norm. Admittedly, the PlayStation can achieve the same thing with its multitap, but the majority of its titles are still just two-player. The Nintendo 64 effectively makes itself the party machine with this advantage and it has many amazing multiplayer titles like Mario Kart 64, Super Smash Bros., and Goldeneye 007 that advantage of this and show that the system can handle the extra chaos.
9 PlayStation: The PSOne Re-Design
The Nintendo 64 is a powerful machine and Nintendo was content to keep one design for it throughout the length of its run. Sony instead tried to exhibit some ingenuity with a sleeker and more portable version of their console. The redesigned PSOne cut out the unnecessary perks of the standard PlayStation and allowed the console to be on the move and become self-sufficient in a way that the Nintendo 64 could never dream of. It’s a smart idea to bring in a new audience and Sony has continued to redesign their consoles as they’ve moved forward.
8 Nintendo 64: Different Colors And Personality
When it comes to video game consoles, what should be the most important factors are the hardware power and its library of games, but it’s natural for aesthetics to also play a factor.
It may seem superficial to some people, but a wide array of colors for the N64’s controllers, and later the consoles themselves, is an easy way to add something extra to the equation. Nintendo still takes advantage of their audience’s individuality in this respect, whereas the PlayStation and its controllers were just a drab grey.
7 PlayStation: Its RPG Library
The Super Nintendo was the home for many of the best RPGs of its generation, but the pivotal developer Square largely shifted their efforts to Sony’s PlayStation over the Nintendo 64. There are hundreds of excellent PlayStation games, but many of their RPGs are still viewed as the best efforts of the genre. The PlayStation contains some fundamental Final Fantasy titles, but plenty of other RPG series that are still considered to be classics. The Nintendo 64’s minimal RPGs paled in comparison and the choice was easy for fans of the genre.
6 Nintendo 64: Connectivity With The Game Boy
Nintendo has a unique advantage over Sony due to how they had hardware in the home console market as well as the handheld area. Nintendo wisely found ways to get these two streams to compliment one another and there are a number of titles that offer up interactivity and extra content by linking together the Nintendo 64 with the handheld Game Boy. The experience of unlocking new content was still new and exciting for audiences and it made the Game Boy crowd even more appreciative of Nintendo.
5 PlayStation: It’s An Excellent CD Player
Video game consoles serve the primary function to play video games, but Sony is the first company that started to approach the idea that consoles could be entire multimedia systems that extend beyond just gaming. One of the ways in which the PlayStation was ahead of its time is that it also functions as an excellent quality CD player for any of the audiophiles out there.
Additionally, many PlayStation discs would also contain music tracks or full soundtracks that could also be listened to in a regular CD player. Sony would only do more with this idea with its future consoles.
4 Nintendo 64: Nintendo’s Relationship With Rare
It’s important for any video game console to have strong relationships with third-party developers, which is an area where Nintendo can sometimes struggle. Most of Nintendo’s best games are made by themselves, but during the span of the Nintendo 64, one of the company’s greatest assets was the developer, Rare. Rare’s relationship with Nintendo is one of the most successful in the industry and all of the company’s offerings for the console, like Banjo-Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing, or Perfect Dark, became the N64’s most celebrated releases. It’s a valuable relationship that Sony couldn’t utilize.
3 PlayStation: The Multitap Allows For Eight-Person Multiplayer
There are many different ways to experience video games, but for some people the communal aspect of multiplayer is absolutely essential. The PlayStation comes with two controller ports, which limits the amount of players in comparison to the Nintendo 64’s four. However, the PlayStation does have the multitap accessory that allows four-person multiplayer. In some rare circumstances, two multitaps could be connected together and an eight-player game can be enjoyed. This wasn’t the norm on the PlayStation, but it’s still a perk that the Nintendo 64 couldn’t replicate.
2 Nintendo 64: The Expansion Pak And Its Graphical Power
The Nintendo 64 made a big splash because its 64 bits were superior to the 32 that Sony and Sega’s competition offered. The Nintendo 64 still had its limitations due to its cartridge media, but many titles pushed the hardware to its graphical limitations. The Nintendo 64 took this even further with the release of their Expansion Pak, which adds an extra 4MB of RAM to the console, bumping it up to 8MB. This allows even more impressive gaming feats like Donkey Kong 64 to be accomplished, as well as an improvement to the graphical quality of older games.
1 PlayStation: The Advent Of The “Swap Trick”
The PlayStation had a number of obscure accessories like the PocketStation that never became mainstream features, but one secret of the console that gained a lot of attention was the way in which bootleg games could be played. Piracy is always an important issue in gaming and despite Sony’s efforts, savvy gamers learned of a “swap trick” that would let them play unofficial backups. This breach obviously wasn’t made a selling point for the PlayStation, but it let some people sample titles in a way that was impossible on the Nintendo 64 with its cartridges.