A warm summer afternoon, a quiet day sitting at home. Idly messing around with carefree indulgences of curiosity, browsing the history of videogames through the pages of Wikipedia, reading on the triumphs and failures of Nintendo's systems, the titanic Super Nintendo, and the deeply flawed Nintendo 64 that followed, fighting Sony's PlayStation that stole away most of their third-party developers. Then the thought suddenly arises: "I haven't gotten the mail yet today." A brisk scampering down the stairs, a swift swinging of the front door, and into the easy breeze of the fresh outdoor air I'm plunged, paying little mind to my surroundings as I approach the mailbox. Long strides followed by a few short steps, a pivoting on my heel, and I'm facing the opening of the box. A quick pull on the lid, an arm burrowing inside, fingers rummaging over paper edges, and a grasping around the stack inside that consists of the day's post.
Flicking through the envelopes and flyers, eyes scanning the names of the addressed, a blue shiny object catches my view from beyond the corners of my paper bundle. A soda can, conspicuously lying on the ground, branded with the Pepsi logo. I bend down to pick it up, immediately aware of the surprising weight of the beverage container, a weight characteristic of a can never opened, its contents remaining intact. But what an odd can this is. It's unmistakably Pepsi, but it's...old looking. A logo with retro styling, harkening back to an age I'm too young to have known. It's gotta be from the 80s or 70s or something, but other than some scratches, there isn't much wear on its surface. A full can of 30 year old Pepsi. Gross.
Soda in hand, mail in arm, I reenter my home, and place the postage on a nearby table, eyeing the strange relic in my palm all the time. How can something like this still exist, and how did it end up on the edge of my front lawn, next to my mailbox? Further questions arise. What should I do with it? Should I keep it on a shelf, just for the hell of it? It might have some sort of collector value. Maybe I should open it, just to see what the liquid inside is like, if it's all gooey or maybe separated, or perhaps chunky. That would be nasty, but kind of interesting. Walking over to a sink, holding it aloft in front of me, just within the encircling rim of the bowl below, I slowly, cautiously, peel the tab upward. The shhh sounds of escaping pressure, the gurgling sounds of bubbling carbonation. The billowing foam rising from the lips of the can's mouth, it grows and spills over, swelling and surging rapidly upwards, fine misty brown sprinkles shooting into the air, higher and faster than feasibly possible. Out of the top of the soda can spurts frothy liquid blackness, and building sugary spray around it, encompassing the air around the sink and towering over my head, like a great tingly haze ascending before me. The sweet sizzling cloud growing impossibly large and fast seems to take a form, a deliberate shape and contortion, a likeness almost human in figure resembling a torso. Smokey rolls of mist form rows comprising a pair of crossed arms folded over a muscular chest. A murky face emerges above the undulating shoulders, glowing eyes staring down on me with sternness and intensity. The brown-black coloring of the haze shifts into a lighter, skin-like complexion, just as the fuzzy outlines refine into sharper focus. The muscular humanoid floats in fullness now, an unmistakable visage of a man from the waste-up, below which is a rolling tail of cloudy darkness, still sizzling with the familiarity of soda essence. A voice calls out, strong, steady, and forceful.
"I am the genie that will grant you three wishes. Three wishes that compose the greatest of your desires, that make up the wildest of your dreams, and that which summarizes the most grievous of your deficiencies. Declare before me what it is that you wish for, and it shall be done."
Stunned and confused, excited and anxious, I find myself an array of feelings at the outset of this new development. Barely comprehending what has been laid before me, I search my thoughts for ideas. Money jumps to mind. A good wish, certainly, but maybe later. What about something better, something less clichéd? Something in the past I might want to change. My mind flashes back to what I had been reading about online just minutes before. Then it hits me. Wouldn't it be cool if the Nintendo 64 didn't have all those shortcomings, and helped Nintendo retain dominance in the gaming market? What if it didn't have the cartridge format that plagued the system and repelled developers' favor? It's a silly thought, and probably the nerdiest thing I could wish for, but it could be awesome! And hey, it's not a selfish wish either.
"Um, OK. How about... I wish the Nintendo 64 still kept the CD medium that was originally intended for the system, but that..." Hmm, this might mean I'd lose my Nintendo 64 the way it was, and if history is changed, would I even remember how it was to know the difference? "But that...everything in this house remains unchanged from how things are now." Yeah that should cover it, my possessions, and my memories. This will be cool.
After a short pause, the genie answers, in a strong solemn voice. "Your wish that history be changed, that Nintendo embrace the format of CDs, and that videogames as you know it be altered, except for within the confines of this building...shall be granted."
The genie lifts his arms, and the black misty clouds around him grow even larger, filling the room. The clouds begin to swirl and flash, blue lights shining within round folds of billowing smoke. All around me, and in the distance beyond the windows outside, space seems to distort, time seems to pause, and a stirring restlessness in the world around me squeezes and pulls on my senses and my body, as if the fabric of the universe is being torn and resewn, manipulated and reworked. Disorientation takes hold of me, and I begin to lose feeling in my arms and legs, and my head starts spinning and throbbing. I reach up to my grab my forehead, my eyes clinched shut, and when the feeling finally passes, the clouds are gone, the distortion has ceased, and my surroundings are normal again. The genie, I note, is gone, the can from which he emerged sitting in the bottom of the sink, still full and now resealed.
Has it happened? Is anything different now? Immediately I leap up the stairs and into my bedroom, rushing to my media rack. My Nintendo 64 is still there on the shelf, unchanged. I turn to my left, to the computer monitor sitting atop my desk. There sits the Wikipedia page, much as I had left it, but instead of the title "Nintendo 64" sitting above the article, it reads "Nintendo Ultra 64", with an image in the corner of a Nintendo console I've never seen before, and a flip open lid on top covering a CD reader. History has been changed. Hurriedly I sit down to inquire further.
Back in the late eighties, Nintendo and Sony enter negotiations for use of technology in the Nintendo Entertainment System's successor. This results in Nintendo using Sony's audio chip in the Super Nintendo. So far, everything's the same. After the system's debut, Nintendo and Sony plan to create a CD reader add-on for the SNES, while Sony creates their own system called the Play Station that's compatible with SNES cartridge games, as well as SNES CD-based games, in addition to its own proprietary CD-based format. Sony first announces this system at CES 1991. Again, everything up to this point is unchanged, but here's where history starts to diverge. Instead of Nintendo announcing the cancellation of the partnership with Sony and the formation of a new one with Phillips the very next day, as I remember it, Nintendo echoes Sony's announcement as planned, but makes a statement that the system will be delayed pending further negotiations. Just as before, Nintendo is unhappy with the terms of the contract between the two companies, but rather than going behind Sony's back, they decide to try and work out a new deal. Instead of Sony having all the licensing rights and royalties with the new CD format, the new deal they strike has Nintendo retaining licensing rights, while Sony handles all the media sales to publishers and distribution. Essentially Sony gets a cut of the pie, but Nintendo still has all the say-so. Everyone's happy and the new format is readied for its official launch.
The SNES-CD add-on releases several months delayed, but no worse for the wear. The Sony-branded Play Station follows four months after that. The SNES add-on, which sits underneath the system, brings enhancements mainly in the area of audio, allowing for PCM-based CD music and digitized voices in-game. It also expands the system's overall memory a bit, as well as its on-screen color capabilities, while also facilitating full-motion video. The bestselling Nintendo game for the new format is Star Fox 2, which was well underway in development as a cartridge-based game but was revised for SNES-CD to add support for CG cutscenes and full spoken dialog. Other third-party games are released too (some of which I remember originally as cartridge games, such as Shadowrun), including a fair amount of Super Scope games, but the number of overall titles is fairly slim, and uptake is slow. The potential of the add-on is limited by the still fairly slow CPU and limited memory capacity, helped very little by the slow access time and bandwidth of the memory onboard the SNES-CD module. Its limited success is similar to the Sega CD, but cartridge-based games continue to be hugely popular on the system, leaving most of my favorite games unchanged by the add-on, which is a relief.
The Play Station sees much further enhancements, however. The base system memory is four times as large as the SNES, without requiring the program to access it through a limited bus incurring huge bandwidth constraints and latency, like with the SNES-CD add-on. The CPU has also been amped up (mostly in the way of clockspeed), with a co-processor built into the system very similar to the Super FX chip, but with at least twice the performance. The system also features even more advanced sound capabilities (mostly pertaining to the number of channels and sampling rate), along with all the color and FMV capabilities that SNES-CD has. Although seeing decent success in Japan, the Play Station is less successful in North America and Europe, with developers less than thrilled with Sony taking an even greater cut of their margins. The marketing campaign is also partly to blame, failing to clear up consumer confusion with what the system actually is, and how to distinguish which CD-based games are playable on which consoles. Overall the Play Station is viewed as an interesting footnote in the history of videogames, like the Panasonic Q from what I remember, but is not very successful worldwide, mostly due to the lack of developer support. Sony, not pleased with the losses they've incurred with the new venture, and from pressure from the company's senior execs who don't view videogames as something to be taken seriously, bows out of the market after that point, but still continues its partnership with Nintendo with optical formats in the future.
Sega's history remains largely the same during this time. Their string of add-ons on the Genesis fail to really impress, and when the Sega Saturn releases in 1995, the notorious surprise launch of the system is still a death knell for its future, causing a lot of store chains to boycott it, and a lot of developers to be fed up with Sega's lack of support, along with the difficulties of developing for the system itself.
Finally 1996 rolls around, and with it, phenomenal hype surrounding the launch of the Nintendo Ultra 64, the biggest videogame console release on record. Learning from their mistakes from the previous CD-based experiments, Nintendo slackens the licensing restrictions on publishers, and subsequently, allows for a greater variety of game releases. Sony also reduces the production costs for publishers, both because of the lowering prices on the medium since the early nineties, but also because of a lowered priority for gaming within the company since they are no longer funding a new platform with the format. In summary, developer support for the Ultra 64 is HUGE, due to the desire to utilize the new format in a much more advanced system, but also due to the greater creative and financial freedom that's allowed, and from a lot of developers jumping ship from Sega to what they view as the "promise land" of videogame platforms. The outside of the system looks a lot like the Nintendo 64 did, though maybe a little larger, with a flatter top supporting the lid cover over the CD reader, but still the large "feet" sticking out the front. Internally, the hardware of the Ultra 64 isn't much different from the Nintendo 64 either. The same core components are still in use, with the one major difference being a doubling of the system RAM, necessitated due to the slower access time of the data on the disc medium. Unlike the PlayStation from how I remember it, which used a 2x speed CD-ROM reader, the Ultra 64 uses a 4x reader, which was very new and cutting-edge at the time. This was used because of Nintendo's concern for loading times in games, and as a result of this, and the high cost of memory, the system debuts for a significantly higher price than the Nintendo 64 did: $299 versus $199. This is the same price the original PlayStation would have cost, but still much cheaper than the failing Sega Saturn.
The Nintendo Ultra 64 would reign basically unchallenged for most of its life, with all the developer support that the PlayStation from the previous timeline would have got, plus even more. Briefly looking over some of the games, of course all of Square's Final Fantasy games are on the system, and better looking than ever. It looks like there were some truly epic RPGs on the U64, as you'd expect from a disc-based system, continuing the legacy started by the SNES. Loading times, from what little I can find on the net written about it, doesn't seem to be as big a nuisance on the Ultra 64 as it was on the original PSX, though obviously some games are going to be worse than others. Nintendo's Zelda game on the system is a fair bit different from how Ocarina of Time ended up, which makes me glad I'm able to keep it the way it was in my collection. The game is much more epic in scope, taking the time traveling idea even further, with some elements probably more closely resembling how Majora's Mask turned out than the original. Instead of just two different places in time, you have four, with the two I'm already familiar with, along with one that goes further back in time before Link was a kid, to when Ganon was first starting out, and then one further into the future, where everything's weird and the world is populated by bizarre creatures, much of whom look like fat, upright-walking raccoon creatures with cotton-ball antennas (typical, quirky Nintendo shenanigans). Once you get through the kid Link portion, you turn into an adult and remain that way, and you have to bounce between the timezones based on a clock according to when certain events take place, grabbing items and triggering actions at specific times and places when they're available. It's pretty epic, and really huge looking, and looks to be even more groundbreaking and influential than Ocarina of Time was.
There's just too many games to try to look over, and try as I might, it's a bit more than I can digest in one sitting. On the whole it seems games aren't quite as adult as some of PSX's titles were, which may be a loss to the market. I'm left wishing I had printed out the original history so I can compare it better, as I start to come to the realization that I can't, and what has happened is now permanent. As daunting as it is, history really is totally different. There's no PlayStation anymore, none of the games that were on the Nintendo 64 are the same, and Nintendo looks to be unstoppable. So what could disrupt this enormous momentum they've garnered for themselves? Dreamcast.
Up to this point, Sega's history hasn't changed a whole lot, except their lagging behind is all the more glaring because they are the only other major competitor. In 1997, an attempt is made by IBM and Toshiba to create a rival console, but this system is delayed numerous times until when it finally receives a limited release, it's to a reception of collective shrugs. So in 1999, the Dreamcast is released, surprisingly intact despite all the differences in history that have occurred up to this point. I dare say it's identical, from the hardware used inside to the outer casing, and just as before, it drops the jaws of the gaming world with its next-generation graphics and features. The biggest difference is, this time it prevails. Thanks to a market no longer so splintered by three different competitors, Sega gets much more attention from the public and developers. Sega works closely with their partners this time around, eager to mend old wounds and make what they feel is their last real chance in the console market a success. In its own right, it certainly is. Introducing online capabilities, new game types not attempted before in a home console, and of course leveraging the arcade gaming ties Sega has always had, the Dreamcast quickly gains a strong following, one that only continues to grow up until 2001, when Nintendo finally releases their successor.
Nintendo's Ultra 64 successor is nothing like the GameCube, or really anything I thought it would be. Nintendo's coming off of a high of cutting-edge gaming experiences and huge support from developers and the install base of enthusiastic fans. Their Ultra 64 successor can be nothing less than the best to facilitate the next phase of their phenomenal track record. When I see the name, I have to do a double-take. It's called the GameSphere. What? Really? All the differences in history and the name ends up more a derivative of the original timeline than a complete change. Maybe it's fate, or maybe it's simply a product of the same minds behind a company whose only alteration is their circumstance, not necessarily how they think. The "Sphere" in the name doesn't denote the shape of the system though. The spiel from their marketing talks about the sphere of Nintendo's influence, and their impact all over the world. Basically it's Nintendo waxing on about how big they are. The logo just looks like a webbed globe or something. The actual look of the system is fairly rectangular, with gentle curves on the front and sides, and a sort of grill pattern along the top. Really it's the most boring looking system that Nintendo's produced, more reminiscent of the Xbox than anything. Not wanting to be left in the dark, the system has a built-in modem, but also ethernet support. Amazingly quick adoption of online gaming coming from a company I've always known to lag behind in that regard. One of the biggest things is support for DVDs, no doubt influenced by their continued partnership with Sony. The GameSphere (a name I'll have a hard time getting used to) is meant to be an all-encompassing media center, far from the gaming-only focus of Nintendo's past, and more akin to how the SNES-based Play Station was meant to be. The controllers reflect this, a design going back to the wide dogbone shape of the SNES controller, but with two long Ultra 64-esque handles on either side, strikingly similar to the PSX controller as it would have been. The buttons on the controller are clearly designed with a media bend, with a play button serving as the start button, and the face buttons engraved (with clear plastic coverings) with playback control symbols, such as stop, skip forward, skip back, and one I don't recognize resembling an hourglass, supposedly to bring up the menu and such. Above the buttons is printed the standard letters ABXY, but it seems odd that those aren't engraved in the buttons instead of the playback symbols. Has Nintendo lost touch with their priorities? To my dismay, I find there are only two shoulder buttons, like past Nintendo controllers, and those are used for fast forward/rewind during playback. There aren't any triggers as found on the Dreamcast controller. More disheartening, there's only one analog stick, with the d-pad sitting below and to the side of it, colored yellow to show it has taken over the C-buttons' task. With no PlayStation around, there's nothing to show the market the virtues of dual analog sticks, and I feel I may have done gaming as a whole a real disservice for this. Internally, there is no ATI chipset, or even IBM, like the GCN had. To hammer the Xbox similarities home even further, there's an Intel processor inside, supposedly because of the performance advantage over PowerPC. Nintendo didn't want to pull any punches in that aspect. The GPU during development was to be 3DFX, having failed to win over the Dreamcast design, and hoping to recoup their losses with Nintendo. But by the time the GameSphere is released, NVIDIA bought 3DFX, and the final GameSphere system employs a GeForce GPU, with better performance, and yes, more similarities with the Xbox that would have been.
The battle between Dreamcast and GameSphere is an intense one. While the GameSphere clearly has the better graphics, the Dreamcast already has a large assortment of games in the three years it took for Nintendo's competitor to release, not to mention an already well-established consumer base. Of course, ultimately, the mighty Nintendo will not be toppled, and the uptake on the GameSphere is a fierce one, but a costly one. Nintendo's focus seems to be more on media and flashy graphics, and less on developer support and games. Some unfortunate dealings have left some developers in the cold, causing many to jump ship and leave Nintendo for Sega, and it's more open attitude towards game makers. This is definitely not the Nintendo I knew. Even more distressing, some of those developers that left Nintendo were behind many of their successful first-party franchises, though fortunately Miyamota and Takashi Tezuka remain. As a result, some of Nintendo's franchises don't hold up as well as they used to, most notably the Zelda and Metroid series. Nintendo's online support, while more robust than Sega's, still gets little use in the GameSphere's games, and as such, the popularity of online between the systems is a wash.
The Dreamcast leads a healthy life, and sees a successful replacement in 2005, called the Sega Venture. The Venture much resembles what the Xbox 360 was, utilizing IBM and ATI chips in its specs, and featuring a really sleek, curvy, modern design that continues the white motif of the Dreamcast. The controller is equally slick, if not just a little unwieldy looking, but then I see it: dual analog sticks! Thank you Sega! Finally someone sees the light, though the sticks are asymmetrical in size. The system advances the online support that made the predecessor famous, but still doesn't approach what Microsoft would have done for online console gaming in the same generation. Still, Microsoft has some influence in the online capabilities, continuing their partnership that tentatively started with the Dreamcast, and they probably have a hand at making online support as good as it is in the Venture. The disc medium is dual-layer DVDs, with a slot-loading disc reader. While not a small system, it doesn't seem as large thanks to its sleek shape. The system launches with only a few games, but one of which is a new Sonic Adventure title that receives some of the highest ratings of any Sonic game ever made.
Nintendo's next system is severely delayed due to production costs and design concerns, probably emanating from heat dissipation issues. It launches not in 2005, or even 2006, but early 2007! They call it, believe it or not, the Revolution, and once more it utilizes highend Intel and NVIDIA chips, both derivatives of top-of-the-line components from their PC product lines. Much like the PS3 would have, it sports a blu-ray player, using a tray disc drive that sits inside a stupidly massive system. It looks like what the 3DO would have been in dimensions. The controllers still don't have dual analog, afterall that's only just now a new feature, but instead the d-pad has been moved to the right side opposite the solitary analog stick on the left. Below the d-pad are just two buttons, A and B, with the d-pad taking care of much of the game actions and media functions. I find myself shaking my head as I continue reading on the Revolution's continuing story. While programming on the system is easy, the developer tools are the source of much criticism, and game support on the system is less than exemplary. Add to that, most games that are on the system are cross-platform, a trend I know of from my own memories of videogame history. The games that are needed to distinguish the system, core Nintendo franchises, are some of the worst entries in Nintendo's history, possibly due to the developers getting lazy, or Nintendo's execs restricting the amazing creative capabilities of Nintendo's senior game designers with a desire to take less risks that it feels it can't afford. As a result, Nintendo as a whole is sharply on the decline. It's a Nintendo that doesn't innovate, a Nintendo that's lost its edge, it's essence. It's a sad thing to behold, and one of my own making. With the downward spiral, and little else to back Nintendo's finances, many are questioning the feasibility of the next system any time soon, if there ever is one.
I pull back from my desk, a breathe a deep sigh. Maybe this was wrong? I look to my right, where my SNES and N64 rest, and my Wii and GameCube on the shelf above them. I reminisce of a different Nintendo, one that was a creatively-charged, free-thinking force in the gaming world. With all the quirks and stumbling blocks they've experienced, they were probably better for it, with a future that still looked bright after all these years.
A turning of my chair, a heaving push to my feet, and a slow, thoughtful walk out of my room and down the stairs, I once again face the sink with the Pepsi can inside. An outward reach of my hand, a grasping around the aluminum cylinder, and a pull on the tab. Foam and mist shoot into the air, and once again, the genie stands before me.
SOURCES:
http://www.next-gen.biz/features/making-playstation
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3149883
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_%28console%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_saturn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_dreamcast
