The N64 had the 'Expansion Pak', an expansion RAM upgrade, that doubled the console's RAM from 4 to 8MB. Only one game was ever deliberately made to need it (Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask), and another game needed it simply because when the game (Donkey Kong 64) was released, it contained a bug that crashed the game unless the expansion pak was released, so Rare (who made Donkey Kong 64) altered the game so it wouldn't boot unless you had the expansion pack. There are quite a few N64 games that do use the expansion pak if it's present, but run fine without it. The biggest example is Perfect Dark, which gives you nothing but a cut-down version of the multiplayer game if you don't have an expansion pack. Also, if you don't have an expansion pak, then you can't play the final track (road) on Rush 2049 (you only get to play in five out of the six tracks), you can't play the Brood Wars Expansion maps on Star Craft 64 without an expansion pak. Most other games that use the expansion pak simply add a high resolution gaphical mode, though in some cases this can reduce the game's frame-rate, so some people tend to tun off the high resolution option in some games. So was the expansion pack a success? It certainly didn't give the N64 a second lease of life or anything, but it's worth the money for Perfect Dark and Majora's Mask, if for nothing else. But I don't know if Nintendo overall made a decent profit from the expansion pak, or if they later regretted designing and selling it. Oh, and I think you need the expansion pak if you use a Gameshark to make your own cheat modes. For more details, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories
Hmm, they sold 80 million PSPs which is around the same as GBA sold. Way below the DS though, of course.
Conker, great writeup. Had completely forgot about the N64 Expansion Pack. Probably because I didn't appreciate Majora's Mask at the time, it wasn't "real" Zelda to me. Nowadays I love quirky side-stories. I think PSP did better outside the US, that's why I don't think of it as successful as the others.
Maybe the FDS? I mean, I'm not 100% sure it counts, since the big selling point was bigger games. I can't think of a really successful one in the States, the biggest would probably be the Expansion Pak or the Sega CD (which did upgrade the specs by having its own processor, and, again, bigger cheaper games). When I was in college I used my laptop as a wireless bridge for my 360 since they wouldn't let us directly connect consoles to the network. It was kinda funny. But the PSP was released right after the DS, so they were basically competing. I think a lot of people saw the GBA as an incremental change, plus it was only out for 4 years before the DS, and the DS had 7ish.
You are right and my message was a bit unclear. What I was trying to say was that 80 million is a huge amount of units to sell (not a small dent) and I was using GBA as a comparison to give a sense of scale, not that they were competing at the same time. Aside from that, I disagree with your point that at the time GBA was not considered an incremental change at all. It was a huge step up from the GB/GB Color and almost the handheld SNES we all wanted at the time.
When I said that Nintendo owned the handheld market, it's more that there was never a credible threat to their superiority, until mobile phones started playing games well. Yeah the PSP did well, and if Sony hadn't dropped the ball with the Vita it could have started something good, but it obviously didn't impair sales of the highest selling handheld of all time. It was, but it was still based off the same architecture (sort of) and used the same cartridges (but differently shaped because Nintendo didn't want to deal with pissed off parents because their kid's GBA game won't play in a GBC).
E3 should be fun this year, would love to play Hunter the Reckoning on my Xbox, rumors of original Xbox titles coming to backwards compatibility on Xbox One at E3.
So now we have fanboy wars over hardware that doesn't exist, the XBOTs going to war with the PSFOURONs (I refused to call them ponies, Pony is not an insult) over which fake upgraded console is better. Just sad.... That said I don't think the XBOX's future is all that bleak. If they could get some more Japanese support, even it just for the west and get some fighters and JRPGs on it, they'd be fine.
Ain't happening. After all they tried with the Japanese market last gen I think MS understands that there is nothing they can do other than go back in time, buy Sega, and have their console be branded by Sega in Japan.
