thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Now, I don't normally like being overly critical on retrospectives. In fact most gaming retrospectives I tend to like quite a lot. However, those same retrospectives also tend to focus almost exclusively on the subject at hand, and any periphery elements included are at most given casual, neutral roles and not treated as a subject in and of itself.
That's usually because if a retrospective is focused on a particular game or system, said game or system is going to have a degree of positive bias unto it. Preferably not one that glosses over or admits any actual flaws of the subject, but the positive bias will be present regardless and it's required to a large degree since this is something you are assumed to have a liking towards (either personally or just from a point of curiosity). Although I suppose, "positive" in this context can also be had ironically if the subject at hand is generally accepted as bad, and such the 'positive' focus is in being tongue-in-cheek.
A couple days ago I came across a retrospective on the N64 done by the Youtube channel Sakharu Baguette. The video itself is linked here. I don't think I've heard of the channel until coming across this video; in fact having checked that would have been impossible because so far this is their only video. As I currently type this thread I'm actually still watching the video; however just shy of 30 minutes in, or a little over 1/3rd ways through to put it another way, while the video is professionally edited and narrated, it has....a pretty clear & evident "bias problem".
As mentioned before, it's a retrospective on the N64. Clearly, that naturally invites some commentary on its main contemporaries to help contextualize it within the market during the period, those contemporaries being the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation. Unfortunately while the peripheral/framing commentary on the Saturn is at least neutral bias, that for the Sony PlayStation is consistently of a negative light, especially in relation to the Nintendo 64 (where the Saturn fares between neutral and light negative), and even the Sega Saturn. This is a problem, because it is a retrospective that is attempting to provide a summation of market history during that generation while also providing an extended summation of the Nintendo 64's place within that market period.
In having such a clear negative bias towards a specific, direct competitor to the main subject of the video, however, the creator slips into being an unreliable narrator. Some stories intentionally do this for storytelling effect, but this video isn't a fictional story. It's a historical accounting of events which actually happened. If they had reserved these biases for a segment within the video expressing their own personal opinions, that would have been one thing. However, biases which are clearly their personal opinions on the periphery and main subjects, heavily flavor the commentary in what a typical viewer would assume is a relatively accurate historical accounting. As such, the viewer would naturally assume that any bias present in such an accounting regarding subjects is neutral....unfortunately that is not the case here with this retrospective when it comes to PlayStation.
I'll list a few of the big problems I noticed (again, I'm still watching through the whole thing as I type this), and will hopefully provide corrections to points noticed.
1: The narrator regularly refers to Sony's promotion of CD technology in gaming as "propaganda". Now, let's look at the definition of the term "propaganda":
Now ask yourself, what information regarding CD technology for purposes of gaming, was Sony stating at the time which was "misleading"? Because while they did have a vested interest in CD adoption...they were surely not the only console maker using CD for gaming by the mid '90s. Load time issues were a known quantity even by the early '90s since a few microcomputer and DOS games were experimenting with CD versions of their games. The storage capacity of the media was not a lie; it in fact was capable of hundreds of MBs worth of storage at quantities much larger (and more affordable) than cartridges. This, along with standards like Redbook audio, allowed for superior sound compared to cartridge-based systems of the time as well.
Any of the benefits regarding CDs that Sony were promoting for purpose of benefiting the PS1...were effectively the same that companies like Sega promoted for the Sega/Mega-CD and Saturn, or NEC for the PC-Engine CD and PC-FX, or The 3DO Company for the 3DO, or Philips for the CD-i, or FM Towns for the FM Towns Marty, or SNK for the Neo Geo CD....you get the point. These benefits were time and again proven with real-world results quite absolutely even by the mid-90s...so to claim it as "propaganda" is quite misleading. It needlessly invites a negative connotation to the technology, product and in this case, the company with the product leveraging that technology.
2: The narrator misleads with the market share of Sega Saturn and PS1 in Japan. In particular, they attempt using the following image:
...which mischaracterizes the actual market performance of both consoles, in Japan, between 1994 and 1995. While it is true the Saturn had a lead over the PS1 during that period, there are two VERY important things to consider:
Sega reported all of their hardware sales during this period as sold-in (to retailers); not only Sega of Japan, as we know now from the leaked Sega documents (FY '96 or '97, I forget which) that Sega of America did the same thing (alongside Sega as a whole having unconsolidated accounting, but that's a different topic). Sony, OTOH, reported their sales as sold-through (to customers), at least when talking to the press (fiscal data still included sold-in). Sold-in will always produce a higher number than sold-through, but sold-through gives a better picture of where market share growth is happening where it really matters: at the consumer level.
And in that sense, the PS1 was significantly closer to Saturn during the '94 and '95 period in Japan, but particularly '95. I actually found the source of the info in the provided graphic the narrator of the video likely used (GAF > Internet > GAF; here's the PDF that post used btw), but that source only specifies hardware shipments in Japan through the end of 1994, while the narrator emphasizes the graphic to suggest a sales split between both platforms in Japan up through the end of 1995.
However, we have actual estimates for end of '95 in Japan and they clearly were closer than suggested in the image. Saturn shipments were seemingly around 2.5 million in Japan by EOY '95, while PS1 shipments were around 2 million. A difference of 500K in Saturn's favor, of course, but there is something else to be specified here. Saturn shipments in Japan for 1995 were lower than PlayStation's, despite having almost 3x the number of shipments in the 1994 period. Sega, being a console manufacturer with a known history, would have curried more favor for orders by retailers at Saturn's launch compared to Sony and the then-new PlayStation, with their unproven track record (in console) at the time. Yet if Saturn sold-through were ~ 3:1 by the end of 1994, you would suspect that Sega would have procured a much larger shipment of Saturns to Japan during 1995, even with a planned American & European launches later in that year.
Instead, we saw Sega rush the Saturn out to both markets in late Spring of that year...why? Well, the assumed reason was to get the jump on Sony in the West to repeat the huge success of doing so in Japan. But, Saturn only launched a week ahead of PS1 in Japan. Why would a strategy that supposedly worked with just a week-ahead launch, need to be turned into a several months-ahead surprise launch in Western markets? IMO, the more sensible read is that Sega did the surprise launch in the West because while sales were strong in Japan, they were not "massively strong" over PS1 particularly as the early parts of 1995 rolled in. This is supported by the massive increase in PS1 unit distribution for Japan during that year while it'd appear orders for Saturn slowed down considerably following the Christmas period. This slowdown for Saturn, and increase for PS1, might have unnerved SOJ executives and thus led them to demand a surprise launch for the Saturn in America & Europe.
The idea behind that is, likely, with several months head start they could have built up a large enough install base to lure 3P to the platform well ahead of PS1's September release, so even if momentum started to slow for Saturn by a point where a lot of PS1 became available for Western customers, the lead built up earlier would have ensured enough 3P software to naturally incline people towards a Saturn over a PS1, skimming back a peak on PS1 momentum enough to play a long game in growing install base.
At least, that is likely what SOJ thought would happen in theory. In practice this obviously didn't occur but, again, I think the surprise launch itself is supported by growing trepidation for Saturn's position in the market of Japan, as they saw the splits between sold-in (shipped) and sold-through (to customers) for the platform, compared to what were likely far closer ratios of both metrics for PS1 and a rapid increase in shipments for the system in Japan following the Christmas 1994 season.
3: There's a part where in talking about the impact of Super Mario 64's first demonstration to the gaming world, that it was a far cry from a lot of the mediocre software released on competing platforms up to that point.
And it's true; a lot of bad 3D games released prior to that showing of Mario 64. However, the narrator only focuses on the PlayStation when mentioning this, as if to suggest it was the only platform between it and Saturn with some bad 3D games released. That simply isn't true, and again it shows an inherently negative bias on the video's part towards how they frame Sony and PlayStation as subjects within the context of historical analysis of the N64.
Both the PS1 and Saturn had a few bad releases 3D-wise during that period but neither system sold simply on the novelty of their 3D. After all the 3DO also existed and if 3D alone were the only requirement for sales then that system would have been flying off the shelves. Even the Atari Jaguar would have performed better than it did.
4: There's a point around the 28 minute mark where the narrator (correctly) brings up that Sony pulling Squaresoft to their side helped draw in other developers. The context of "developers" here seemingly meaning 3P devs & publishers, as Squaresoft fits both labels. However, in listing some names of other studios that were swayed to focus primarily (or exclusively) on PS1 thanks to Sony drawing in Squaresoft, Japan Studio is mentioned.
Now let me remind you, the assumed context here is third party developers and publishers. However, a quick look into Japan Studio's history shows that they were a fully first party developer studio started internally by Sony back in 1993. Why are they being listed among a group of third-party developers & publishers like Enix, Yuke's and Acquire? In doing this, it feels like the video is attempting to associate Japan Studio as a third-party studio that was "lured in" by Sony to focus primarily/exclusively on PlayStation and not other platforms.
While staffing in-house 1P studios may inherently involve some degree of courting talent from other teams, some of whom may be 3P, it is quite a reach to then suggest or insinuate (verbally or visually) that said 1P studio is "basically" a 3P dev driven away from supporting one platform to another.
5: The narrator seems to paint a picture that PlayStation sales in Japan were rather laggy or grim whereas Saturn was dominating the region, at least up to the release of Resident Evil (March 1996). Even then, they posit that PS1 sales were just "slowly and steadily" improving from what is earlier insinuated as a laggy performance in the region. However, they only seem to be leveraging shipment data, from the sources I provided earlier. However, if we're going by shipment data, we can see that in both 1995 and 1996, shipments between Saturn and PS1 to Japan were statistically even. 1.66 million (Saturn) vs 1.7 million (PS1) in 1995, and 2.3 million (Saturn) vs. 2.2 million (PS1) in 1996. 1994 shipments have already been explained as a combination of Sega's Saturn likely initially receiving larger orders from retailers due to their proven hardware track record in gaming up to that point, and Sega's production line likely being a bit more mature.
That said, with the 1995 and 1996 shipments virtually tied, that does not sound to me like PS1 was "lagging behind" in Japan even during a pre-Resident Evil period. In fact, it would at least suggest the platforms were in similar levels of demand. If not, then retailers would simply reduce their quantity of orders, which would have been reflected in shipment amounts. Of course, product manufacturers can provide other incentives, such as pricing margins, buybacks, and so forth, to encourage retailers to order the product. But at some point, if the sell-through rate isn't good enough, retailers will reduce said orders. We're not seeing that for PS1 in '95 or '96, so we have to assume sold-through rates between it and Saturn were at least very similar during that period and, again, even pre-Resident Evil's release. However, depending on who you ask, PS1 had a higher sell-through rate than Saturn.
Again, though, if such were true (and considering shipments for Saturn didn't notably increase in relation to PS1 during those periods despite having near 3:1 shipment lead in 1994, is likely), it was probably not by a massive margin. This would suggest that the two platforms were extremely competitive in Japan from the 1994 to late 1996 periods, so it's befuddling as to why the narrator of the video (indirectly) suggests otherwise.
6: Around the 30 minute mark, the narrator essentially insinuates Sony of price-fixing to bleed competitors, i.e Sega, out of margins on their own consoles, suggesting the $199 price Sony cut the PS1 to in mid-1996 caused them to bleed lots of money on the console, but their corporate size offset those losses and they made them back and then some in software sales. This insinuation, ironically, is the narrator contradicting their own assumptions of lagging PS1 sales from the 1994-1996 period, and I'll explain why in a minute.
For starters, yes Sony as a corporation was much larger than Sega, and even Nintendo. They also did leverage parts of that corporate strength to assist the PS1 in the market, namely with certain technologies (CD-ROM drive, in-house chip production & design) and global distribution chain networks. However, a large degree of this would simply have been expected of such a company at the time to help get its newest product division off the ground.
Moreover, similarly massive Japanese tech companies like NEC did much the same for their PC-Engine and in spite of such, did not see success outside of Japan and even in Japan, saw at best modest success compared to smaller companies like Nintendo. To think Sony would not leverage parts of their company to beef up the PS1 is rather silly (and yes there is a parallel here in modern day to Microsoft and the Xbox, despite my known criticisms of that company and that brand. Though there are significant differences between them and today, versus Sony and the PS1, in how these synergies were realized and the intent of the synergies themselves).
However, even supposing Sony's price cut to $199 was them exploiting their corporate size (it wasn't), the video itself accidentally reveals a flaw in the basis of that presumption. It states that Sony would offset hardware losses through software revenue...which is true. In fact companies like Sega operated on much of the same principal. However, an earlier point the video stresses is that PlayStation sales were "lagging heavily" behind Saturn particularly in the Japan region. If these sales were significantly behind, wouldn't it stand to reason the software sales were similarly behind? And if software sales were similarly behind, wouldn't it stand to reason that 3P publishers would have scaled back software support for the platform earlier on, shifting focus to the Saturn instead?
In reality, that did not happen, because PS1 software sales were in fact quite good during the 1994-1996 periods, and on average higher than on Saturn, even in Japan, the region the video insinuates the PS1 was essentially struggling to keep pace in. Yet we have shipment data for both 1995 and 1996 for both systems in that territory, which are effectively tied, suggesting demand was at worst effectively tied or even, otherwise retailers would have pulled back on number of orders shipped to their stores, unless of course some type of massive incentives were provided for them to keep stock that wasn't selling. Though, I have to think if a certain company (Sony, in this case) were actually having done that, there would have been investigations or reports, maybe even lawsuits, from the era indicating such. And, we would have certainly seen a bleed-over effect of this for the PS2, in retailers being more strongly opposed to stocking the system, or being more receptive of stocking Dreamcasts. Which, of course, didn't happen either, suggesting such an idea never materially manifested.
Therefore we can assume that strong software sales and revenue cuts from 3P software sales on PS1, likely also combined with favorable currency exchange rates or what-have-you (and at least the economy in the West being very strong during the '90s) encouraged the $199 price cut. If anything, software revenue & revenue cuts were able to subsidize and offset a price drop, for a platform in growth phase, ahead of the launch of a seemingly strong competitor in the N64, which was already advertised to release cheaper than PS1's price at the time ($249 vs. $299).
Also remember, a lot of the PS1's chips were designed in-house and manufactured in-house as well, with the CD-ROM drive being in-house in addition to this. All of which meant much less off-the-shelf parts for PS1 versus the Saturn. The Saturn's heavy use of off-the-shelf parts negatively impacted the rate in which the MSRP could be scaled down without losing any, or too much, on each unit sold. However, that was Sega's own problem due to questionable engineering & design choices for the Saturn earlier on, not Sony's.
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Anyhow, I just wanted to point out some of the odd aspects of this retrospective I noticed in just the first 30 minutes; as I get through the rest (it's ~ 1hr 20 min in length), despite my criticisms above I AM enjoying the watch to a large extent. There aren't a lot of N64 retrospectives out there and the video itself is rather professionally edited, at least on par with other gaming documentaries I've seen on Youtube. Unfortunately, the implicit negative biases the narrator of the video seem to have towards the PlayStation, which is involved as a supporting subject to contextualize commentary on the main subject (the N64), drag down what would have otherwise been an easy recommendation.
As-is, I'd have to give it a 6.5/10 due in large part to those reoccurring negative biases, which weigh against it. As someone with a fondness for all three main systems of this generation (though I, of course, have my own preferences, the N64 generally being my least-preferred of the 3 in retrospect and the Saturn a somewhat close 2nd to the PS1, IMO), one thing I would love to see is more analysis and retrospective of the systems of the era but in a way where any positive bias towards a given platform doesn't create negative bias towards another, especially for needless reasons. For example, expanding out to lesser-known systems, I generally see the Atari Jaguar as a waste of a system for that generation. I would put it below the 3DO and even 32X (tho I view that more as a peripheral), let alone the N64, Saturn, and PS1, all three of which tower above it.
At the same time, if I were recanting events of the era and separating as much of my opinion and bias from the accounting as possible, I would not lean into harping on my personal distaste for the Jaguar in such. The reason being because, I would not want a negative bias to present itself which then could lead to misinforming on aspects of the system in what's otherwise meant as an historical accounting. Historical accountings should aim for historical accuracy, as that accuracy is absolutely important. I feel the best documentaries and retrospectives in gaming, particularly on consoles themselves, strive for and in most cases accomplish this.
This channel, which again I've only found recently through watching this vid, has a lot of potential. Their editing's on-point and they present stuff with good pacing. And, when excusing the issues surrounding reporting of PS1 in particular, it's more or less accurately informative. If they could work better on quelling the negative biases though, they could elevate their work by a good amount.
Welp, just wanted to share my thoughts. I'd still invite you to give it a watch yourself, especially if you're a Nintendo fan of the era. It does embellish some things when it comes to Sony in particular, but it also gives a mostly comprehensive timeline of N64 developments and, I'm assuming, market performance in the remaining hour I've still got to finish watching. That said, I'd be interested in hearing how any of you felt about the N64 at the time, and/or how you feel about it today. Take care!
That's usually because if a retrospective is focused on a particular game or system, said game or system is going to have a degree of positive bias unto it. Preferably not one that glosses over or admits any actual flaws of the subject, but the positive bias will be present regardless and it's required to a large degree since this is something you are assumed to have a liking towards (either personally or just from a point of curiosity). Although I suppose, "positive" in this context can also be had ironically if the subject at hand is generally accepted as bad, and such the 'positive' focus is in being tongue-in-cheek.
A couple days ago I came across a retrospective on the N64 done by the Youtube channel Sakharu Baguette. The video itself is linked here. I don't think I've heard of the channel until coming across this video; in fact having checked that would have been impossible because so far this is their only video. As I currently type this thread I'm actually still watching the video; however just shy of 30 minutes in, or a little over 1/3rd ways through to put it another way, while the video is professionally edited and narrated, it has....a pretty clear & evident "bias problem".
As mentioned before, it's a retrospective on the N64. Clearly, that naturally invites some commentary on its main contemporaries to help contextualize it within the market during the period, those contemporaries being the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation. Unfortunately while the peripheral/framing commentary on the Saturn is at least neutral bias, that for the Sony PlayStation is consistently of a negative light, especially in relation to the Nintendo 64 (where the Saturn fares between neutral and light negative), and even the Sega Saturn. This is a problem, because it is a retrospective that is attempting to provide a summation of market history during that generation while also providing an extended summation of the Nintendo 64's place within that market period.
In having such a clear negative bias towards a specific, direct competitor to the main subject of the video, however, the creator slips into being an unreliable narrator. Some stories intentionally do this for storytelling effect, but this video isn't a fictional story. It's a historical accounting of events which actually happened. If they had reserved these biases for a segment within the video expressing their own personal opinions, that would have been one thing. However, biases which are clearly their personal opinions on the periphery and main subjects, heavily flavor the commentary in what a typical viewer would assume is a relatively accurate historical accounting. As such, the viewer would naturally assume that any bias present in such an accounting regarding subjects is neutral....unfortunately that is not the case here with this retrospective when it comes to PlayStation.
I'll list a few of the big problems I noticed (again, I'm still watching through the whole thing as I type this), and will hopefully provide corrections to points noticed.
1: The narrator regularly refers to Sony's promotion of CD technology in gaming as "propaganda". Now, let's look at the definition of the term "propaganda":
Now ask yourself, what information regarding CD technology for purposes of gaming, was Sony stating at the time which was "misleading"? Because while they did have a vested interest in CD adoption...they were surely not the only console maker using CD for gaming by the mid '90s. Load time issues were a known quantity even by the early '90s since a few microcomputer and DOS games were experimenting with CD versions of their games. The storage capacity of the media was not a lie; it in fact was capable of hundreds of MBs worth of storage at quantities much larger (and more affordable) than cartridges. This, along with standards like Redbook audio, allowed for superior sound compared to cartridge-based systems of the time as well.
Any of the benefits regarding CDs that Sony were promoting for purpose of benefiting the PS1...were effectively the same that companies like Sega promoted for the Sega/Mega-CD and Saturn, or NEC for the PC-Engine CD and PC-FX, or The 3DO Company for the 3DO, or Philips for the CD-i, or FM Towns for the FM Towns Marty, or SNK for the Neo Geo CD....you get the point. These benefits were time and again proven with real-world results quite absolutely even by the mid-90s...so to claim it as "propaganda" is quite misleading. It needlessly invites a negative connotation to the technology, product and in this case, the company with the product leveraging that technology.
2: The narrator misleads with the market share of Sega Saturn and PS1 in Japan. In particular, they attempt using the following image:
...which mischaracterizes the actual market performance of both consoles, in Japan, between 1994 and 1995. While it is true the Saturn had a lead over the PS1 during that period, there are two VERY important things to consider:
1: That lead was significantly smaller than an image like this would suggest, and...
2: It only really manifested due to differences in sales reporting between the two companies.
Sega reported all of their hardware sales during this period as sold-in (to retailers); not only Sega of Japan, as we know now from the leaked Sega documents (FY '96 or '97, I forget which) that Sega of America did the same thing (alongside Sega as a whole having unconsolidated accounting, but that's a different topic). Sony, OTOH, reported their sales as sold-through (to customers), at least when talking to the press (fiscal data still included sold-in). Sold-in will always produce a higher number than sold-through, but sold-through gives a better picture of where market share growth is happening where it really matters: at the consumer level.
And in that sense, the PS1 was significantly closer to Saturn during the '94 and '95 period in Japan, but particularly '95. I actually found the source of the info in the provided graphic the narrator of the video likely used (GAF > Internet > GAF; here's the PDF that post used btw), but that source only specifies hardware shipments in Japan through the end of 1994, while the narrator emphasizes the graphic to suggest a sales split between both platforms in Japan up through the end of 1995.
However, we have actual estimates for end of '95 in Japan and they clearly were closer than suggested in the image. Saturn shipments were seemingly around 2.5 million in Japan by EOY '95, while PS1 shipments were around 2 million. A difference of 500K in Saturn's favor, of course, but there is something else to be specified here. Saturn shipments in Japan for 1995 were lower than PlayStation's, despite having almost 3x the number of shipments in the 1994 period. Sega, being a console manufacturer with a known history, would have curried more favor for orders by retailers at Saturn's launch compared to Sony and the then-new PlayStation, with their unproven track record (in console) at the time. Yet if Saturn sold-through were ~ 3:1 by the end of 1994, you would suspect that Sega would have procured a much larger shipment of Saturns to Japan during 1995, even with a planned American & European launches later in that year.
Instead, we saw Sega rush the Saturn out to both markets in late Spring of that year...why? Well, the assumed reason was to get the jump on Sony in the West to repeat the huge success of doing so in Japan. But, Saturn only launched a week ahead of PS1 in Japan. Why would a strategy that supposedly worked with just a week-ahead launch, need to be turned into a several months-ahead surprise launch in Western markets? IMO, the more sensible read is that Sega did the surprise launch in the West because while sales were strong in Japan, they were not "massively strong" over PS1 particularly as the early parts of 1995 rolled in. This is supported by the massive increase in PS1 unit distribution for Japan during that year while it'd appear orders for Saturn slowed down considerably following the Christmas period. This slowdown for Saturn, and increase for PS1, might have unnerved SOJ executives and thus led them to demand a surprise launch for the Saturn in America & Europe.
The idea behind that is, likely, with several months head start they could have built up a large enough install base to lure 3P to the platform well ahead of PS1's September release, so even if momentum started to slow for Saturn by a point where a lot of PS1 became available for Western customers, the lead built up earlier would have ensured enough 3P software to naturally incline people towards a Saturn over a PS1, skimming back a peak on PS1 momentum enough to play a long game in growing install base.
At least, that is likely what SOJ thought would happen in theory. In practice this obviously didn't occur but, again, I think the surprise launch itself is supported by growing trepidation for Saturn's position in the market of Japan, as they saw the splits between sold-in (shipped) and sold-through (to customers) for the platform, compared to what were likely far closer ratios of both metrics for PS1 and a rapid increase in shipments for the system in Japan following the Christmas 1994 season.
3: There's a part where in talking about the impact of Super Mario 64's first demonstration to the gaming world, that it was a far cry from a lot of the mediocre software released on competing platforms up to that point.
And it's true; a lot of bad 3D games released prior to that showing of Mario 64. However, the narrator only focuses on the PlayStation when mentioning this, as if to suggest it was the only platform between it and Saturn with some bad 3D games released. That simply isn't true, and again it shows an inherently negative bias on the video's part towards how they frame Sony and PlayStation as subjects within the context of historical analysis of the N64.
Both the PS1 and Saturn had a few bad releases 3D-wise during that period but neither system sold simply on the novelty of their 3D. After all the 3DO also existed and if 3D alone were the only requirement for sales then that system would have been flying off the shelves. Even the Atari Jaguar would have performed better than it did.
4: There's a point around the 28 minute mark where the narrator (correctly) brings up that Sony pulling Squaresoft to their side helped draw in other developers. The context of "developers" here seemingly meaning 3P devs & publishers, as Squaresoft fits both labels. However, in listing some names of other studios that were swayed to focus primarily (or exclusively) on PS1 thanks to Sony drawing in Squaresoft, Japan Studio is mentioned.
Now let me remind you, the assumed context here is third party developers and publishers. However, a quick look into Japan Studio's history shows that they were a fully first party developer studio started internally by Sony back in 1993. Why are they being listed among a group of third-party developers & publishers like Enix, Yuke's and Acquire? In doing this, it feels like the video is attempting to associate Japan Studio as a third-party studio that was "lured in" by Sony to focus primarily/exclusively on PlayStation and not other platforms.
While staffing in-house 1P studios may inherently involve some degree of courting talent from other teams, some of whom may be 3P, it is quite a reach to then suggest or insinuate (verbally or visually) that said 1P studio is "basically" a 3P dev driven away from supporting one platform to another.
5: The narrator seems to paint a picture that PlayStation sales in Japan were rather laggy or grim whereas Saturn was dominating the region, at least up to the release of Resident Evil (March 1996). Even then, they posit that PS1 sales were just "slowly and steadily" improving from what is earlier insinuated as a laggy performance in the region. However, they only seem to be leveraging shipment data, from the sources I provided earlier. However, if we're going by shipment data, we can see that in both 1995 and 1996, shipments between Saturn and PS1 to Japan were statistically even. 1.66 million (Saturn) vs 1.7 million (PS1) in 1995, and 2.3 million (Saturn) vs. 2.2 million (PS1) in 1996. 1994 shipments have already been explained as a combination of Sega's Saturn likely initially receiving larger orders from retailers due to their proven hardware track record in gaming up to that point, and Sega's production line likely being a bit more mature.
That said, with the 1995 and 1996 shipments virtually tied, that does not sound to me like PS1 was "lagging behind" in Japan even during a pre-Resident Evil period. In fact, it would at least suggest the platforms were in similar levels of demand. If not, then retailers would simply reduce their quantity of orders, which would have been reflected in shipment amounts. Of course, product manufacturers can provide other incentives, such as pricing margins, buybacks, and so forth, to encourage retailers to order the product. But at some point, if the sell-through rate isn't good enough, retailers will reduce said orders. We're not seeing that for PS1 in '95 or '96, so we have to assume sold-through rates between it and Saturn were at least very similar during that period and, again, even pre-Resident Evil's release. However, depending on who you ask, PS1 had a higher sell-through rate than Saturn.
Again, though, if such were true (and considering shipments for Saturn didn't notably increase in relation to PS1 during those periods despite having near 3:1 shipment lead in 1994, is likely), it was probably not by a massive margin. This would suggest that the two platforms were extremely competitive in Japan from the 1994 to late 1996 periods, so it's befuddling as to why the narrator of the video (indirectly) suggests otherwise.
6: Around the 30 minute mark, the narrator essentially insinuates Sony of price-fixing to bleed competitors, i.e Sega, out of margins on their own consoles, suggesting the $199 price Sony cut the PS1 to in mid-1996 caused them to bleed lots of money on the console, but their corporate size offset those losses and they made them back and then some in software sales. This insinuation, ironically, is the narrator contradicting their own assumptions of lagging PS1 sales from the 1994-1996 period, and I'll explain why in a minute.
For starters, yes Sony as a corporation was much larger than Sega, and even Nintendo. They also did leverage parts of that corporate strength to assist the PS1 in the market, namely with certain technologies (CD-ROM drive, in-house chip production & design) and global distribution chain networks. However, a large degree of this would simply have been expected of such a company at the time to help get its newest product division off the ground.
Moreover, similarly massive Japanese tech companies like NEC did much the same for their PC-Engine and in spite of such, did not see success outside of Japan and even in Japan, saw at best modest success compared to smaller companies like Nintendo. To think Sony would not leverage parts of their company to beef up the PS1 is rather silly (and yes there is a parallel here in modern day to Microsoft and the Xbox, despite my known criticisms of that company and that brand. Though there are significant differences between them and today, versus Sony and the PS1, in how these synergies were realized and the intent of the synergies themselves).
However, even supposing Sony's price cut to $199 was them exploiting their corporate size (it wasn't), the video itself accidentally reveals a flaw in the basis of that presumption. It states that Sony would offset hardware losses through software revenue...which is true. In fact companies like Sega operated on much of the same principal. However, an earlier point the video stresses is that PlayStation sales were "lagging heavily" behind Saturn particularly in the Japan region. If these sales were significantly behind, wouldn't it stand to reason the software sales were similarly behind? And if software sales were similarly behind, wouldn't it stand to reason that 3P publishers would have scaled back software support for the platform earlier on, shifting focus to the Saturn instead?
In reality, that did not happen, because PS1 software sales were in fact quite good during the 1994-1996 periods, and on average higher than on Saturn, even in Japan, the region the video insinuates the PS1 was essentially struggling to keep pace in. Yet we have shipment data for both 1995 and 1996 for both systems in that territory, which are effectively tied, suggesting demand was at worst effectively tied or even, otherwise retailers would have pulled back on number of orders shipped to their stores, unless of course some type of massive incentives were provided for them to keep stock that wasn't selling. Though, I have to think if a certain company (Sony, in this case) were actually having done that, there would have been investigations or reports, maybe even lawsuits, from the era indicating such. And, we would have certainly seen a bleed-over effect of this for the PS2, in retailers being more strongly opposed to stocking the system, or being more receptive of stocking Dreamcasts. Which, of course, didn't happen either, suggesting such an idea never materially manifested.
Therefore we can assume that strong software sales and revenue cuts from 3P software sales on PS1, likely also combined with favorable currency exchange rates or what-have-you (and at least the economy in the West being very strong during the '90s) encouraged the $199 price cut. If anything, software revenue & revenue cuts were able to subsidize and offset a price drop, for a platform in growth phase, ahead of the launch of a seemingly strong competitor in the N64, which was already advertised to release cheaper than PS1's price at the time ($249 vs. $299).
Also remember, a lot of the PS1's chips were designed in-house and manufactured in-house as well, with the CD-ROM drive being in-house in addition to this. All of which meant much less off-the-shelf parts for PS1 versus the Saturn. The Saturn's heavy use of off-the-shelf parts negatively impacted the rate in which the MSRP could be scaled down without losing any, or too much, on each unit sold. However, that was Sega's own problem due to questionable engineering & design choices for the Saturn earlier on, not Sony's.
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Anyhow, I just wanted to point out some of the odd aspects of this retrospective I noticed in just the first 30 minutes; as I get through the rest (it's ~ 1hr 20 min in length), despite my criticisms above I AM enjoying the watch to a large extent. There aren't a lot of N64 retrospectives out there and the video itself is rather professionally edited, at least on par with other gaming documentaries I've seen on Youtube. Unfortunately, the implicit negative biases the narrator of the video seem to have towards the PlayStation, which is involved as a supporting subject to contextualize commentary on the main subject (the N64), drag down what would have otherwise been an easy recommendation.
As-is, I'd have to give it a 6.5/10 due in large part to those reoccurring negative biases, which weigh against it. As someone with a fondness for all three main systems of this generation (though I, of course, have my own preferences, the N64 generally being my least-preferred of the 3 in retrospect and the Saturn a somewhat close 2nd to the PS1, IMO), one thing I would love to see is more analysis and retrospective of the systems of the era but in a way where any positive bias towards a given platform doesn't create negative bias towards another, especially for needless reasons. For example, expanding out to lesser-known systems, I generally see the Atari Jaguar as a waste of a system for that generation. I would put it below the 3DO and even 32X (tho I view that more as a peripheral), let alone the N64, Saturn, and PS1, all three of which tower above it.
At the same time, if I were recanting events of the era and separating as much of my opinion and bias from the accounting as possible, I would not lean into harping on my personal distaste for the Jaguar in such. The reason being because, I would not want a negative bias to present itself which then could lead to misinforming on aspects of the system in what's otherwise meant as an historical accounting. Historical accountings should aim for historical accuracy, as that accuracy is absolutely important. I feel the best documentaries and retrospectives in gaming, particularly on consoles themselves, strive for and in most cases accomplish this.
This channel, which again I've only found recently through watching this vid, has a lot of potential. Their editing's on-point and they present stuff with good pacing. And, when excusing the issues surrounding reporting of PS1 in particular, it's more or less accurately informative. If they could work better on quelling the negative biases though, they could elevate their work by a good amount.
Welp, just wanted to share my thoughts. I'd still invite you to give it a watch yourself, especially if you're a Nintendo fan of the era. It does embellish some things when it comes to Sony in particular, but it also gives a mostly comprehensive timeline of N64 developments and, I'm assuming, market performance in the remaining hour I've still got to finish watching. That said, I'd be interested in hearing how any of you felt about the N64 at the time, and/or how you feel about it today. Take care!
. But I've considered it from time to time.
