There has been a consistent battle of game consoles. It not about yesterday, or even 5 to 10 years ago. The war began with the manufacture of the first-ever game console, Odyssey and its competitor Attari. You will see very few people talking about retro game console wars. The twist in the console war appeared in the late nineties with a faceoff of N64 and PS1. It is said that, in the early nineties, Nintendo was an undisputed king, but Play station changed its game. But let’s understand which game console outplayed the other.
N64 Game Console
Nintendo64, abbreviated as N64, is a manufacture of Nintendo. It was released in 1996 in Japan and North America and in 1997 in Europe and Australia. The features of the N64 game console are:
1- Memory
It had a huge memory of 4MB that could be increased to 8MBs.
2- Visuals
It supported fairly nice visuals compared to its precessors and other competitors. N64 had a Reality immersion processor that could run at 62.5 MHz. It provided 500 million instructions per minute and supported a resolution of 640×480, 320×240, and 256× 224. Also, it supported a maximum of 21 bits of colour depth. N64 could render 150,000 polygons per second which made it superior to its competitors including Play station.
3- Audio
For the audio, the N64 game console used the Reality Signal processor. It provided audio of CD quality.
4- Handling
The controller of N64 was nothing like anything that came before it and after. It was a three-pronged controller which become an iconic recognition of Nintendo. Also, the users could take the advantage of 360-degree movement using its analogue stick.
5- Sales:
32.93 million units of N64 were sold out worldwide, which is enormous.
Play Station:
Play station that is abbreviated as PS, PS1, and PSX is the first game console made by Sony. The release of Play station threatened all the game consoles of the same calibre and those with higher. There was so much hype around the PlayStation even before its release and people were anxiously waiting for it. It is a fifth-generation game console that mainly competed with Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn.
Sales:
People were anxiously waiting for PS1 that is why Sony was able to sell 102.49 million units of PS1.
Both consoles were best in their own way, N64 had more memory, and PlayStation provided good visuals. They both provided good audio quality and were easy to use. Therefore, it is very difficult to decide which one was better. Many retro gamers still go crazy about N64 and PlayStation consoles. The retro gamers who are worried about the resolution of N64 can use N64 to HDMI converter cables to enjoy high resolution on modern screens.
Memory:
Playstation had less memory than N64. The system of PS1 featured a 2MB RAM.
Visuals:
PS1 had smoother graphics and high textures. It had a 3D geometry engine that supported 2D rotation, 3D texture mapping and shading, transparency, and fading. PS1 could support a screen resolution of 640×480. It could provide a maximum of 16.7 million colour depth, which is greater than N64. And it could render 360,000 polygons per second. As a result, PS1 provided better visuals than N64.
Audio:
The sound processor of PS1 provided a CD-quality audio of 16bit 24 channel PCM.
Handling:
Handling the PS1 controller is more easy and comfortable. Although the N64 controller was also easy to use, it was sensitive to damage.
Also Read: How Can You Improve Your Video Game Skills?
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