Jubenhimer
Member

Many people consider the original Xbox to be the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast. It's easy to make those comparisons given that Microsoft's first console shares a lot of DNA with Sega's last. The similar controller designs, logo orientation, focus on power and online, the wide array of cool, niche, and quirky exclusives, as well as Sega being one of the Xbox's biggest supporters with several Dreamcast-era franchises continuing on the system. But there's also another console the Xbox could arguably be a successor to, and that's the Nintendo 64.

The Xbox and the N64 share a lot more DNA than what it may appear at first. For starters, both consoles were the most powerful systems of their respective generations, outperforming competing platforms. Another, both consoles saw much of their success in the North American market. The Nintendo 64 was hardcore carried by its US performance as sales in Japan and Europe were horrible compared to PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Similarly, Xbox has struggled to gain a foothold in Japan from its inception, and it's only ever done okay in Europe. The original Xbox in particular was very much an "American" console. As such, most of the highest selling and well known games on these platforms were games that appealed strongly to North American audiences. Shooters, Sports games, Western-style RPGs, 3D Platformers, and Party games. It was good counter-market strategy for Microsoft, especially since Nintendo took a more Japan-centric approach that generation with the Nintendo GameCube.


Another similarity? The focus on multiplayer. The N64 revolutionized console multiplayer with the addition of four controller ports. Games such as Super Smash Bros., Golden Eye 007, and Mario Kart 64 heavily flexed this gimmick. The Xbox not only had four controller ports as well, but also included a built-in LAN port. Both for linking multiple systems together for multi-screen multiplayer, as well as multiplayer gaming online. Xbox Live launched a year after the system's 2001 release, and fully ushered in the online gaming revolution. Not only was the Xbox a great local party machine, but connecting to the internet allowed you to connect with players from all over the world in supported games. Online death-matches in Halo 2 could be considered a natural evolution of 4-player free-for-alls in Golden Eye.

One other thing they have in common, Memory cards being an afterthought. The N64 had a Controller Pak that let you save specific game data to as a back up. But most games by default, saved directly to the cartridge. Similarly, while the Xbox had its own memory cards and memory card slots on its controller that let you back up save data for compatible games to, games saves on the console defaulted to another innovation of the system, it's built-in 8 GB hard drive. This effectively allowed infinite room for Xbox save data, and allowed games to be more streamlined in their loading by caching data to the drive during gameplay.

And the last similarity between the two, Microsoft hired a lot of former Nintendo staff. During the original Xbox days, many executives from Nintendo of America during the N64 generation left, and joined Microsoft, including Ken Lobb, who was very vocal about his distaste for the GameCube. The biggest kicker, was Microsoft's acquisition of former Nintendo partner Rare, the developers of games like Banjo Kazooie and Golden Eye. As a result, most of the GameCube games Rare had in development were either scrapped or moved to the Xbox.
So it's easy to see the direct line going from both the N64 and Dreamcast to the Xbox, as the console inherited many core elements of both systems. The Xbox was as much a spiritual successor the the Nintendo 64 as it was to the Dreamcast.
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