Nintendo didn't drag their feet with the system this time, and released the Nintendo 64 as their entry into the fifth generation to compete with the struggling Sega Saturn and the newbie PlayStation.
The N64 was a big hit in its early life, but it lost many key franchises because of Nintendo's reluctance to use CDs after the fiasco with Sony and Phillips on the CD add-on for the SNES (as well as [...] [tvtropes.org]