The TurboGrafx and 3DO had six-button controllers, but they were both created for the same reason as the Genesis six-button pad: for Street Fighter II. So it's probably more appropriate to credit Capcom for that. The SNES, of course, already had a six-button controller, though it did get some third-party controllers with six face buttons (including Capcom's Pad Soldier), again for SF2. There also the Microsoft Sidewinder, I guess. The four-button cross layout of the SNES controller has been more influential, of course, and examples for it are much less obscure, such as the PlayStation, the Xbox, most PC controllers, pretty much every retro handheld (and the Steam Deck), and even the Dreamcast.
Indeed, the first PlayStation controller is actually a SNES controller in a wig, which is not surprising if you know some history:
Enthusiasts maybe not, but the general public might have been. Guess it really depends on how familiar they were with CD-based gaming. Then again, there were arcade games on LaserDisc - hard to know where expectations would be. I think the bigger issue there is you probably wouldn't hear the soundtrack. Busy arcade, other machines, engine noises, most people probably playing three-seven speedway that's just aaaahhh-oooohhaaaaaahh - I can imagine it getting lost.
Fine, if that's how we're going to play this: Street Hoop aka Street Slam aka Dunk Dream is a Neo-Geo game also from 1994 which features a completely vocal soundtrack. And since it was Neo-Geo, it was both in the arcades and at home.
Most arcade games by then had high quality voice samples and music. I'm not sure why having those two things together in a vocal track would impress people. People might have been impressed by the composition of the music, but it's a real stretch to say Daytona USA was innovative for having a vocal track in 1994, when a bunch of other games had already done it on many platforms.
It sounds like the consensus is that there probably isn't any single song which could be pointed out as being especially integral to the implementation of vocal tracks in game soundtracks, at least not one that is remembered as such today. If anything, it would have been a gradual trend beginning in arcades before moving to CD-based systems like the PC Engine CD-ROM (and probably Japanese home computers like the FM Towns). To say that Sega should receive any special credit for being particularly influential in that trend is probably overreaching.
Beyond vocal tracks, is there anything about Daytona that can be listed as influencial? It is one of Sega's more popular game, but feels like Virtua Racing started the trend.
Well it's certainly been enough of a mainstay that they had to remake new cabinets of it due to demand despite being a 20 year old game at that point, so...
Just realised. The authorities went after Sonic in Adventure 2. A year later, went after Mario in Mario Sunshine opening. Sonic Adventure 2 truly the influencial gem.
This is a bit of a stretch, but Sonic & Knuckles is quite possibly a precursor to DLC as we know it, you paid to add a new character and new levels to Sonic 2 and to Sonic 3. It wasn't DL, but it definitely was C.
You could call it the first expansion pack for consoles I guess, though expansion packs were old hat by then on computers (though since S&K also functions as a standalone game, it isn't strictly an expansion pack.) There had been expansion packs available since the early 80s for computers such as Wizardry II from 1982. Ostensibly a sequel, it is actually an expansion pack which required the first game to be installed in order to run.) Sometimes expansion packs offered new content or scenarios, and sometimes they added features to the original game. Though it's not the first game with expansion packs by a long shot, one of my all-time favorite series, Wing Commander, can be used as an example for both types: Wing Commander II was released in 1991. Later that year, two separate expansion packs were released, both requiring the core game to be installed in order to function. Wing Commander II Special Operations was an expansion that added an all new campaign with new missions and story. (new content) Wing Commander Speech Accessory Pack was an expansion that added voices to in-flight communications and cutscenes throughout the original game. (new features) EDIT: I should add, I guess, that all of this is besides the point. S&K may well be the FIRST console game to function as an expansion pack, but I wouldn't say that it influenced anything, as there wasn't exactly a flood of games with adapters connecting them to others. It's more of an anomaly in the history leading from boxed expansion packs to DLC than it is something that could be called influential, I think.
Some MSX games take advantage of models with two cartridge slots. Certain cartridges in slot 2 can unlock new content for games in slot 1. Konami was a fan of this. For example, Nemesis + Twinbee = Twinbee in Nemesis.
Alright, this time I am wrong. I did say it was a bit of a stretch but I thought to throw it out there.
I'm derailing this a little but I just made some pie charts. In terms of software, the most active year for the Sega Master System was... 1993. And that's after the console had stopped being sold in Japanese and North American markets. I can't imagine a similar weighting for NES software, but it definitely suggests there was a market for "old" systems. I could write an essay about this stuff. I'm not going to. Anyway as you were.
Would Virtua Fighter 3 count? I know VF1 started the 3D fighter genre, but I feel VF3 helped fully realise it. Just look at how DOA2 and Tekken 3 changed 3D movement after VF3 came out. it was a joke but... ...potentially this.
It would be the first "expand-alone" game, then. Had computers done this before this game? I mean, not as in the example of "Nemesis in Twinbee", but more like, say (iirc), the first Neverwinter Nights where you could make a new character or continue with and already made one for what would be a separate campaign.
Importing your party of characters to different games has been a thing on computers almost as long as RPGs have existed. The previously mentioned Wizardry II allowed your party from the first game to be imported. OK, that's not exactly correct. It required your party from the first game to be imported. You literally could not create new characters in that game. To get an idea of exactly how #$%@ed up that is, you need to be aware that both Wizardry I and II have permadeath. If one or all of your characters dies in battle, they are dead for good. The game will instantly erase them from your disk. And those games are REALLY HARD, so not dying is easier said than done. Since beginning characters created in Wizardry 1 are too weak to survive a single battle in Wiz 2, you have to play through the entirety of Wizardry I without dying to level them up enough to survive their first battle in Wizardry II. But then if anyone in your Wizardry II party dies, the only way to replace them is to start a new character in Wizardry I and play through the entire game AGAIN so you can import them into the sequel. Playing those games is an exercise in masochism. Kids today don't even know the meaning of hardcore (or perhaps more accurately, what it was like when you had to put up with that kind of nonsense because there weren't any other games available.) It shouldn't surprise anyone that this particular permadeath gameplay mechanic didn't last long, and later ports of Wizardry II allowed you to create new characters without forcing you to import a completed save from the first game. But the practice of giving the player the option to import characters remained quite common, and most RPGs with sequels allowed your party from the previous game to be imported, usually giving you an advantage over someone starting a new party. Some games even allowed characters from different series to be imported - The Bard's Tale allowed characters from either Wizardry or Ultima III to be imported.
