The (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. It was Nintendo's third major home console, following the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and competed with Sony's PlayStation and the Sega Saturn in the fifth generation of consoles.
Nintendo began developing the N64 in 1993 in collaboration with Silicon Graphics. Named for its 64-bit CPU, the N64 features a coprocessor that processes graphics and sound separately, allowing for 3D graphics. The N64 controller was the first to include a thumbstick as a standard feature, and the console includes four controller ports for multiplayer games. Accessories include the Expansion Pak to boost system RAM from 4 to 8 MB, the Rumble Pak for force feedback, and the Controller Pak, a memory card. In Japan, Nintendo released the 64DD, a peripheral that adds internet connectivity and enables expanded, rewritable data storage via proprietary magnetic disks. It was a commercial failure and was never released internationally.
The N64 received acclaim for its hardware and technical innovations. The American news magazine Time declared it 1996's "Machine of the Year". Nintendo sold 32.93 million N64s; while it was a major success in North America, it underperformed in Japan and Europe. Nintendo's decision to use ROM cartridges rather than optical discs, citing reduced loading times and software piracy concerns, alienated third-party developers due to cost and storage constraints. Many third parties opted to prioritize PlayStation development. This contributed to a relatively small library of 388 games and required Nintendo to rely on its major first-party franchises such as Mario and The Legend of Zelda, as well as games by second-party developers such as Rare.
The N64 outsold the Saturn, but sold far less than the PlayStation. Nintendo discontinued the N64 in 2002, following the release of its successor, the GameCube. In retrospect, video game journalists regard the N64 as one of the most iconic game consoles. Several N64 games, such as Super Mario 64 (1996), GoldenEye 007 (1997), and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), have been listed among the greatest and most influential video games. Nintendo has rereleased many N64 games for its subsequent consoles via the Virtual Console and Nintendo Classics services. The N64 was the last major cartridge-based home console until the Nintendo Switch in 2017.
History
Background
Following the video game crash of 1983, Nintendo revitalized the industry with the release of its second home console, the Family Computer (Famicom), launched in Japan in 1983 and later introduced internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985. Both the NES and its successor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), released in Japan in 1990 and internationally in 1991, achieved significant commercial success. However, SNES sales declined during the Japanese economic recession. At the same time, competition intensified with the arrival of the Sega Saturn, a 32-bit console, which outpaced the aging 16-bit SNES and highlighted the urgency for Nintendo to upgrade its hardware or risk losing market share. Additional competition came from Atari's Jaguar system and the 3DO system.
In an effort to extend the SNES’s lifespan, Nintendo explored the development of a CD-ROM peripheral through partnerships with CD-ROM technology pioneers Philips and Sony. Despite the creation of early hardware prototypes, both collaborations ultimately collapsed, and no games were released by Nintendo or its third-party partners. Philips retained limited licensing rights and used them to release original Mario and Legend of Zelda games on its competing CD-i device. Meanwhile, Sony leveraged its progress to develop what would become the PlayStation console. During this period, third-party developers also expressed growing dissatisfaction with Nintendo’s strict licensing policies.
Development
Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), a long-established leader in high-performance computing, sought to expand by adapting its supercomputing technology into the higher volume consumer market, starting with the video game industry. To support this shift, SGI redesigned its MIPS R4000 CPU family, reducing power consumption, and aimed to lower unit cost from up to to approximately . SGI developed a video game chipset prototype and sought an established industry partner. SGI founder Jim Clark first pitched the concept to Tom Kalinske, CEO of Sega of America, who said they were "quite impressed." However, Sega’s Japanese engineers rejected the design, citing technical issues, which SGI later resolved. Nintendo disputes this account, claiming SGI ultimately favored Nintendo because Sega had demanded exclusive rights to the technology, while Nintendo was open to a non-exclusive licensing agreement. the companies announced a joint development and licensing agreement for what they called "Project Reality." They projected an arcade debut in 1994 and a home release by late 1995, targeting a retail price under . Michael Slater, publisher of Microprocessor Report highlighted the significance of the partnership saying, "The mere fact of a business relationship there is significant because of Nintendo's phenomenal ability to drive volume. If it works at all, it could bring MIPS to levels of volume [SGI] never dreamed of." The chipset was a collaborative effort between SGI and its subsidiary, MIPS Technologies. SGI and Nintendo also partnered with Rambus, designing a bus architecture to transfer data at 500 Mb/s using its proprietary RDRAM. Rambus hoped the partnership would encourage RDRAM adoption in PCs.
thumb|SGI Onyx like those used for early development
thumb|SGI Indy [[Software development kit|development kit with Nintendo 64 simulation board and controller connectors on breakout board]]
To enable game creation before the hardware was finalized, SGI offered a development platform based on the Onyx supercomputer to simulate expected console performance. The Onyx was priced at up to . It included a RealityEngine2 graphics board and four 150 MHz R4400 CPUs. Once the chipset was finalized, the supercomputing setup was replaced by a simulation board integrated into low-end SGI Indy workstation in July 1995.
On June 23, 1994, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Nintendo announced that the upcoming console would be named the "Ultra 64". The console design was shown, but its controller remained under wraps. The most controversial detail was Nintendo’s decision to use limited-capacity ROM cartridges rather than the increasingly popular CD-ROM format, despite previous development work for a CD-based SNES. Nintendo defended the decision, citing the performance advantages of cartridges. The Ultra 64 was marketed as the world’s first 64-bit console. Though Atari had previously advertised the Jaguar as a 64-bit system, its architecture used two 32-bit coprocessors and a 16/32-bit Motorola 68000 CPU, falling short of Nintendo’s full 64-bit implementation.
Later in 1994, Nintendo signed a licensing agreement with arcade giant Williams. The company's Midway studio would develop Ultra 64-branded arcade titles, including Killer Instinct and Cruis’n USA. However, these arcade machines used hardware distinct from the home console: they lacked the Reality Coprocessor, used different MIPS CPUs, and relied on hard drives instead of cartridges to store game data. The expanded storage enabled games like Killer Instinct to incorporate pre-rendered 3D character sprites and full-motion video backgrounds.
In April 1995, it introduced its "Dream Team" of developers. Graphic development tools were provided by Alias Research and MultiGen, while Software Creations provided audio tools. Game development studios included Acclaim, Angel Studios, DMA Design, GameTek, Midway, Paradigm, Rare, Sierra On-Line, and Spectrum HoloByte.
Nintendo originally planned to launch the console as the "Ultra Famicom" in Japan and "Nintendo Ultra 64" internationally. While rumors claimed trademark conflicts with Konami's Ultra Games prompted a name change, Nintendo denied this, citing a desire for a unified global brand. The final name "Nintendo 64" was proposed by EarthBound creator Shigesato Itoi. Still, the original name lived on in the console's model numbering prefix "NUS-", widely believed to stand for "Nintendo Ultra Sixty-four."
Announcement
The newly renamed Nintendo 64 console was unveiled to the public in playable form on November 24 at Nintendo's Shoshinkai 1995 trade show. Eager for a preview, "hordes of Japanese schoolkids huddled in the cold outside ... the electricity of anticipation clearly rippling through their ranks". Official coverage by Nintendo followed later via the Nintendo Power website and print magazine.
The console was originally slated for release by Christmas of 1995. In May 1995, Nintendo delayed the release to April 21, 1996. Electronic Gaming Monthly editor Ed Semrad even suggested that Nintendo may have announced the April 21, 1996, release date with this end in mind, knowing in advance that the system would not be ready by that date.
In its explanation of the delay, Nintendo claimed it needed more time for Nintendo 64 software to mature, Adrian Sfarti, a former engineer for SGI, attributed the delay to hardware problems; he claimed that the chips underperformed in testing and were being redesigned.
The Nintendo 64's release date was later delayed again, to June 23, 1996. Nintendo said the reason for this delay, and in particular, the cancellation of plans to release the console in all markets worldwide simultaneously, was that the company's marketing studies now indicated that they would not be able to manufacture enough units to meet demand by April 21, 1996, potentially angering retailers in the same way Sega had done with its surprise early launch of the Saturn in North America and Europe.
To counteract the possibility that gamers would grow impatient with the wait for the Nintendo 64 and purchase one of the several competing consoles already on the market, Nintendo ran ads for the system well in advance of its announced release dates, with slogans like "Wait for it..." and "Is it worth the wait? Only if you want the best!"
Release
thumb|The South Korean Comboy 64
Popular Electronics called the launch a "much hyped, long-anticipated moment".
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The console was first released in Japan on June 23, 1996. The remaining 200,000 units of the first production run shipped on June 26 and 30, with almost all of them reserved ahead of time. In the months between the Japanese and North American launches, the Nintendo 64 saw brisk sales on the American gray market, with import stores charging as much as $699 plus shipping for the system. The Nintendo 64 was first sold in North America on September 26, 1996, though having been advertised for the 29th. It was launched with just two games in the United States, Pilotwings 64 and Super Mario 64; Cruis'n USA was pulled from the line-up less than a month before launch because it did not meet Nintendo's quality standards. In 1994, prior to the launch, Nintendo of America chairman Howard Lincoln emphasized the quality of first-party games, saying "... we're convinced that a few great games at launch are more important than great games mixed in with a lot of dogs".
The PAL version of the console was released in Europe on March 1, 1997, except for France where it was released on September 1 of the same year. According to Nintendo of America representatives, Nintendo had been planning a simultaneous launch in Japan, North America, and Europe, but market studies indicated that worldwide demand for the system far exceeded the number of units they could have ready by launch, potentially leading to consumer and retailer frustration.
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Originally intended to be priced at , Nintendo priced the console as an impulse purchase, a strategy from the toy industry. The price of the console in the United States was further reduced in August 1998.
Promotion
The Nintendo 64's North American launch was backed with a $54 million marketing campaign by Leo Burnett Worldwide (meaning over $100 in marketing per North American unit that had been manufactured up to this point). While the competing Saturn and PlayStation both set teenagers and adults as their target audience, the Nintendo 64's target audience was pre-teens.
To boost sales during the slow post-Christmas season, Nintendo and General Mills worked together on a promotional campaign that appeared in early 1999. The advertisement by Saatchi & Saatchi, New York began on January 25 and encouraged children to buy Fruit by the Foot snacks for tips to help them with their Nintendo 64 games. Ninety different tips were available, with three variations of thirty tips each.
Nintendo advertised its Funtastic Series of peripherals with a $10 million print and television campaign from February 28 to April 30, 2000. Leo Burnett Worldwide was in charge again.
Hardware
Technical specifications
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| none|100px|VR4300 CPU
| none|100px|64-bit "Reality Coprocessor"
| none|100px|2-chip [[RDRAM]]
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| none|100px|Main motherboard
| none|100px|Main motherboard
| none|100px|Memory Expansion Pak
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The Nintendo 64's architecture is built around the Reality Coprocessor (RCP), which serves as the system’s central hub for processing graphics, audio, and memory management. It works in tandem with the VR4300, a 93.75 MHz 64-bit CPU fabricated by NEC with a performance of 125 million instructions per second. Popular Electronics compared its processing power to that of contemporary Pentium desktop processors.
The RCP operates at 62.5 MHz and contains two critical components: the "Signal Processor", responsible for sound and graphics processing, and the "Display Processor", which manages pixel drawing. The RCP renders visual data into the graphics frame buffer and controls direct memory access (DMA), transferring video and audio data from memory to a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) for final output. It features 4 MB of RDRAM (Rambus DRAM), expandable to 8 MB with the Expansion Pak. At the time, RDRAM was a relatively new technology that provided high bandwidth at a lower cost.
Audio processing is handled by both the CPU and the RCP and is output through a DAC with a sample rate of up to 44.1 kHz with 16-bit depth, matching CD quality. However, this level of fidelity was rarely used due to the high CPU demand and the storage limitations of the ROM cartridges.
For video output, the system supports composite and S-Video output, using the same cables as the Super NES and GameCube. It can display up to 16.8 million colors and resolutions ranging from 256×224 to 640×480 pixels. The console also accommodates widescreen formats, with games offering either anamorphic 16:9 or letterboxed display modes.
Game Paks
thumb|Open and unopened Nintendo 64 Game Paks
After multiple attempts to develop a compact disc-based add-on for the Super NES, many in the industry expected Nintendo’s next console to follow Sony’s PlayStation in adopting the CD format. However, when the first Nintendo 64 prototypes debuted in November 1995, observers were surprised to find that the system once again used ROM cartridges.
Nintendo 64 cartridges range in size from 4 to 64 MB and often include built-in save functionality.
Nintendo’s selection of the cartridge medium was highly controversial and is frequently cited as a key factor in the company losing its dominant position in the gaming market. While cartridges offered advantages such as faster load times and durability, their limitations—higher production costs, lower storage capacity, and longer manufacturing lead times—posed challenges for developers. Many of the format’s benefits required innovative solutions, which only emerged later in the console’s lifecycle.