The Nintendo 64 is a perfect example of great technology and innovation that was negated and eventually buried under the collective weight of unwise engineering, wrong timing, and too much hype. The Nintendo 64 is a perfect example of great technology and innovation that was negated and eventually buried under the collective weight of unwise engineering, wrong timing, and too much hype.
Originally named the Ultra 64 or the Nintendo 64 Ultra, the Nintendo 64 was hyped up as the first 64-bit console that offers high resolution 3D graphics with no loading time at all. This was a jab at Sony’s Playstation, which was bogged down by slow loading times between levels or screens and pixelated 3d graphics. The fault of Nintendo was that they boasted too much and their hype was eventually discovered as polished half-truths.
SNES Emulators - SNES Roms - SNES Rom Emulator - Mac OSX Games -Snes Emulator
For example, their claims about being the first 64-bit console was true, since the N64 really did contain a 64 bit processor running at 90mhz and was capable of 64 bit processing. However, most of the games that were released for it, even the games made by Nintendo, only took advantage of 32 bits and were essentially 32 bit programs. This was not much of a problem since the games looked exceptional but the fact that they hyped this capability so much set them up for a fall when the truth was eventually discovered.
Another of their supposed advantages – lack of loading times, also came with a catch. They had no loading times because Nintendo N64 games came in cartridges instead of CDs like the Playstation. This meant that the loading of the games did not come from a slow media, resulting in almost instantaneous loading of levels and scenes. However, cartridges are more expensive than CDs, which raised the prices of Nintendo 64 games significantly enough to hurt the sales. The price of one N64 game at that time is enough to buy 4 playstation games.
Another problem with the choice to use cartridges, is its capacity. Whereas Playstation games on CDs can be as big as 640 MB and can be bigger if it has multiple discs, the maximum capacity of N64 games at that time was 256mbits, which is effectively 64 Megabytes. Even with the supposed strong compression, there wasn’t enough space allowed for high quality digital CD audio and full motion video. There are some titles that pushed the hardware to include these, such as the n64 port of Resident Evil 2, but they are few and far in between, and tend to be very expensive (Ps1 games tend to be priced per CD, but N64 games differ in price depending on the size of the game).
N64 History - Zelda Emulator - Zelda Roms - Mario Emulator - Mario Roms - Final Fantasy Rom Emulator - Sonic Emulator - SEGA Roms Sonic - SEGA Emulators