The Nintendo 64 is a 64 bit console that uses cartridges as its game format. The Nintendo 64 lets gamers explore 3D levels that offer real time lighting effects and CD Quality music. The Nintendo 64 was designed with multiplayer games in mind and includes 4 controller ports. Key multiplayer titles for the N64 include Mario Kart 64, Mario Party and Donkey Kong 64. The Nintendo 64 Controller features the world’s first analogue control stick that gives gamers 360 degrees of freedom while playing control stick enabled games. The controller also fits comfortably into your hands and offers 13 buttons including a handy Z button on the underside of the middle prong. The N64 also comes in a variety of different colours including Red, Green and Blue.
The Nintendo 64’s game library includes legendary titles such as Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. Other titles include The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask, Mario Tennis, Pokemon Stadium and Paper Mario (the PAL version of Paper Mario is rare). Some games like The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask and Donkey Kong 64 require the Expansion Pak to run. Find out more about it below. The Nintendo 64 also has the ability to link up with Game Boy titles through the use of the Expansion Pak which you can find out more about below.
Unfortunately the N64 did not do as well as Nintendo had hoped and was losing market share to Sony’s PlayStation and Sega’s Saturn. The use of cartridges for the N64 turned off many third party developers as cartridges couldn’t hold nearly as much as CDs used by rival machines. This resulted in third party games with bits missing or missing completely from the Nintendo 64’s Game Library.
The Rumble Pak makes the Nintendo 64 Controller the world’s first to have a rumble function. Slot it into the back of the N64’s controller and you will feel the controller rumble during game play in supported games. The Rumble Pak requires 2 AAA batteries for 50-60 hours of force feedback through your controller.
The Controller Pak can be used to store your game saves if the game does not support saving to the Game Pak or requires a Controller Pak for extra data. The Controller Pak has room for 123 pages of game data.
The Transfer Pak can be used to link up to Game Boy titles through the N64. Games like Pokemon use it to trade Pokemon, receive extras in games and play a Pokemon Game Pak through the TV.
The Expansion Pak adds an extra 4MB of RAM to the N64. It is required for The Legend of Zelda Majora’s mask and Donkey Kong 64 to run. Perfect Dark will run in a restricted mode if the Expansion Pak is not Present.
CPU – MIPS 64-bit RISC CPU (customized R4000 series), Clock Speed: 93.75 MHz
Co-Processor – RCP: SP (sound and graphics processor) and DP (pixel drawing processor) incorporated, Clock Speed: 62.5MHz
Graphic Processing - Z buffer, Anti-aliasing, Realistic texture mapping: Tri-linear filtered MIP-map interpolation, Perspective correction, Environment mapping
Memory – RAMBUS D-RAM 36M bit, Transfer Speed: 4,500M bit/sec maximum.
Display – 256 x 224 ~ 640 x 480 dots, Flicker-free interlace mode support
Size – Width 260mm, Depth 190mm, Height 73mm
Weight – 1.1kg (2.42 lb.)
Colour/Output – Colour frame buffer support, 21-bit colour video output