LYCOS RETRIEVER 
N64
built 642 days ago
The N64 was the first true 64-bit system on the market. The only thing that had close to its power was the, ultimately unsuccessful, Atari Jaguar. The Atari Jaguar... had two 32-bit processors, not one 64-bit processor. The Nintendo 64 was release with a very large library of games, and still depended on the cartridge format. Nintendo wanted to avoid the long loading times, and fragility of CD-based media that many other companies were moving towards.
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The N64 was released 1996 in Japan and America, and 1997 in Europe as Nintendo’s challenger to the Sony Playstation and the Sega Saturn. Although it was a much higher powered machine than Sony’s Playstation and Sega’s Saturn, the N64 always lagged behind in sales to the Sony Playstation. Nintendo chose to sell the machine on the merits of its fast-loading cartridge system and the insignificant fact that it featured a 64-bit architecture - unfortunately for Nintendo, people were more impressed by high-capacity CD media, in-game movie sequences and pre-recorded soundtracks than fast loading and the size of the machine’s pipeline. Developers often referred the Playstation for their titles due to the N64’s inability to provide media rich content which games such as the Final Fantasy series demanded. Although the hardware facilitated classics such as Goldeneye and the late Perfect Dark, it wasn’t enough to win over the masses. As of now, the emulators for the N64 are pretty well done.
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Despite the controversies, the N64 still managed to support many popular games, giving it a long life run. Much of this success was credited to Nintendo's strong first-party franchises, such as Mario and Zelda, which had strong name brand appeal yet appeared exclusively on Nintendo platforms. The N64 ... secured its share of the mature audience thanks to GoldenEye 007, Nightmare Creatures, Perfect Dark, Doom 64, Resident Evil 2, Shadow Man, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Duke Nukem 64, Duke Nukem: Zero Hour, and Quake II.
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The four N64 backup units in wide use are the: Doctor V64 and V64jr by Bung, the CD64 by UFO Company, and the Z64 by Interesting Devices. All of these units are very handy for a N64 user. Even though they were primarily designed to play pirated games, they have many other legitimate uses. Homebrew development is one. Not every aspiring game developer can afford the official Nintendo dev kits. With a backup unit, anyone can create their own programs and run them on the N64.
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This N64 emulator is a bit different from all the others. It's open source. That means anyone who wants can participate with something and add it to the emulator. Both the source code and binary can be obtained. It now plays over 100 commercial games.
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The N64 was released with two launch games (Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64) plus one in Japan (Saikyō Habu Shōgi). The N64's suggested retail price was US$199 at its launch and it was later marketed with the slogan: "Get N, or get Out!"
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N64