Talk:Nintendo 64/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Star Wars Black Edition and other Limited Edition Colours

Everyone says that the Star Wars Edition N64 is completely black whereas the regular N64 is dark gray. I ahve compared TWO Star Wars Edition N64s with the regular N64 and I, along with everyone else in the room, can say that they are the EXACT SAME COLOUR. I have changed the article accordingly. Before anyone changes it back, please provide solid proof that they are actually different colours

Second of all, this page used to have excellent information on all the different Limited Edition N64s that came in different colours. Why was that section gimped so much? Just because someone complained that it took up too much space? If that's the case, then let's make a separate page for all the Limited Edition N64s. The Xbox has such an EXCELLENT page for its limited edition consoles here: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Xbox_special_limited_editions --205.250.222.77 00:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Wrong Predecessor?

Wasn't the N64's predecessor technically the Virtual Boy because of its lack of portability? SuperWiki5 00:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Etymology

I would like to know why it was called the Nintendo 64. ~ Gaiacarra 88.137.2.239 13:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Once unveiled to the public the name changed to Nintendo Ultra 64, referring to its 64-bit processor, and Nintendo dropped "Ultra" from the name on February 1, 1996, just months before its Japanese debut due to the word "Ultra" being trademarked by another company, Konami for their Ultra Games division. :) -HumanZoom 20:09, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

AAA

please explain what AAA games are Hotlorp

Maybe it would be a good thing to say which year it was released. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.224.126.219 (talk • contribs)

By AAA he means million sellers. Any N64 game with the million seller seal. Renegade Viking

Um, AAA means top shelf Highly regarded games. Mostly as determined by ratings from Publications and sell-through numbers. Super Mario 64 is a good example. User:Gameduck

Nintendo64

the name should be Nintendo64 (without space) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wasabie (talk • contribs) .

If you want to match the name on the box, it should be Nintendo(to the power of)64, but everyone nowadays refers to it as Nintendo 64, including Nintendo themselves. Just look at the systems section of their websites, they always call it "Nintendo 64". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.77.245.138 (talk • contribs) .

Lack of RAM instead of ROM

"Its main graphic drawback was due to the lack of ROM to store texture maps, and so the designers overrelied on very low resolution texture maps that were heavily blurred by mipmapping."

Shouldn't this be "due to the lack of RAM," not ROM? Aside from the fact ROM isn't used for storing active texture maps, the 4MB RAM Pack for the N64 certainly improves the graphics for enabled carts.

MSTCrow 02:58, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Well, its sort of both. RAM does help display more textures per scene, especially because the textures for a level are compressed and have to be uncompressed from the ROM before the level begins. But having more storage space would also allow for more textures too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.61.179 (talk • contribs)

"Its main graphic drawback was due to the lack of ROM to store texture maps, and so the designers overrelied on very low resolution texture maps that were heavily blurred by mipmapping."

Isn't the actual cause of the blurriness "filtering" as opposed to "mipmapping"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.16.73.135 (talk • contribs)

That intro is so bogus. Rareware and Midway created the arcade games themselves based on loose specs for the N64. They weren't looking to port or approximate existing arcade software. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.17.178.228 (talk • contribs)

"Isn't the actual cause of the blurriness "filtering" as opposed to "mipmapping"?" Because of the association between the filtering and mipmapping in its earliest implimentations, the term "mipmapping" also is used many times as a blanket term which includes filtering. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.227.2***** (talk • contribs)

I got the impression that the ROM space on the cartridge was insufficient to store detailed textures, in which case the quote is correct. 150.237.47.2 18:43, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

ROM space and the texture cache were the biggest problems for the machine related to texture resolution. The texture cache, being 4KB, and having to explicity load each texture into it completely, made using large textures impossible. I've been thinking they did this because they knew it would be constained to a ROM cartridge for storage anyway and saved die space. And, if they used mip mapping the cache was effectively 2KB. As you can imagine, 2 or 4KB texture isn't exactly going to be big and detailed. And yes, trilinear filtering blurs the pixel boundaries, and with a tiny texture stretched big in a game this makes a blurry mess.

ROM space is not needed for textures. The entire texture files for any game of that era would only be a few MBs. The N64 simply didn't have the bandwidth to show detailed textures.

N64 had 8MB RAM with the expansion pack which is a few times what PSX had available. Even stock N64 with 4MB RAM was ahead of PSX on that front. --Swaaye 19:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, OK, but then the PSX had 650MB (presumably) CD-ROMs. I'm sure they had more than enough space to come up with specially-made operations and such. As for the textures taking up "only a few MBs", well guess what... the VERY largest ROMs were 64MB... there were a few of those.. most were 16-32MB, with more than a few being 8MB. "A few MBs" is quite a bit when working with that kind of space. Also, the whole point of this argument is that the N64's textures were tiny... like 64x64 in some cases. It was pretty sad. . . Dan 06:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Well CDROM as temporary storage obviously isn't remotely as useful as fast RAM storage. PSX was way behind N64 on that front, when the expansion pack was used. PSX's CDROM was a 2X I believe, so the best they could do would be to stream some simple stuff off of it. 300 ms vs. 600 ns access time and 300 KB/s vs. 500 MB/s bandwidth is significant. The ROMs also had the advantage of being very fast in comparison to CDROM, and developers definitely streamed data off of them in realtime. Still, obviously the carts were a big limiter. Really though I think the biggest issue they caused for N64 was that devs couldn't use FMV much at all, and back then that was a killer. FMV was SO big back in those days. Ridiculously. In comparison I'd say the realtime 3D of that day was not overly held back by storage, since the hardware wasn't capable of using large, high quality textures anyway. Certainly not with any reasonable performance. It made developing for N64 much harder and more expensive, but it wasn't a showstopper really. It drew the line clearly between the quality devs and the not-so-capable companies. --Swaaye 09:45, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

N64 emulators?

I think that there should be some note on N64 emulators; they were important in the emulation scene, the N64 hardware was (and still is) a great chalenge. The N64 emulators were the first to really use dynrecs, HLE and plugins. DanielKO 28 June 2005 05:58 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I think Project64 and 1964 should definitely be mentioned ~_~ Dan 07:12, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Polycounts

N64 had lower polycounts in titles and had a lower geometry capabilities than PlayStation. The article is misleading, and full of inaccuracies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onadesertedisland (talk • contribs)

Well then perhaps you could undertake the task of correcting these inaccuracies. --cheese-cube 09:14, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I wonder if anyone ever counted. The N64 is actually faster which means it can draw more polygons. Likely not every game used it to full potential. The limits (compared to the PS) came from the smaller cartridges that didn't allow larger textures, videos or sound effects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.189.28.204 (talk • contribs)

The PS1 had higher polycounts. 180k vs 100k, textured and lit. The N64s texture limatations were more to do with the hardware than carts. Textures take up sweet f.a. space compared to sound/video, and anyway they can be procedurally generated easily enough. I can't be arsed with sorting this page out but it certainly is misinformed on the hardware differences between the PS and the N64.

The article needs a re-write, for sure - there's loads of crap in there. Isn't there a way to flag an article to make that known? I don't know enough about Wikipedia to do it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 160.5.184.134 (talk • contribs) .

Yes, choose the correct ones from here. -- ReyBrujo 22:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Since Nintendo/SGI never released any figures for the fillrate or polycount, IMO these uncited numbers in the article need to be removed. --Gecks 12:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Sales Figures

Why aren't there any sales figures available for the Nintendo 64? It's great to know that it finished second place in its generation war against the Sony Playstation and the Sega Saturn, but I want to know exact or even estimated figures of units sold. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dionyseus (talk • contribs)

Polygon Pioneer? Umm... No

"It was also the first 3D game console to use real polygons, not sprites skewed in 3D space as the Saturn and Playstation did."

Virtua Fighter (Saturn) and Tekken (PSX) both used "real polygons" well before the N64 launch. I'm removing the sentence.--RicardoC 02:19, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I know the parent is oooooold, but I was under the impression that the Sega Saturn used quads. Not sure about the PS1. --CCFreak2K 01:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Resolution

I want to dispute the resolution of N64. No I can not believe, without emulation that N64 is 640x480. I have emulated the actual color in its games and if someone could give me a comprehensive look at the resolution, I would greatly appreciate it. I have emulated resolutions of n64 on a pc and its games are 256 at the most. N64 isn't a pc emulator, that enhances visuals is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.124.231.38 (talk • contribs)

You're mixing up max colors with resolution... You might want to do a little more in-depth research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doom127 (talk • contribs)

Original SNESCD Contract Date

Contrary to what was posted by a previous user, Sony did indeed contract with Nintendo for the SNES CD attachment in 1988. It's even stated on their website as such:

http://www.scee.com/about/sonyHistory.jhtml

"In 1988 Sony had entered into a arrangement with Nintendo to develop a CD-ROM drive for the 16bit Super Famicom, a console that was due on the market in 18 months time. "

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Doom127 (talk • contribs)

Oh shit. Is this the dawn of when Nintendo fans hated Sony and Playstation? This thing started all of it! This has to be on the top 5 Nintendo Bloopers of all time! Renegadeviking

is situation is similar to how the Xbox was created. because the Dreamcast used a program off of Microsoft. 67.164.35.55 08:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Please stop changing price Info

Please stop altering the pricing information regarding Nintendo 64 cartridges. Misinformation doesn't benefit wikipedia; numerous titles for the Nintendo 64 retailed at the $70 to $75 mark, including Mario Kart 64, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Doom 64, Super Smash Brothers, Kirby 64, and Paper Mario. Not to mention Super Mario 64, which was just shy of the $70 mark.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Doom127 (talk • contribs)

What?!

Did the Nintendo 64 really cost 199$ the first time it was launched into North America? I highly doubt it. Triforce of Power 22:06, 15 January 2006 (UTC)Triforce of Power

It's true. Nintendo gave the N64 a massive price drop (from about $240 down to $199) before it's US debut in order to cut the rug out from under Sony's Playstation. Daniel Davis 13:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC) (Doom127)

Someone inserted an incorrect comment regarding the N64 price. I believe the statement was "NOT TRUE. The cost was $249"

This is wrong. The US launch price of the N64 was $199. The $249 price was in Japan and the UK, and after consumers were angered at the low US launch price, UK buyers were offered refunds. It would be appreciated, if you have a dispute, that you address it on these talk pages, where it can be discussed rather than reverted.

Here is a link to a 1997 informational thread that describes the UK refund program. -> [[1]]

Daniel Davis 01:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC) (Doom127)

It was definitely $200. I remember the drop from $250. In fact, I picked up a bunch of old Next Generation mags from '96 and in one Nintendo said the drop was to act as if the machine had a pack-in game (don't quote me on that but I'm almost positive.) Would be a bit tough to find that article in all those mags. Actually I believe this was around the time when Sony introduced a value lineup of cheaply priced games. --Swaaye 02:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I will disagree with this as I bought the system and Super Mario 64 the day they came out from a Toys R Us and it was $249.99 --Unattributed

Of course it was $250. Mario 64 was sold separately, remember? The console was $199 (had mine reserved as well), then you had to pay another $50 for Mario 64. Jbanes 21:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

No content other than technobable!?!?

Why is there no section on games now? The bulk of the article focuses on very technical aspects of the N64. Let's try to remember that this is a toy! This article is almost useless to anyone who isn't a programming expert. The whole point is to inform people; this article no longer does that. I'll do my best to undo some of the damage.Vegasjon 23:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Reverted vandalism, left the Architecture and Development section intact but it needs to be leaner, IMO.Vegasjon 23:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Technobabble? Well almost all of it is from a developer chat I once had. So, I'd say it's rather relevant information about the machine. Personally I find the experiences of developers using each console to be quite fascinating, and definitely very worthwhile content.

If you want to find games, search for them. Just like all of the other console content on Wiki, the games are generally separate from the hardware pages. By the way, there's a link right down in the See Also section to a games pages collation. List_of_Nintendo_64_games

--Swaaye 00:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I wrote the first comment before I discovered that the content was wiped out by a vandal. Sorry. As far as the technical section, as I said before, it's too large IMO. Also, while fascinating to a game developer (and me BTW), it may be too technical for an average reader. Also, I didn't mean to demean your contribution by referring to it as technobable.Vegasjon 23:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Interpolation

The filtering the N64 did on textures wasn't normal Bilinear/Trilinear filtering, it seems to be a bizarre method that looks similar to a lot of tesselated gouraud shaded polygons. This is evident when looking at sharp textures up close, a diagonal 'smearing' effect can be seen.

Yes I've read that before myself, and noticed it in-game. The machine definitely does not do trilinear filtering as we know it on 3D cards and consoles today. And, a developer I chatted with said the trilinear mechanism was a bit odd. It is a bit cheatful...a speed tweak I'm sure. Probably sampling fewer mip maps than "standard". I can't quickly find any solid info for you about it though. Actually I've read in two separate places that trilinear halves the machine's fillrate so most games do not use it anyway.... Info1 Info2 (note ERP posts, he's a dev) --Swaaye 22:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Well either way the textures were blurry as hell ~_~ Dan 07:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd rather the textures become blurry when viewed up close (Nintendo 64) than turn into unidentifiable, pixellated checkerboards (Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn). 72.43.142.170 19:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

PlayStation - shipped versus sold

Someone reverted the market data on the original Playstation blurb here, changing "sold" to "shipped". Unlike the PSP, where we don't have a definitive answer from Sony as to shipped vs. sold, Sony actually used the word "sold" when it comes to the Playstation. I've changed the wording back to reflect this. Daniel Davis 23:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC) (Doom127)

critiscims

I will be adding a critiscims section. This is due to the problem that nintendo 64 had with its shortages of expansion pack for games that forced you to have it to play with. This was a major prblem here europe. The fact that they were unavailable in stores meant that many gamers could not play certain games(majoras mask) or had severly limited features (perfect dark) sorry for poor grammar and spelling mistakes. Kelvin.

Please stop changing launch price info

The Nintendo 64 did not cost $249 when it was launched in the US, despite someone who keeps changing the text of this article. The N64 was released in the US on October 1996 at $199- http://www.cyberiapc.com/vgg/nintendo_n64.htm. The price drop had been announced some months before that release, in August. As a matter of fact, the price drop incensed UK and Japanese consumers, who HAD paid $249 for the system. Nintendo released price vouchers following this, allowing UK and Japanese consumers a refund equalling the price drop. Daniel Davis 18:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

What a strange bunch we humans are. Some people just seem to love making up their own "facts". Yes, I too remember it being $200. I bought one at that price on launch day at Toys'R'Us in Appleton,WI, in fact. Nintendo wanted to be extremely competitive with Sony at that point, because they needed to aggressively establish N64 obviously, but also because without a pack-in title the machine would have looked very bad compared to PSX with Sony's then-new lineup of "value" titles. N64's library was very sad for a long time. The launch games were the best available for something like 6 months. --Swaaye 19:42, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Muhahahahaa I'm going to keep changing it to $249.95... then I'm going to raise it to $9m so no one can afford it!! ...yeah ok anyway I actually had nothing to do with it :-) ...I'm here to say yep, it was $199.99. Dan 01:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what you all are on. I bought the system the day it came out in Gurnee Il and it was 249.99. And I'm also pretty sure it came out the last week of September. I have contacted a representative at Nintendo to get a final answer on this. To be continued

Picture

Searching the history, I've found two N64 pictures to replace the one at the head of page (with unknown copyright status): Image:N64.jpg and Image:Nintendo_64.jpg. Which do you prefer? igordebraga ≠ 18:45, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Nintendo_64.jpg, because of the white background. ˉˉ^anetode╞┬╡ 01:40, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

The first one is the exact same thing as the one on the article.

Controller

Should there be a most detailed description of the controller? --Thaddius 14:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

you mean like mentioning that it suckc? i'd say it might not be a bad idea to include a note that it was poorly recieved. i remember an article from somewhere that called it one of the 5 worst controllers ever, i'll try to find it.

Yeah that's why Sony and Sega copied the analog stick within a year or less. I don't really understand how people can "hate" the controller. I still like it a lot today, myself. It was a ton better than the initial digital pad-only controllers of both Saturn and PS1. That controller, IMO, made the machine totally stand out and SM64 was a killer app that just proved how useful it really was. It even worked amazingly well for FPS games, with Turok and Goldeneye working extremely well.

Most people "hate" the controller because they don't have three hands to hold it. ;-) 84.177.209.74 17:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

If I had to pick out something I dislike about it, it's that you can't use the d-pad at the same time as the stick. --Swaaye 19:58, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I created a seperate page for the controller a while ago. feel free to add to it: Nintendo 64 controller. --Thaddius 18:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Most people hate it because they are too dumb to understand it. It was a controller way ahead of its time with its revolutionary design and features. --Nytemunkey 18:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Screenshot Gallery

Ok, we need to rework the screenshot gallery. There is some serious concern about how we can use copyrighted images within the wiki articles, and so instead of simply posting a bank of pics with no real content we must include commentary that relates directly to the screens. I say what we do is work on a section that covers the most influential and memorable games, perhaps numbering at most 5 or so.

We need to trim this down to the most critical titles to N64's history. Obviously Mario64 is #1 on that list. Goldeneye should be in there, Ocarina Zelda, Smash Bros, Banjo, etc. We can't have too many or it will just balloon up in size too much. Games that don't make the cut can be perhaps linked to? Not sure what you guys think.

I figure a solid paragraph per game ought to be enough, mentioning what was significant about the title, why it succeeded, how it innovated, how it influenced future games, etc.

But this is apparently the only way to keep this legal, so it's what we need to do. I say we build it here in Talk and when it is somewhat completed we move it back into the article where more can see and work on it. This could be a good guide for the rest of the console pages too, because they are also losing their galleries. --Swaaye 20:56, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

• You're a god. I'll work on this when I get back from my sunday joyride ;) --mboverload@ 21:34, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

We already have something like those. They're called articles. Including fifteen of these things right in the Nintendo 64 article itself would be a phenonmenal waste of bandwidth. It's also unneccesary since there are already significant articles devoted to each of these games. One could put in text references to the significant N64 titles (with links to the articles themselves), but a large picture and a paragraph description of each title ought not to be here. Daniel Davis 03:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I took the freedom of removing the gallery from this talk page, as it is not possible to inline images in Talk pages according to the Wikipedia Fair use policies, point 9. I am not removing them from the proof-of-concept templates above here, although please delete them after this point has been discussed, or replace them with free images (for the purpose of demonstrating the template usage, any image, even a free one that has nothing to do with the game, can be used). -- ReyBrujo 03:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Daniel Davis: you didn't read what I wrote. Thanks. I thought 5 games could be highlighted. Certainly the games made these consoles as much as all the accessories, say. LOL. Highlighting the more prominent titles gives a decent overview of what these systems meant in their time. And 5 or so items should be possible to keep at reasonable size. Unless you were against the previous gallery, I don't see how you could have a problem with this. We can't have galleries anymore unless they have related text.

ReyBrujo: Yes this is very temporary. --Swaaye 03:49, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Whether fifteen or five, they are still entirely unneccesary, as Wiki ALREADY had extensive articles on each of these items. Maybe a small bit of text in a single paragraph is worth inclusion, but not large images and a full paragraph for each. Daniel Davis 03:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to surf to 5 different pages to get an overview of the kind of graphics the N64 could produce. This isn't just for now, this is for the future, too. --mboverload@ 06:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Firstly- A 3/4 resolution screenshot doesn't begin to show what the N64's graphics can produce- thumbnail shots shrink down the image size resulting in a screenshot that smoothes out natural jaggies, tones down lines and hides details that a larger shot would produce. Which means in order to get a "real" N64 image, you would have to actually "surf" to the actual-sized image anyway.

Wikipedia isn't about making it easier for you to surf. There is no good reason why the N64 article has to have enormous paragraphs and images about these games when they are ALREADY written up perfectly well on their main pages. And, as for the future- if somehow this bandwidth hogging waste of space manages to remain, then other people might try to shove in screenshots for themselves in other articles, resulting in a massive bogging down of Wikipedia resources and edit conflicts. The templates and summaries are unneccesary, waste space, and do not need to be here. Daniel Davis 06:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Heh, wow, a bit negative eh? The entire point is to sum up a few games that made N64 what it was in its day, why it was popular, and what built its mindshare. This isn't displayed by visiting individual game pages unless you were a part of those days and know what games were influential. You seem to think this concept is unimportant. How so? It really defines what the machine was about. I thought the gallery was PERFECT for this, but apparently the powers that be are having big issues with that. I'm not sure what to do about it but the above template was an IDEA on a way to keep a gallery-like structure. I think the N64 article has lost a significant part of itself by losing those images that showed the most prominent games of the era. It's not about the resolution of the images. I don't think the point is to be able to dissect the graphics engine. It's just about having a small visual representation of the game, more than just a line of text saying "oh these were the big games". --Swaaye 18:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not being negative, just realistic- there is nothing that is accomplished by this gallery that is not already accomplished in a better fashion by a single list paragraph with links to the influential games. In terms of describing a game, a paragraph summary and small image cannot adequately describe the game in question; a link to the game, on the other hand, provides the neccesary access that the user can take to inform themselves. -- Daniel Davis 13:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I yield to your wisdom, Daniel. So, I went and tweaked the Notable Games section of the article a bit to include a few other titles, and condensed it a bit by adding tables. --Swaaye 18:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

The Notable Games section is not organized by year, despite what is written in the article. Surely 1080 Snowboarding is more notable than NBA Showtime. If people want me to, I'll reorganize this section. Let me know. 72.43.143.180 18:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

That's because people keep messing with the section. It used to be organized by date: I made it that way a while back. But since then, someone ignored my request not to expand it into some listing of most of N64's titles. Oh well. Feel free to dig into it. --Swaaye 19:53, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Inline citations

Format the other links scattered across the article. Skinnyweed 17:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

No. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thaddius (talk • contribs) .

There is only one from what I see.

Gold Controller

While the gold bundle system may have only been available via Toys R Us in the US, I believe the gold controller was offered via Nintendo Power's mail order catalog for some time after their Mario Kart contest. Can anyone help me confirm this so we may add it to the article. I believe this is how I received my gold controller, but due to the fact it was nearly decade ago, I have forgotten the details. --HumanZoom 07:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Logo color

I notice that the green and blue in the logo to the right-top is extremely off - just compare the green and blue in the logo with the green and blue in the logo on the N64. Was the logo differently colored in different regions? As is, the logo looks way off, rather washed out. Scepia 20:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It looks as though this image was taken from an independent site and was not an official graphic used by Nintendo. As far as why the colors aren't right, then I suppose the creator would have to speak up as to why he/she used those colors (unless this was a color scheme used at one time that I was not aware of). -HumanZoom 11:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Nintendo 64 Kid

He deserves some sort of mention in the trivia section, eh? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.125.175.66 (talk • contribs) .

I would have to say no. It really contributes nothing to the article and I believe it is just an obscure part of the internet culture. -HumanZoom 11:12, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

N64 Audio Complaint

N64 did not use AD-PCM and whoever thinks that is not too bright. I will make this swift and short. If you go to Zophar's Domain you'll see teh audio is track music (evolution of Commodore Amiga sound). The MP3 audio the article has right because it's in Conker and Perfect Dark. If I change it to track music, somebody better not change it back or the vandalisium police will find you and revert it. Renegadeviking

N64 didn't use MP3s all the time, especially not with early games. ADPCM's use comes from Nintendo's various spec lists around the web. There are about a bazillion sites that quote this.

Most of N64's audio is probably a combination of sampled waveform playback for effects (whatever compression library they used, if any), MIDI, and tracker music. Whatever will fit nicely into a cart, and MIDI and trackers fit that mold. ADPCM is just a pre-MP3 "compression", of lower quality of course.

The underlying truth of it all is that N64 can use whatever audio you want. You just need to make the software decoder for it. MP3, tracker, and MIDI playback is all software run on the RSP or CPU. There is no limitation other than computational resources cuz there is no "restricting" hardware DSP inside the machine. Of course, audio in software is a lot more demanding. On games that use MP3 you can often see a message about licensing from Fraunhofer (the patent holders of MP3) cuz they probably licensed the software decoder right from the company.

What you've linked to has nothing to do with the hardware itself. Nintendo Ultra 64 Sound Format is a format created for ripping audio out of N64 games, for playback on other machines. If is related to emulation, not real N64 operation. It is not even "tracker" audio at all really. Read Tracker. --Swaaye 20:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

lauch title section

I removed the launch title section because it duplicated the text of the top paragaph. Xeos 06:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I want to add that Shadows Of the Empire was NOT (!) a Launch Title in Europe. I remember so well that I got my N64 at launch (1st March 1997) and read previews about SotE, waiting for April to come out... There was NO other launch title than Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings in Europe.

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, if i recall correctly was also a launch title in the UK. -daz —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.168.0.11 (talk • contribs) .

Was Wave Race 64 a launch title in Europe? It was available on launch day in Australia (also a PAL market), as I remember devoting much of that first weekend to it. Turok wasn't out in Australia until two weeks after launch. Drek 12:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

dithered ?

The following line sounds like nonsense to me:

The system was designed by Silicon Graphics Inc., and features their trademark dithered 32-bit graphics.

dithered 32-bit graphics? Show me a citation.

Elaboration

Nintendo touted many of the system's more unusual features as groundbreaking and innovative, but many of these features had, in fact, been implemented before by the Atari Jaguar.

Which are...!? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.7.231.250 (talk • contribs) .

I am also curious about this. Does anyone have anything to say about it, because as far as I can tell, it's nonsense. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 161.38.223.22 (talk • contribs) .

It is apparently speculation, which can be removed if there is no reference backing that sentence. -- ReyBrujo 21:58, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Is this really necessary?

The last entry from the trivia section: "Even though Nintendo 64 had 64-bit capabilities, it is still possible to emulate it on a 32-bit operating system."

Does that really belong there? Gamecube and Playstation 2 can also be emulated, despite having respectively 64 and 128 bit capabilities. User:Devil Master 13:23, 24 September 2006 (MET)

I second that, this should be removed. It implies that a 64-bit system can only be emulated on a 64-bit system, unless the emulated system does not really use 64-bit. That's nonsense, of course. WindowsKiller 17:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed... it's completely redundant. 80.6.150.128 10:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Star Wars bundle

According to this link, the Star Wars bundle only had one standard-colored controller. http://www.vidgame.net/NINTENDO/N64.html Kat, Queen of Typos 21:24, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Game Prices

I return time and again to this article and see prices for games listed at upwards of $80. This is a COMPLETE falacy, as MSRP on N64 titles topped out at $59.99, regardless of how much someone at retail was shafting you for.

Even large titles like Conker were only $60 MSRP http://ign64.ign.com/articles/092/092075p1.html

Other game MSRP listed here: http://ign64.ign.com/index/features.html under "games of x month". You will see games didn't retail above $59.99. Nintendo's own titles did not have a MSRP above $49.99.

STOP CHANGING THIS INFORMATION TO REFLECT $80 plus, IT IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.150.212.76 (talk • contribs) .

Anon, that's just not true. While there were many titles that did not attain a price over $59.99, N64 games of the time most certainly did reach far beyond it. An example of such a game can be found with Nintendo's own Super Mario 64, which debuted with an original MSRP of $69.95, according to Nintendo's own advertisements[2]. Needless to say, games did far exceed the maximum price you've stated- and oftentimes for popular games like Doom 64, retailers would sell these items far above the MSRP. Ex-Nintendo Employee 11:09, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I certainly recall paying $69.99 at a Target for Killer Instinct Gold. D'oh!

Uneccessary, unrelated info

The SNES-CD has nothing to do with the Nintendo 64 at all, and certainly not enough to warrant as much info as this page has. In fact, a large portion of this page is dedicated to comparisons between media formats, which belongs on a page about media formats, not on a page about a specific system. If nothing else, the SNES CD info is already present on more relevant pages (like the Playstation and SNES pages). If you really have a problem, please discuss it here instead of reverting the page without giving any reasoning. -Unknownwarrior33 23:25, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it would have been more appropriate to not remove a large section of the article (like you did) before you discuss it (hence is why I reverted it). I think the SNES section is important as it was at one time going to be Nintendo's next generation system before the conception of the N64. I would like to see it replaced (or at least part of it), and if no objection is made, I will do so later this week. -HumanZoom 12:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Back-up battery in cartridges

"Storing data at first required a cartridge battery whose energy would diminish over time, though the battery generally lasted for years, and in subsequent games EEPROMs were used instead."

"Over time, the Controller Pak lost ground to the convenience of a back-up battery (or flash memory) found in some cartridges."

Have we an official source confiming that any of the N64 cartridges had an internal battery? Unlike the SNES, there was never a battery replacement program, and all my N64 games that supporting saving without a memory card are still working fine, ten years later. I suspect this is because they, in fact, all use flash memory. M0thr4 10:36, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I've seen a game that didn't use EEPROM or flash. 205.206.207.250 21:09, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Colored/special systems

This section takes up a page in my browser window. It is way too long for some pretty unimportant info. Scepia 23:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It does take up a whole screen. Is there a way it could be condensed, or should it go entirely? -SaturnYoshi ^{THE VOICES} 23:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The struggle I have, is that WP is really the only place to find info on all the special colors/versions. I mean, if you want to know where you got your gold N64, it would be so much easier to use on a special page just for that. On the "rulesy" side, it is pretty unnecessary. Scepia 00:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmm... If only Nintendo hadn't released so many... -SaturnYoshi ^{THE VOICES} 00:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting trivia involving Sega, Silicon Graphics, and the N64 hardware...

A Sega Genesis fan site called Sega-16 did an interview with former Sega Of America presedent Tom Kalinske a few months ago. In this interview he mentioned an interesting tidbit about SGI approaching them with an early prototype of what ended up being the n64 chipset...

A few excerpts from the interview:

Tom Kalinske:"I remember Joe Miller and I were talking about this, and we had been contacted by Jim Clark, the founder of SGI (Silicon Graphics Inc.), who called us up one day and said that he had just bought a company called MIPS Inc. which had been working on some things with some great R&D people, and it just so happened that they came up with a chip that they thought would be great for a video game console."

"we called up Japan and told them to send over the hardware team because these guys really had something cool. So the team arrived, and the senior VP of hardware design arrived, and when they reviewed what SGI had developed, they gave no reaction whatsoever. At the end of the meeting, they basically said that it was kind of interesting, but the chip was too big (in manufacturing terms), the throw-off rate would be too high, and they had lots of little technical things that they didn't like: the audio wasn't good enough; the frame rate wasn't quite good enough, as well as some other issues."

"Now, I'm not an engineer, and you kind of have to believe the people you have at the company, so we went back to our headquarters, and Nakayama said that it just wasn't good enough. We were to continue on our own way. Well, Jim Clark called me up and asked what was he supposed to do now? They had spent all that time and effort on what they thought was the perfect video game chipset, so what were they supposed to do with it? I told them that there were other companies that they should be calling, because we clearly weren't the ones for them. Needless to say, he did, and that chipset became part of the next generation of Nintendo products (N64)."

The link Can be found here: http://www.sega-16.com/Interview-%20Tom%20Kalinske.php , and this part of the interview can be found about half way through page two.

Would this make a good piece of trivia for the trivia section?

User: some random guy 18:38, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• I find that very interesting, like the Nintendo PlayStation on a smaller scale. A sentence would be good. Scepia 19:25, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Wii Disc mention

The article states the Wii uses DVDs as a standardised method. It is common knowledge that the Wii does not play or utilise DVDs, and there are even (conjectural and uncomfirmed) that the disc reads the wrong way (like the gamecube discs) and reads from edge to centre. I think this should be modified. --Skydivemayday 01:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I think they mean that the disc technology is DVD-9 (or DVD-5 I'm not sure). They use DVD tech instead of wasting large amounts of money developing a new uneccesary standard (like PS3 BluRay). It can't play DVD movies but the physical media is DVD for games. --Nytemunkey 19:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Wait what does Wii's disc format have to do with N64? 205.206.207.250 21:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I was wondering. Useight 16:29, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Colored/special systems

Is this list really necessary? Most of this minutiae could be summed up in a few sentences. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 15:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Microcode ban?

The original article mentions this: "Nintendo never allowed this code to be used in shipping games. (It was even actually banned by them to prevent extremely high prices.)" I don't understand this; why would faster microcode (at a loss in quality) need to be banned to prevent high prices? --Trixter 20:34, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Licence issues I guess. Nintendo probably would have had to pay much higher licence fees if the Turbo3D microcode would have been used. WindowsKiller 21:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Someone added that line about cost. I don't understand that at all and I think it's false info. Turbo 3D was much lower quality, apparently PS1 level. Using it would've negated the entire "more powerful and prettier than PS1" marketing plan. Fast3D was the one used by most games I imagine. And then there were the games that used their own microcode. Fast3D wasn't all that great for performance and did some dumb things with excessive precision and probably bad optimization overall. --Swaaye 21:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not too sure about this Mircocode thing (or how programing works, mind you. I'm not a programming geek :P), but I think its because since Turbo3D code could be used for PS1-like graphics, it would be more expensive to produce all that data in a cartiridge, since producing and selling expensive cartridges at a high price was already enough. I hope that maade sense. If you all still want that line removed, I'll take it off. Just give me the word. Dragon DASH 20:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

No no.. what they mean by PS1-like graphics is pixelated simple textures and bad perspective problems I imagine. Simpler lighting. Basically just fewer effects. Less computationally demanding. If anything it would probably use less storage space on the cart. Because the graphics would be more simple, the hardware would be able to do more of it. But, since it would look a lot worse, would it really be better to have more polys? Probably not. --Swaaye 23:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

RCP

Should there be a link to RCP_(chip) in the hardware section? (This is seen in articles of newer systems, eg. Xbox 360) G4rce 03:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 for N64

Gamespot.com reviewed Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 for N64, but none of the other major video game web sites did and I can't find any information about it on the Internet Games Database (www.theigdb.com). Was it released in the U.S.? 72.43.143.120 16:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes it was. It has a black cartridge if I remember correctly. On a semi related note, that comment about Bomberman 64 being the last N64 game released in Japan in 2001 is ridiculously incorrect