the ultra 64
Imagine the year is 1996. You're sitting in your living room wearing your t-shirt with a logo on the back, eating your crispy M&Ms. You're watching Full House, when you get a call from your friend on your cell phone brick. Apparently, your PlayStation you got last year is outdated, because Nintendo has a new console with 64-bits. That's twice as many bits as your PlayStation! You grab your money, get on your 90s bike, and go to the store to buy one. When you get home, you put in Super Mario 64 and see the immense difference those extra 32 bits make.
Originally named the Ultra 64, the Nintendo 64 was released on June 23, 1996 with two launch titles, Pilotwings 64 and Super Mario 64. Japan also got Saikyo Habu Shogi, but it was never translated and brought to North America. The console launched roughly a year after Sony's PlayStation and had twice the power, both graphics-wise and processing-wise. It ended up not selling as well as the PlayStation in the long run, although it did have a failed, Japan-only peripheral, that being the 64DD, or Nintendo 64 Disk Drive. It had only one game that was not cancelled and later released on a standard cartridge, that being SimCity 64.
|
The Nintendo 64 is considered by many to be the best console Nintendo ever made, what with the GameCube's poor sales and the Wii's low processing power. However, one game released on the Nintendo 64 was Pokemon Stadium 2, which let you play with your Pokemon from Red, Blue & Yellow, much like the first Pokemon Stadium, but also Gold, Silver, and Crystal, the Gameboy Color-exclusive games. Speaking of which, the Gameboy Color was the next thing released by Nintendo, even if it is technically still in the family as the original Gameboy.