Gaming Anniversaries June 23- Nintendo 64 & Super Mario 64
Released on June 23, 1996- The Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64
First planned in Japan as the Ultra 64. The Nintendo 64 sees a name change and release along with Super Mario 64. In the Japanese Market.
The Nintendo 64 seen its first concepts announced as the Ultra 64. Due to a licensing agreement with SGI Super Computers, that allowed a chip that could produce high power and detailed graphics in a tiny box, at a fraction of the cost of others on the market. The Nintendo 64 wouldn’t have been a thing had SGI been scooped up by its initial offer for Sega. Ultimately Sega said that the system just wasn’t powerful enough, and there were other issues. It seemed once again, Nintendo knew better.
The system saw its official release in Japan on this day, and several months later was released in North America with a soft launch on September 23, and an official launch on the 26’th.
The N64 did not come with a game on launch. However, it was released alongside the game Pilot Wings as well as Super Mario 64. Both of these games became absolutely iconic to the Nintendo 64’s library. Possibly because they were the only games available on release, more likely because they were fantastic games.
Although the Nintendo 64 did see success, due to the PlayStation having been out for a little while at this point, it’s sales weren’t quite what Nintendo had expected, even though the system ended up selling almost 35 million units.
- When Do You Find Time To Play Video Games? - October 20, 2022
- Is there room for repro games? - October 13, 2022
- Cloud Gaming is NOT Completely Dead. Stadia Sure Is Though. - October 5, 2022