Nintendo 64
- Years active 1996 — 2002
- Units sold 32.9M
- Launch price $199
- NA library 296 games
The Nintendo 64 is Nintendo's third major home console, released in 1996. A fifth-generation system, it competed with Sony's PlayStation and the Sega Saturn during the industry's transition from sprites to fully 3D rendering.
Unlike its rivals, which had moved to CD-ROM, the N64 stuck with cartridges. The choice kept loading screens out of the picture but forced developers into compression gymnastics to fit ambitious games onto the limited media. The system was Nintendo's first to ship with an analog stick and four built-in controller ports, decisions that ended up defining the look of 3D platformers and home multiplayer for the rest of the decade.
Fun fact GoldenEye 007, Super Mario 64, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time were each built by core teams of fewer than twenty people. The credits on a modern AAA game routinely run past a thousand.
