Nintendo 64
, or simply N64, is a and PilotWings_64. The system is occasionally referred to as "Project Reality" or "Ultra 64" or simply "64", two names which Nintendo used in press releases prior to the system's launch.Introduction
After first announcing the project, two companies, Rareware (UK) and Midway (USA), created arcade games which claimed to use the Ultra 64 hardware (in fact the hardware had nothing to do with what was finally released, the arcade games used harddrives and TMS processors). These games were Killer_Instinct and Cruisin'_USA. Killer Instinct was the most advanced game of its time graphically, featuring pre-rendered movie backgrounds which were streamed off the hardrive and animated as the characters moved horizontally. This led to extreme hype for the system, which would turn out to completely rely on real time rendering which looked much worse than the pre-rendering used on Killer Instinct. Without the excitement generated by these "false" Nintendo 64 titles however, the Nintendo 64 would have probably sold far less, especially as Nintendo was running so late in bringing out its next generation console. Nintendo touted many of the systems more unusual features as groundbreaking and innovative. But many of these features had in fact been implemented before. The first game console to bill itself as "64-bit" was actually the Atari_Jaguar (although the truth of this is disputed). The first console to use an analog joystick was the Emerson_Arcadia. And the first to feature four controller ports was the Bally_Astrocade. The system was designed by Silicon Graphics Inc., and features their trademark non 32 bit color dithered real time graphics look. It was the first console to support mip mapping. 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. While not being home to as many highly rated games as Nintendo's prior console (the are still considered by some gamers to be among the greatest games of all time. Apart from Nintendo's own in-house development, Rareware (now second-party to Microsoft's gaming division) also produced a steady stream of popular titles for the Nintendo 64. From their first N64 title, Blast_Corps., through GoldenEye, Banjo-Kazooie (and its sequel, Banjo-Tooie), Perfect_Dark, Jet_Force_Gemini, Donkey_Kong 64 to the surprisingly adult-themed Conker's_Bad_Fur_Day.Specifications
Decline
The Nintendo 64 was the last home video game console to use ROM cartridges to store its games. Nintendo defended this choice for the following reasons: # ROM carts have very fast load times. # ROM carts are difficult to duplicate (resist piracy). # It is possible to add specialized support chips (such as coprocessors) to ROM carts. At that time, competing systems from Sony and Sega were using CD-ROM discs to store their games. These discs are much cheaper to manufacture and distribute, resulting in much lower cost to third party game publishers. As a result many game developers which had traditionally supported Nintendo game consoles were now developing games for the competition because of the higher profit margins found on CD based platforms. As well, the limited storage size of roms limited the amount of textures that could be used in the games, resulting in games which had a more flat shaded look. Later cartridges (such as Resident_Evil_2) featured much more ROM space, which demonstrated that N64 was indeed capable of impressive, detailed in-game graphics when the media permitted, but this performance came at a high price. In 2001 the N64 was replaced by the Nintendo_GameCube. However, traditional CD based systems such as the X-Box and the Sony Playstation II continue to dominate the market.See also
External links
Original, History and Authors:
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