As one of the most iconic consoles in gaming history, there’s a lot about the Nintendo 64 that most of us super cool and completely successful adults all know. We know about the infamous Disk Drive. We know the N64 launch library was a little underwhelming. But what else is there to know about the Nintendo 64? We’ve put together some of the strangest facts out there, so let’s see if you really do know absolutely everything there is to know about the N64.
1. A Generation Too Soon?
From 1080 Avalanche to the Dinosaur Planet that eventually became Star Fox Adventures, a number of significant GameCube games first began their life as announced titles for the Nintendo 64.
With a seemingly unusually high number of cancelled big-ticket games to its name, including Grand Theft Auto, a follow-up to DOOM 64 that you can see more of in our canceled DOOM games video, and, most importantly, Freak Boy, the Nintendo 64 has a reputation for what could have been. While the system would see a long list of stellar games released during its lifetime, quite a few announced games failed to materialize for one reason or another. Though many of them never progressed beyond their N64 aspirations, a few titles transitioned from N64 releases to major titles for Nintendo’s next system, the GameCube.
In addition to 1080 Avalanche and Dinosaur Planet, some N64 games that instead came to the GameCube include Die Hard 64 in the form of the massively underappreciated whipper Die Hard Vendetta, Resident Evil Zero, Eternal Darkness, Luigi’s Mansion, Pikmin, and many others. There’s something about that footage of Resident Evil Zero on Nintendo 64 that really just hits different.
2. Mario Party Had to Come With Gloves
Combining beloved Mario characters with a collection of franticminigames developed by Hudson Soft, Nintendo established another major franchise featuring everyone’s favorite Italian plumber with the first Mario Party. They also created a situation that ended with them spending a ton of money on gloves that had to be included with every copy of the game.
While this sounds like an urban legend, it seems to be true, as it was reported in numerous media outlets in 2000. You had to jump through a fair number of hoops to get your gloves, but apparently this was set up by Nintendo as a response to approximately 90 complaints received by the New York attorney general’s office, resulting in them, apparently, being asked to supply 1.2 million children with gloves while also potentially paying $80 million in damages . What happened? Players, namely children without Dorito dust being used as a protective barrier, experienced a plethora of hand injuries when they used their palms instead of their thumbs for some of the trickier minigames.
Understandable? A bit. Smart? Not really. At least this wasn’t a consistent issue for Nintendo with the sequels, probably because people realised that life is unfair and Mario Party is the least fair thing of all. Why burn off your hand skin just to get blasted by this arsehole anyway?
3. The Truth Behind the N64 Handles
As it turns out, the idea behind the N64 controller having three handles wasn’t that you were meant to take down Black Manta with them, but it was that you’d actually only ever use two of them.
What we had with the N64’s unique controller was three intended positions, and which ones you were going to use would depend upon the game you were playing. So, for example, if you were playing one of the console’s 2D titles, you would use the left and right handle. Most players and games utilized the middle and right handles, as these utilized the full range of movement promised by the analog stick.
And the third option? The rarely used left and middle handles were designed to emulate your keyboard and mouse. Except it was rarely used because most players simply opted for the C buttons when it came to aiming, and also blaming the screen-cheating when your mate dogwalked you in GoldenEye anyway.
4. “Hacking” the N64 Region Lock Was Surprisingly Easy
Getting around the N64 region lock was shockingly easy, depending upon what you wanted to do. If you wanted to play Japan-exclusive games like Bangaio, Sin and Punishment, or Last Legion UX, all you had to do was swap the back of your Japanese cartridge with whatever North American N64 cartridge you weren’t particularly attached to. The process can be completed in mere minutes.
Sorry, Nintendo lawyers, we meant: a really laborious process involving 2x Hunger Games, several billion dollars, and a blessing from at least like six monks up a Skyrim mountain.
Now, while playing Japanese games on a NTSC console is a snap, PAL N64 owners will have a bit more trouble. If for some reason you really want to play UK-exclusive N64 games like Taz Express or Premier Manager 64, there’s a bit more work involved.
You can also just save yourself a significant amount of hassle, not to mention potentially damaging your N64, and just purchase a cartridge adapter. But where’s the fun in that? Jack into the matrix and then jack off some Premier Manager 64, just as Kevin Keegan would want.
5. Sega Almost Got The Tech Nintendo Used For the N64
This one is almost too remarkable to be believed. Yet somewhere amidst the seemingly thousands of tiny and large mistakes Sega made during the 90s, there’s a tidbit about the company having a chance to purchase and utilize the tech that would eventually power the N64, only to turn it down. Is this true? Let’s take a closer look.
By the early 1990s, Silicon Graphics was looking to get into the games industry. Their early, impressive efforts at creating a powerful, low-cost chip was first observed by Sega executives, on the advice of Sega of America President Tom Kalinske, who saw serious potential in the chip.
Unfortunately, in what proved to be one of the many examples of Sega’s Japanese branch having a highly dysfunctional relationship to the American branch, Sega’s Japanese executives turned down SGI’s proposal. Twice. Even after the company made improvements to the chip, Sega’s Japanese executives simply said they weren’t interested. SGI later met with Nintendo, who proved to be very intrigued in the chip’s potential.
6. The N64 In Japanese Arcades
The N64 had the same relationship to arcades that the NES and SNES had, but not in the same way.
Known as Aleck 64, the arcade hardware would be released by Seta in collaboration with Nintendo. The hardware itself was based on Nintendo 64 hardware, and the idea was to create a number of arcade titles that would take the graphical and sound prowess of the console and expand on it in a meaningful way. Games started rolling out to Japanese arcades in 1998, and that was unfortunately as far as it ever went.
Few games were produced with this hardware, with the final releases coming out in 2003. What’s interesting is that of the games made with Aleck 64, two received North American N64 ports. Those would be Magical Tetris Challenge Featuring Mickey and Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth.
7. No Mercy Is Still Getting Mods Today
Released to the N64 in the year 2000, many consider WWF No Mercy to be the best wrestling title of that console generation. Some old-school fans will even insist it’s still the best wrestling game of all time.
And with the recent, absolutely incredible No Mercy mod called WWF Legends: Challenge 64, you can play what is arguably the best possible version of one of the best wrestling games ever made.
This mod does more than simply swap out the fantastic No Mercy roster for a fantastically deep array of 80s and 90s wrestling legends. Everything from graphics, to sound, to the crowd cheering you on has been upgraded, while still retaining the vibe of a late 90s/early 2000s wrestling game from THQ.
WWF Legends: Challenge 64 isn’t the only No Mercy mod on the block, but it’s arguably the best. If you’ve been waiting for a pure, endlessly entertaining old-school wrestling game, you’re going to be in heaven.
8. Nintendo Supported A China-Exclusive N64 Until 2016
Born out of a desire to combat substantial software piracy in China, the iQue Player from Nintendo and their Chinese counterpart iQue is a fascinating piece of tech upon closer examination.
Instead of a console with controllers, the iQue Player basically boiled the entire N64 system down into something that could fit on the iQue Player’s oversized controller, which served as the console itself. As plug-and-play systems went, it was pretty impressive, with games and data being made available on 64MB flash cards that you could download and store. Games made available on the iQue included Super Mario 64, F-Zero X, Paper Mario, Yoshi’s Story, and several others.
However, what was noticeably different about the iQue Player was that it had considerably better online connectivity, which makes sense as the system was released over 7 years from the N64’s debut. You could also get an iQue Game Boy Advance, DS, and 3DS, and iQue are even the guys behind the N64 emulator for Nintendo Switch Online. Thanks for reviving Iggy’s Reckin Balls, guys.
9. Star Fox 64 Had an On-Foot Section
Star Fox 64 is still a lot of fun to play and is one of the console’s games that have aged the best. If you find yourself firing it up sometime soon, take a moment to discover the on-foot section of the game that a shockingly high number of people still don’t know about.
While this doesn’t unlock any new sections of the main storyline, as it’s limited to multiplayer mode, the on-foot mode of Star Fox 64 does add a whole new dimension to the inherent mayhem of blasting your friends into cosmic dust.
On-foot mode is also one of the most difficult unlockables of its time. No, you don’t need anything special to unlock this mode, but good luck getting it anyway. You’ll need to beat the game in normal mode and earn every single medal on every single planet. Then you do that again on hard mode. If this doesn’t take the rest of your life, you’ll then unlock the on-foot mode.
Was it worth it? That’s entirely up to you. The answer should probably be no, though, considering even if you told everyone at school you’d managed to unlock it, they probably wouldn’t believe you.
10. The N64 Had the PS3 Boomerang Controller First
If you don’t remember the infamous PS3 boomerang controller, unveiled by Sony at E3 2005 to the delight of virtually no one (tasteless cowards), it probably won’t mean as much to you that a third party hardware manufacturer got there years early for the Nintendo 64.
The PS3 controller looked interesting, but even Sony PlayStation designer Teiyu Goto, the man who designed the original PS1 controller, as well as this new boomerang design, admitted the controller was built more around provoking a visual response than being ergonomically friendly.
You can take a wild guess how the third party Boomerang 64 controller from Nuby was received. Reviews say you’re going to find your body at a weird angle for most games that require two hands, with any button-mashing leading to agony. The button layout also renders the Boomerang 64 functionally useless at times, with the D-pad and analog being way too close together for any game that requires you to use both of them. It looks neat and is something to show your friends to laugh at, and that’s about it.
A novelty controller that’s pretty much unfit for usage? You better believe that it’s not cheap.
11. LodgeNet and the Nintendo Gateway System
From 1993 to the late 2000s, tens of thousands of airline seats and hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms around the world came with the ability to play a Nintendo console on the go.
Beginning with the SNES, the Nintendo Gateway System was an ingenious effort by Nintendo to extend the range of places where you could find their games. The venture was seemingly very successful, since Nintendo would partner with numerous airlines and hotels over the course of more than 15 years.
Partnering with LodgeNet, Nintendo would eventually expand this concept to include systems like the Game Boy. In 1999, LodgeNet and Nintendo added N64 games like Wave Race 64 and Super Mario 64 to their offerings. Some games featured unique bits of content, such as Paper Mario having an extra screen that warned players that hitting reset would delete their save data. Much of this media is now considered lost, but much of the N64 library has been found.
It was even a thing with the GameCube.
12. This N64 Game Inspired Steven Spielberg
While Spielberg himself has never mentioned the game, the 2012 Jamie Russell book Generation Xbox: How Video Games Invaded Hollywood does offer an anecdote that when Spielberg pitched a video game to Dreamworks inspired by his 1998 film Saving Private Ryan, a game that would eventually be called Medal of Honor, he cited GoldenEye for the N64 as an inspiration.
The book further states that this came about from watching his son and his friends playing GoldenEye. Spielberg ultimately wanted a World War 2 game that would offer a similar experience, while simultaneously teaching them about major events in the conflict.
While Spielberg himself has not confirmed this story, we can safely assume that given how much the guy seems to love video games, and how much he wanted an N64 in particular it’s at least safe to assume he had the console and game in his home. It would be nice to get confirmation, but it makes a lot of sense that Medal of Honor would draw inspiration from the first-person shooters of the day. GoldenEye would naturally be at the top of such a list.
We did actually get a Wii exclusive from Spielberg by the name of Boom Blox that became a bit of a household hit, as well as a sequel that few people seem to remember.
13. Send in the Wide Boy
The Super Game Boy proved to be a pretty successful add-on for the SNES, allowing people to play Game Boy games on their TV with a special cartridge. What people may not realize is that this was part of a practice and peripheral that Nintendo had been making since the days of the original Famicom. Retailing for as much as $1,400, the Wide Boy was built to allow developers and gaming press to study Game Boy games on a larger TV. This was also how screenshots of Game Boy games were obtained.
The last iteration of the Wide Boy would be the Wide Boy 64, which eventually got an upgrade that allowed you to play Game Boy Advance games, as well. There were also some third-party products that promised the same experience, but the results aren’t spectacular.
Emulation has made all of this a touch unnecessary, but if you want a peripheral for your N64 that shares its name with a term used to describe a British con artist in the 1930s, and you’ve got a few grand lying around that you were just going to use for the fireplace this winter anyway, the Wide Boy 64 is a natural purchase.
14. The SNES Outlived the N64 (In Japan)
Generally, when a console generation ends, that’s typically the end of the console itself. Apart from apparently the PS4, which is honestly probably to keep getting games for the next 5 years.
Nintendo has famously supported its systems long after they’ve stopped publishing games, but it’s still weird when you discover that Nintendo supported the SNES for at least a little while longer than they supported the N64. At least, as far as Japanese players were concerned.
Released in Japan in the summer of 1996, calling the N64 a failure in its native country would be an understatement. Lacking a decent range of RPGs, or really any that were worth playing, the N64 failed spectacularly where the Famicom and Super Famicom succeeded brilliantly. So much so that whereas the Super Nintendo continued to receive support until the year 2003, with the last official SNES game in Japan coming out all the way in the year 2000, the N64 finished its Japan run in 2001 with a different Bomberman 64, and was officially discontinued in 2002.
That’s a much shorter lifespan than the N64, but again, when you consider that just 17% of the N64’s sales came from Japan, it makes sense.
15. The Eternal Search for Slamfest ‘99
Across four years and counting at time of writing, lost media historian and YouTuber LSuperSonicQ has waged a maddening campaign to track down an early example of a livestream event that promoted the recently released Super Smash Bros. for the N64. We can only hope he’s eventually successful, as this has become one of the most well-known lost media hunts in recent memory and also the man is going insane.
Dubbed “Slamfest ‘99”, the event was organized by Nintendo and held at the MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park in Las Vegas, Nevada on April 24th, 1999. The wrestling match, such as it was, was either a tag team brawl featuring Mario and Yoshi squaring off against Donkey Kong and Pikachu, or a four-way match featuring the same characters. Regardless, first-hand accounts say the fight ended in a draw, but that the actors in giant suits managed to put on an athletic, entertaining contest. It’s probably no Shinsuke vs Zayn at NXT TakeOver: Dallas, but it’s probably better than watching like 99% of Val Venis’ matches.
On paper, it all sounds like a pretty standard, albeit fun, Nintendo promotional event. Yet the extraordinary obscurity of the media itself has given Slamfest a certain legendary status. Very few pieces of lost media are as sought after as this one is, but me personally, I am going to hyperfocus on that Guy Savage easter egg in Snake Eater until it becomes a core part of my personality.
We almost had Hideo May Cry. We were so close.
READ NEXT: 10 Amazing PS2 Games Stuck On the Console
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site.
