Nintendo of America would've been a lot more enthusiastic for it back then (back when Zelda 64 was still a 64DD title) than they were in late 1999 when the 64DD finally limped out past the starting gates in Japan. ![]() The copyright date on the bottom says 1996 comma 1997, which I think means that they ran it past the lawyers in 1996 (maybe hoping for an at-launch add-on), and made a legally-distinct second attempt in 1997. The 64DD was announced at Shoshinkai (Space World) in late 1995, and Square bailed in January 1996 (before the N64 even launched). Third party support never lined up the way Nintendo wanted it to, causing delay after delay after delay, until even Nintendo's own support faltered ("Zelda 64 works just fine on a cart"), and we don't even need to look at Sega's add-on sales since Nintendo products typically launched in Japan first, and the 64DD bombed in Japan.īy the end, I don't think anyone had any Virtual Boy-esque dreams that the 64DD could succeed, I think they just released it in Japan because they could, but NOA looked at all the numbers and they couldn't even muster up that much indifference.īut early on, everyone at Nintendo was much more enthusiastic. I felt that add-ons could work if you had the right add-on (more Sega CD, way less 32X), but 64DD wasn't the right add-on. I always thought people put too much stock in the "add-ons never succeed" theory that was floating around at the time. Finding a test unit for NA release is incredible and is a one of a kind item. Really cool video from MJR, I can't wait to see what they will find on that disk. Dinosaur Planet (Star Fox Adventures), Resident Evil 0, Eternal Darkness, and Animal Crossing was left behind in Japan in favour of an enhanced GameCube port. There were quite a few N64 games that were cancelled or not localised for the N64 to be pushed over to the Game Cube. But since it was held off to 2000, the add-on probably made no sense for Nintendo as they were in deep development of Project Dolphin (The GameCube). They didn't really work that much differently from old zip drives. 64DD disks would have been much cheaper to produce than 64MB cartridges and it didn't require an additional battery or EPROM's for saving as they are essentially just custom re-writable floppy disks. Typically most N64 cartridges in the system's later life were anywhere from 16-32MB's.Įarly on in the N64's life cycle the 64DD could have made some sense. ![]() The earliest N64 cartridges were anywhere from 4-8MB's in size (Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64 were both 8MB), and 64MB cartridges weren't really a thing until the final year of the N64's life cycle. Conker's Bad Fur Day, Resident Evil 2 and Pokemon Stadium 2 and possibly something else that I might be forgetting. The average N64 cartridge was never 64MB, the largest N64 carts were 64MB, and there were only about 3 or 4 of them.
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