Nintendo 64DD: The REAL Reason it FAILED & Nintendo's Would-Be Plans

The N64 DD is a fascinating piece of Nintendo history and N64 hardware. The add-on would have allowed for the use of magnetic disk based media. Originally announced in 1995 at Shoshinkai/Space World, the DD was delayed numerous times until being finally released December of 1999 (Japan-only). We dive into an interview featured in Digital Heroes, which details the purposeful reason why the peripheral was delayed.
Scans & Translations
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#64DD #N64 #Nintendo #RetroGaming #Nintendo64

[@hard4games]

Hope you all enjoy! Big thanks to our Patreon supporters for making videos like these possible as well! If you all wanna see more 64DD videos, here's our playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PLGFFXFS6eXbPWbV7pSWCVhYhM83ChpMkY

[@bbreimm]

Thank you for your passion and taking the time to archive these.

[@gonzostwin1]

My friends and I were drooling over the nintendo power book we saw this in. It would have been so cool to have. Butttt nintendo will release the same game over 3 consoles now.lol I want my N64 mini this Christmas!!!lol

[@bbreimm]

@@gonzostwin1 The classic systems were basically a way to make profit to recoup losses from the Wii U era where Nintendo's stock was really low in the public opinion. The classic consoles and the Switch really turned that around. Now that they revealed their subscription plans for N64 games on their online platform, I'm highly doubtful that we'll ever see the release of such a product. Not to mention that it would be quite a lot pricier to produce, just for the controller itself compared to the other two Retro consoles they released previously.

[@Gohan1138]

can u go old school and bring back beer? been peeping this channel for a grip

[@iFish12]

The N64 DD was how I originally came across your channel in 2016 (through metal Jesus rocks)

[@jasonskerrett3826]

Same here

[@hard4games]

Thanks for sticking around! Props to MJR!

[@RGozz]

Same LOL

[@borkiee]

@@hard4games for me was the old 64Dd reviews back in.... was it 2009 or 2010. I cant remember at all. I just know I was too young to have my own account to of subscribed at the time xP

[@royalewithcheese77]

Same here! I was thinking exactly that while watching this video.

[@woodenotaku]

The 64DD Data vending machines could've solved one major issue the N64 cartridges had: publishing costs. Quite a few near-completed (and some fully completed) N64 games never came out because the cost of manufacturing carts was too much. So if instead of paying massive amounts for each manufactured cart to release a game, devs could've done download-only games for a lot less per unit and with less risks of ending up with expensive leftover stock.

[@lelsewherelelsewhere9435]

That would have been awesome, but I think that Nintendo already gave up on that idea due to potential piracy and other reasons, regardless of what the interviewer said. They made the 1997 one with the super nintendo, in 97! They didn't even want rentals at blockbuster, even if they controlled the distribution. America was a big market for n64 and they never attempted anything like it for anything there. Wouldn't that though then have made cartridges sell less, and therefore raised the unit price of cartridges? That would hurt all markets with the main system.

[@GameSack]

I remember reading about the device potentially using magneto optical discs. I was big into MiniDiscs at the time and wanted nothin gmore than a game platform that used that format. MiniDiscs had well over 100 Megabytes of storage so I thought it would be perfect. Of course Sony would never play ball if Nintendo had asked. Zip Disk would've been nice too as again, more storage. But the hardware for those things was unreliable at best. Of course in the end it didn't matter.

[@hard4games]

MO would have been nice. Nintendo liked that carts were childproof and durable. MO would have solved the "my little brother ran the ps1 disc across the concrete" issue.

[@GameSack]

@Phil Rams While Sony did in fact invent the CD game console in 1995, Sega and NEC were able to skirt this issue with one simple technique: Time Travel! You see, Sega made a deal with Sony in 2004 to license CD technology, so they traveled back in time with the license and the technology so Sega could make the Sega CD in 1991. NEC saw this and got very angry, so the next year (2005) they also licensed the CD technology from Sony, but they traveled back even further in time to 1988 for the PC Engine CD-ROM add on, thinking they'd get the jump on Sega. But then David Rosen was sitting in his office in occupied Japan in 1952 and saw what NEC had done in 1988. He took the technology from the Sega CD and gave it to Sega to make the Saturn in 1994. The reason there was no Sonic game on the Saturn is because Sonic wasn't invented until 1998 for the Dreamcast. Sega went back in time to give themselves the technology of Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis, but they simply forgot to do the same thing for the Saturn. Oops!

[@LeynosJehuty]

@Phil Rams SEGA invented the letter S. I invented Sony

[@smuckola]

@@hard4games Here's my compilation of reliable sources all mistakenly calling it magneto-optical back then. Kinda like how a lot of them called it DD64! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:64DD/Archive_1#Media_-_Magneto-optical_discs

[@jackeldridge1319]

@@hard4games Children are capably destructive don't forget. They'll figure out how to pin the disk flap open and scratch it with pencils, I'm sure you'd know as a father Tony LOL

[@AlienMyth64]

Yeah we Hard 4 games in the morning 🌄

[@JaredConnell]

You should be every morning or else you may need to see your doctor.

[@AlexCheerNZ]

yo the alien found the hard 4 games pill in the Nintendo hq when it broke in earlier

[@GoodlyPenguin]

Yeah we hard 😎

[@ps5hasnogames55]

@@thischannelhasbeenabandoned420 cope, what are you, a troons"woman"?? you should be proud of your manhood

[@ChinchiIIin]

You're doing an amazing job archiving the history of gaming, thank you for the amazing work over the years

[@lightbluesquid]

As a N64 fan, this is really good info on why the 64DD failed in the first place. Tony, thank you so much for posting this video! Your contributions to the gaming community is greatly appreciated!

[@G.L.999]

Plus, Nintendo's North American and European branches didn't want the add-on to begin with. Add-ons have been a notorious burden in the industry since it was first conceived with the likes of the Sega CD, 32X, Jaguar CD, and Turbo Grafx 16 CD. And Nintendo's western divisions didn't want Nintendo s a whole repeating the blunders Sega, Atari, and NEC did.

[@teg24601]

Love the video. One thing that people continually fail to mention as to why Nintendo has never used standard disks (even the Wii and Wii U discs were customized), comes down to their contract with Sony for the Playstation. Games on CD or future standard optical media would net Sony royalties. And even though Nintendo broke the contract to go with Phillips, they are afraid that if they used CDs, and later DVDs and Blu-Rays, they would be sued by Sony for their royalties. This is why the DD was magnetic, as there weren't many good alternatives to CDs at the time, and the MO discs were not available until much later in the development cycle, and would have been the only real option to avoid royalties.

[@kyleboddy5711]

Why is it that this was the best and most mysterious era of videogames? There was so much shroud and mystery to the customer. I don't believe there would be this much care for an 80's NES game besides concept art, and certainly not for a modern game unless it was a huge hit. This might be for our generation what government mysteries were for people in the 60s and 70s

[@smuckola]

Yeah man. The Internet. When Nintendo gave up on Netscape's proposal of putting a web browser on a Nintendo 64 cartridge, Nintendo went crazy and ran with it. Made their own whole ISP and modem and web browser and bundled it all with 64DD. They made 64DD out to be absolutely godlike, which it would have been as a standard feature in 1996, and the whole world knew the Internet was going to be a whole new universe. Combine them both together and it was just infinite possibilities.

[@retrofraction]

Well there’s several reasons, but the biggest one is just that computers have failed to standardize 3-D acceleration models at the time so even the parts for computers were pretty crazy back then.

[@stainlessdmc5954]

These are some of the most fascinating revelations yet as to why the 64DD never got off the ground. Amazing they had a production-ready product so early on. Had the N64 been ever so slightly more popular, video game history would likely be drastically different.

[@emmettturner9452]

The fact that the American version was completed for the US launch is telling. Nintendo was hedging their bets on the cartridge format by being ready to switch to the disk drive if cartridges ended up being an abject failure. No doubt they were ready to switch everyone as a hail-Mary but the console was just successful enough that they didn’t go there. I just imagine it would’ve gone a lot like the PC Engine’s switch to the Super CD-ROM² format if they had, with new “Duo” consoles hardware that had the drive built-in. Really curious to know if Nintendo has any prototypes of an N64 “Duo” of sorts with a built-in 64DD. ;) Imagine if all cartridges had 64MB like Resident Evil 2, a game that crammed two CD’s worth of gameplay and FMVs into 64MB. Sure, CDs were technically 10x larger, but they really didn’t need to be. Most games were only a few MB once you removed FMV and switched to generated music instead of pre-recorded waveforms… which you didn’t have to do when you had 64MB and compression like MP3 was a thing (even many cartridge games used MP3). Whatever they were using to compress RE2 without losing a single FMV from two discs of source material really shows what the 64DD was capable of with only 64MB when you weren’t just wasting all the space because you could. Heck, games could’ve even used multiple disks since they were cheaper than cartridges. I always dreamed of hybrid disk/cartridge games that would have the best of both worlds… 64MB for all the audio and video and a cartridge for menus, characters, etc. Remember how Mortal Kombat Trilogy for PlayStation played as the game had to load mid-match every time Shang Tsung morphed? The N64 version didn’t because the cartridge served as memory expansion with all the character loaded already. A hybrid disk drive game could use the cartridge for expansion chips, I/O hardware (ala the capture cart and Smart Media adapter for Mario Artist series), etc. Of course, 3rd party devs would’ve avoided the extra expense of hybrid games just like they almost universally avoided the extra expense of save chips in their N64 cartridges.

[@JaredConnell]

Well to be honest the Resident Evil N64 port is lacking in many different ways such as the barely watchable video quality. Ya it was possible and it was a major feat but nobody would want to play games that were compromised like they if they didn't have to. If Mother 3 was packed into a N64 cartridge of course we would all play it but if there was a Final Fantasy 7 port everyone would still play the PS1 version.

[@emmettturner9452]

@@JaredConnell The thing is, Resident Evil 2 is a particularly extreme example. Most PlayStation games were only one disc and had far less content to compress. Also, despite all the effort it took to squeeze that game into 64MB I see plenty of room left for optimization within seconds of booting the game: There is no reason to record video of the logos fading in and out when they could have been a simple scaled texture the way any other cartridge game would have done it… essentially one frame each instead of many with a tiny bit of code for manipulating it. If they didn’t resort to simple and obvious optimizations like that it makes me think there is a lot more they could have done. It is very likely that it would have been on two disks if it were a 64DD game since it would have simplified development and would still be significantly cheaper than a 64MB/512mb cartridge. So, yeah, the base capacity of 64MB for disks would have freed them up significantly and almost completely closed the gap with CDs. Games likely would have continued to cost more than CD consoles but the technology would not have felt limiting for game devs… much like 1.4GB DVDs didn’t significantly limit Gamecube games compared to 9.5GB DVDs.

[@lelsewherelelsewhere9435]

@@emmettturner9452 I feel like you are underestimating the difficulty in compressing video like that. No way would most games have ever even attempted that. I think the gap with what they wanted to do and could do would still be large. And back in the mid to late 90s, FMV and actual music in games was still a big deal. Also, Nintendo didn't even release the details about/allow devs to utilize the microcode modifications that would have helped with this (resident evil was late). Therefore, without that knowledge, it would have been even more difficult to compress video as much as they wanted.

[@lelsewherelelsewhere9435]

@@emmettturner9452 additionally, besides an impressive one off (resident evil 2), even if possible and common, poor quality n64 video would then have created lots of bad comparisons for Nintendo compared to the playstation. I mean, sony commercials would use it as a joke, "look at this terrible video compared to the playstation". Miyamoto cancelled star fox 2 over such comparisons.

[@lelsewherelelsewhere9435]

@@emmettturner9452 it's not just about ability, it's about "will this make the system look good compared to the playstation", which terrible, compressed video would not. Especially when people still wanted video cutscenes.

[@downunder9217]

I really hope that one day, H4G finds a Mother 64 dev cartridge... Love you guys!

[@djhenyo]

@Phil Rams People said the same thing about Bio Force Ape for over two decades before it was found.

[@starfrost6816]

IIRC 64DD development was completed in early/mid 1997, based on the IPL source code that got leaked. Was fully ready for release in USA and JPN by mid-1997.

[@mrkilo-g8794]

They should've release it

[@MistuhHamp]

A long delay and an expensive add-on was more or less useless once 64mb cartridges came out. So many people think that the DD had storage space comparable to the Playstation CDs and would have made such a difference for the platform, but by the end of the console's lifetime the only benefit would have been the quirky options available with the Read/Write nature of the platform. Meanwhile in retrospect, the apparent need for these huge CDs on the Playstation was only to include those FMV sequences.

[@emmettturner9452]

…and yet they didn’t cut a single FMV from two discs of content for Resident Evil 2 when they shrank it down to a 64MB cartridge. With FMV and recorded waveform audio even CD games were typically only a few MBs. No doubt, squeezing that game into 64MB was a huge feat but it did not have to be. Since the disks were cheaper than carts any similar port could’ve even been on two disks just like RE2 was on two discs for the PlayStation. Games that were composed to generate their audio on N64 use almost no storage for music but CD audio was generally uncompressed and there was plenty of room for compression. Even cartridge games were using MP3 so CD audio soundtracks would’ve been compressed or recomposed as natively generated audio. Few developers would have felt constrained by 64MB (512mbit). The highest capacity cartridge ever made for the console would’ve been the baseline that every 64DD game gets for free… and then you get multi-disk titles. ;)

[@hard4games]

Pretty much. The DD needed to come out in 97. The giant cartridges did make the disks less worth-while, but to be fair the big carts were also more expensive for publishers. The DD's write capability was also great (though not necessary for most games) and the internal clock was a nice feature too (but not a deal breaker by any means).

[@emmettturner9452]

@@hard4games Yeah. The PlayStation bucked the trend of including internal storage and internal clock and was more successful than the competing systems (3DO, Saturn, etc) anyway but I can see a clock being a bigger deal when you have so much storage.

[@kyler247]

@@emmettturner9452 they didn't cut an fmv but they basically had to use state of the art compression and play Tetris with the game data to get them to fit lol. You're making it sound like resident evil 2 on N64 was this effortless endeavor, it wasn't. It's a feat of programming and software engineering

[@kyler247]

Those cartridges were far, far more expensive than a simple CD, mind you

[@donnyf88]

What I read from Japanese sources, the 64DD failed selling because the only way to pay for the discription, was via creditcard every month,, and because the 64DD was meant for "kids" most of the parents don`t want to be stuck with the discription, when Randnet fixed the creditcard into multiple options.. it was already too late.

[@sammlerkiste7970]

Imagine N64 used DD in the beginning instead of Cartdriges. The loading times were still fast and it would be much cheaper.

[@blav]

The 64DD hardware would be really pricey too, I doubt some n64 games would sell that much if it was tied to an expensive useless thing that would never have it's price tag justified for just holding a fraction of what CDs could hold (64mb against 700 for CDs).

[@khhnator]

@@blav in all fairness CD drives were expensive back then as well, cartridges that are cheap to support(but expensive to produce)

[@maroon9273]

@@blav sad part it's the same storage size as the maximum cart storage on the system. They should've at least have a maximum storage from 128 MB up to 750 MB for future disk storage expansion similar to the zip disc if any possibilities.

[@TheMamaluigi300]

@@maroon9273To be fair, unlike the Famicom Disk System, that capacity was only reached in a couple of games, and took a while to come out.

[@nicholaszacharewicz693]

This is some incredible new info! I wonder if anyone inside Nintendo looks back and thinks they should've just released the DD, sales targets for the N64 aside...

[@maroon9273]

Or just used flash disk as the main media for the n64 instead of carts.

[@rars0n]

Tony, that's an awesome find! Keep up the great work! It's important these old magazines get preserved. I really love going back and reading old issues of EGM and others, getting a refresher on their impressions of games before they came out and what "should" have been. Takes me back to my earlier gaming days.

[@SonicBoone56]

Hell yeah! There's probably a ton of lost info in old gaming magazines. Very excited to see them being uploaded and translated!

[@davidv4018]

It happened in a similar fashion than the NES disk system. By the time they would come out, there were already carts with the same size of the disk. Periferics never worked. Why would a publisher make a game for only a fraction of N64 owners, unless the periferics sells along with the game (like a lightgun or expansion pak).

[@3dmarth]

Exactly what I was thinking. It was even worse with the Disk System, though, as regular cartridge games ended up being much bigger than the disks (as opposed to the same size)! And then there was the obnoxious loading, including having to flip the disk over. The FDS made sense at the time, but I think those of us outside Japan got a better deal in the end. And yeah, peripherals are tough to sell. Why buy one, if it has no games? But why make games for it, if no one is buying it? Packing it in with the game sometimes worked well... but then there was the Xbox One with Kinect.

[@spiralsky]

Woah woah woah just when I thought the Nintendo DD stuff was over it PULLS ME RIGHT BACK IN. Heck ya

[@smuckola]

Check out the whole story then, buddy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64DD

[@M1XART]

My understanding is that Mario Artist-series was not complete in 1996, but 64DD was. -But why it must have to had been first release? Thinking things now, they could and should had released N64 & 64DD at once, as the same system. -It would had cost Nintendo a lot, but userbase would have explored due cheap 64DD titles. Of course, they could have still released add-ons like F-Zero Expansion kit for those who want more for their regular purchases for N64 Reason for 64DD failure was after all, Zelda 64. Just think if expansion kit full of new stuff for it would had been ready after two months after releade Zelda:OOT. +Expansion Pack compability even for N64 version content with 64DD upgrade. They could had even released game(s) that have N64 cartridge and 64DD -bonus at once. And if they would had made bold enough move to release 512mbit Zelda: Majora's Mask only on 64D with rewriteable features, but dirt cheap game to buy.... I really think they could had much highter N64 userbase, this way, if they had kept machine(s) price right. Besides more 512mbit rewriteable games would had FMV + more character animation. The system would had been considered vastly superior to Playstation. But Nintendo didn't have courage to even put expansion pack as the standart from the begining. -I suppose, they just didn't take Sony seriously back then. They were Nintendo, biggest gaming company in the world still on 1995, when their decisions were made...

[@smuckola]

Check out the sordid history of all the piles of products which became Mario Artist en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Artist

[@ezehogan]

The 5th generation was a fascinating time in the industry. When it began, CD-ROM drives were very costly, which was another factor in N64 using cartridges. Although games would cost more to produce, the console could be sold at a profit rather than a loss. Ultimately as the generation progressed, CD-ROM drive manufacturing costs were greatly reduced allowing Sony to make further price cuts on the console that had a large library of affordable games available.

[@Knightmessenger]

I think delaying was a huge mistake. The whole point of the 64DD was to entice more people to buy the console or develop games for it because it would have more potential. People who brushed the n64 as being for kids compared to the playstation might have taken it more seriously. But not releasing a finished product to the marketplace prevents all of that from happening. And the upside to delaying was...?

[@Knightmessenger]

@Phil Rams yeah but my comment really didn't have much to do with Sony, other than the fact that their Playstation sold better than the N64. (I'm not saying it was better or should have sold more, just that it did. I only had a n64 and gamecube.) I can't think of any advantage to not releasing the 64 DD by Nintendo. It was a foolish mistake and entirely self inflicted.

[@vanillaiceage1739]

Good call on Nintendo thinking of the base console sales first. Besides Sega, the peripheral I immediately think of "how did that ever come out?" is Jaguar CD.

[@undamned]

A new old stock N64 DD Collection (all hardware and all software) just sold on Yahoo Japan Auctions for $8k. Amazing seeing all that together and still new.

[@bahooneyonastick]

I really appreciate your work on this Tony! Preservation of both games and information is so important and in my eyes you’re legendary and essential. Thank you!

[@petesaguy1707]

When Sega's failed add-on is more successful than Nintendo's - that's at least an 8 on the oofometer.

[@ActuallySanFrancisco]

i really feel (and always felt) like if nintendo had just released this thing in a bundle package with the console shortly after it was first announced - and really made more of an effort to get a few killer games for it at the same time - it would have significantly increased n64 console sales on its own merits - likely even gotten them over that 6 million number faster. but instead nintendo was nintendo and they did this half-assed tail-between-legs "we have a product! but maybe we don't. i dunno." thing with it. there was constant press about the thing. many people were looking forward to it. i feel like nintendo wanting more sales of the base console first was putting the cart before the horse. oh well. is what it is now. and the n64 is still my all-time favorite console regardless, so 🤷‍♂️

[@smuckola]

Yes correct, and if they'd accepted Netscape's early offer of partnership then they'd have all kinds of traction and Internet clout at that time. Japanese people didn't want personal computers in the 90s.

[@Hmty2383]

Over the years, I've always noticed that one of the factors that has affected Nintendo in the most negative way is how they decide to proceed in regards of anti-piracy measures. During the N64 this was very noticeable and it wasn't so different with the Gamecube, only to backfire at them in some way or another, affecting the relationship they had with 3rd party devs and the release for their games, causing a chain effect where they ended up losing sales. During the Wii, they didn't take much care on that factor and it ended up being the most sold console of that generation (of course, this wasn't exactly the reason, but those barriers weren't there for game devs to worry about that much, something that was a huge problem with the N64 and GC).

[@gargonovich]

GameCube is interesting because if you look at the filesizes for a lot of GCN games, they're usually not using the full disc. Some extra compression, for sure, but outside of something like GTA San Andreas, I don't buy that disc size was the major deterrent there. I think the real reason third parties didn't support the GameCube more was that it didn't sell well and you had to compete with Nintendo themselves. Each platform was vastly different from the others in that generation, so porting was a pretty costly procedure and since the install base was smaller and the competition from Nintendo themselves would eat into what sales there were, it got skipped.

[@BASEDSAKRI]

Emulating that golf game the same thing happened to me. Every swing he would miss! Couldn't figure it out but it was hilarious.

[@geekWAVE_lifeisstrangedeepdive]

As always really interesting behind the scenes on Nintendo consoles and video games, Tony! Thx:)

[@SemiglossOyster]

Loved the Only On H4G emblem, nice touch!

[@dominicbofficial]

Honestly, the most impressive part of the 64DD was the full Mario Artist Studio lineup, and how everything was fully customizable and compatible between all 3 games. Imagine if the 64DD DID succeed and these games got popular. Gaming would probably be way different than it is today.

[@SegaCDUniverse]

Great video buddy, very informative

[@user-fd5ih6te9b]

God bless you for actually uploading the raw scans

[@Epsilonsama]

My personal opinion with the n64 is that foregoing a Disc Drive either magnetic or optical from the actual n64 hurt Nintendo greatly. Many developers, specially in Japan were expecting the Ultra 64 (prototype name of the N64) to use a Disc Drive format with either a Magnetic Disc or better a Compact Disc format. The SGI workstations that many developers started working with, with the idea of using that to develop Ultra 64 games had Disc Drives included. When Nintendo later told those companies who already spent thousands or even millions of dollars developing CGI on SGI machines that they would be limited to just a little bit more than what the 16 bit machines can store threw them for a loop. Now the Sony Playstation with their more generous split of profit and having access to much more ROM data seemed like a no brainer. Nintendo was still arrogant even though while they won their domestic country they almost lost their American market and never gain the European one. A big company like Sony, that was a powerhouse in Japan probably saw through Nintendo and after developing the Super Famicom CD system knew they could take their technology and develop a system. Seeing how SEGA another game company almost beat Nintendo in America and reign supreme in Europe probably made them realize that Nintendo in the mid 90s was a paper tiger. If it wasnt for Pokemon, a niche low budget RPG made by an indie company that became an overnight sensation, Nintendo could have ended like SEGA. The Gamecube was overall another failure and it wasnt until the Wii where they were able to rebound and with Pokemon brand pretty much printing money now Nintendo is pretty much unbeatable. But for a small time Nintendo was indeed a Paper Tiger.

[@mushroomwings3236]

This is game-changing!! I have to wonder now if they wound up releasing it because they realized they missed their window of opportunity to do so and were trying to fix that mistake?

[@hard4games]

My guess would be they a) were embarrassed and felt obligated b) had games they wanted to release c) had a business partnership with Recruit they needed to fulfill (Randnet).

[@protocetid]

Would be cool if they released a mini N64 with 64DD games so they will become less obscure and with a proto or two to really celebrate the history of the console. Including a proto might be kind of strange to the general public so Nintendo should include a minimum of one unreleased game like they did with the SNES Classic.

[@smuckola]

The community already converted them into cartridge format and translated them to English, so they can be emulated. Years ago!

[@protocetid]

@@smuckola The main reason I want an N64 Classic is for a chance at the big N repeating what they did with Star Fox 2. While I know I can run 64DD software on a PC, the average person probably doesn’t. Having a dead simple way to play the add on’s games means its library will get a way bigger audience than it ever has.

[@ryanteacher8134]

One of my favourite games on the n64 benefited from using cartridges. No Mercy! You could edit the wrestlers attires and looks and it would save on the cartridge. Impossible on disc games and consoles that didn't have internal storage space. Also load times.

[@DOSfoxx]

had a really hard time finding scans of certain Japanese gaming publications from the 90s, Appreciate the work on preserving that sort of stuff!

[@hard4games]

A lot of the popular ones sell fast and are expensive. I've been after random obscure ones. It takes more time but there are some informational gems. Plus they are less expensive.

[@smuckola]

@@hard4games Please do a fundraiser specifically for this. Or a shoutout to collectors to lend a shipment to you for scanning? Definitely a fundraiser for the translation, which is very difficult. Whatcha thank?!

[@tapedex]

Fascinating findings! It really was an incredible, yet strange era. Nintendo almost admitting the cartridge format flaws because of the very existence of the DD, while delivering genre-defining games on a perceived weaker format was riveting. The N64 is surely testament to their internal developers. A system hamstrung by format from a business perspective, but their internal software remained so compelling that it enabled the system to grip gamers in the face of the cultural (and business) behemoth that was the PS1. I also think the ‘promise’ of a greater future for systems should never be under-estimated; and Nintendo are masters of this. Great video!

[@danielbethe6307]

It’s not almost admitting. It was a dual format strategy from the beginning. Cartridges are inherently technologically superior and make the console cheaper, but the media is more expensive. I wrote the whole story on Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_Game_Pak en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64DD

[@tapedex]

@@danielbethe6307 Brilliant, informative article that. Thanks for writing and sharing it.

[@voodooopaque6357]

I wish they Sold the 64 DD everywere and we got those games on it, imagine Metroid 64

[@CarputingYT]

Have a great day, Hard4Games! Thanks for another upload!

[@rafadono]

What an interesting story about the 64DD, I think the N64 had to use magnetics disks from the beginning. If the cartridges were of 4MB and end using 64 MB, perhaps the 64DD that used 64MB from the beginning could have ended up with 128MB (256 MB maybe) and I could have had bigger games, with more content or less compression. Is funny to imagine what could have happened.

[@Soonjai]

To me it feels like that by 1998 most people that would be interested to buy a 64DD would already own the base System already or where about to buy it in the very near future. I mean, if anything they could have tested the waters with a small, 1st run of the Add On along with a first batch of Software, and if that ends up as a sales success they could opt for a 2nd run with a 2nd wave of Software.

[@artrax]

I still want a 64DD, no where to be found, even in Japan!

[@oracleofcourage]

How did you come to discover that issue of Digital Heroes? And how lucky is that one of the two issues you found had this interview?

[@otakubullfrog1665]

Add-ons just didn't work back then because most players were still young enough that even buying the base console was a major investment. Nintendo really should have learned from Sega's failures in that regard.

[@andremalerba5281]

So in summary, Nintendo saw how bad the Sega CD, 32X and Saturn situation went and decided to wait until longer for a "mid gen" upgrade to release the 64DD in order to not confuse or piss the consumers, but in the end of the day, they've waited so long that they thought was it better to just jump to their "Saturn" than to release their "32X" LOL

[@mrkilo-g8794]

Nintendo later did Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS family line down the line😂😂😂😂

[@jklmnopq666]

Thanks for keeping the history alive, dude 😊

[@devonwilliams5738]

It was probably for the best that the DD never came to be. Consoles that rely on add-ons don't tend to end up well.

[@JAC3DG33K]

Agreed making the N64 compatible with magnetic disks from the start vs. having an add-on would have made more sense. Especially when you look at the Genesis/Mega Drive after the Sega CD and 32X launches. Come to think of it Sega should have cancelled the 32X, Neptune, and Nomad all together and just released a portable Genesis with the 32X chip upgrades that way it would have been clear that the Saturn was the main console and the 32X was a successor to the GameGear with Genesis capability.

[@lelsewherelelsewhere9435]

Sega should have done a lot things... First being 1 company, not practically 2 competing companies screw each other over and disagreeing. You hear about Sega of America try to make their own saturn hardware, twice! (Their first attempt with silicon graphics later led to the Nintendo 64!)

[@Epsilonsama]

SEGA problem was that the Japanese branch was embarrased that their American subsidiaries were able to beat Nintendo while they lost to NEC and the PC Engine. Basically unlike Nintendo which their American subsidiary works together with Nintendo, SEGA was in the 90s pretty much two companies and no synergy at all.

[@maroon9273]

Funny thing the genesis survived longer the 32x and sega cd combined. A game gear genesis hardware based portable console would've been great. Then successor will have a 32x inspired handheld to compete with the gameboy advanced.

[@eksmad]

From beta questing to archiving video game magazine history .. what a legend!

[@StrykerOfEnyo]

Yeah, thats the hard math for selling a peripheral back then -- you need the installed base to be large enough to make it feasible to release. Nintendo only sold 36 million (about) N64's when it was all over, its lowest-selling console at the time (though GameCube would be less). They didnt have very good 3rd-party support, most didnt want the added expense of cartridges. Remember, this is in the days were Nintendo would sell you the chips and charge you to manufacture the cartridges as well. Many of us would love to see this come out, but Nintendo had low sales, and you wanted months for a worth-while game to release sometimes. My library of N64 games never got bigger than about 14 back then, but I bought a PS1 shortly after so I could actually play some games, and I got 200+ games for it in the end. Its for the best in the end, why split the development and games for an add-on that would just split up the current user base? Dreamcast was right around the corner in 1999, and I enjoyed the hell out of that!

[@johneygd]

I really don’t believe that nintendo delayed the DD64 drive just waiting for enough N64 systems to be sold,that would,ve be the dumbest mistake i can ever think off,am sure it had to do something with techical hurdles along the way(eventrough they denie it),because i readed somewhere that the DD64 drive wasn’t ready yet, BUT the real reason why i think it flopped was , because it eventually became obsolete just like the famicom disk system, While it is true that in 1996 N64 cartride could only hold 12MB so 64MB on a N64 disk was alot,HOWEVER as semi conducting nano technology became more advanced, it become finally possible to stiff in 64MB of data on a N64 cartride so from that point the DD64 become obsolete,i bet if the DD64 was released in 1996 it would,ve only sold 4 to 6 million units and the eventually discontinued 2 years later, Same thing with the famicom disksystem, it was not only ment to make games cheaper but to also store 128KB of data on it along with enhanced graphics & audio,HOWEVER once technology did advanced enough to the point that 128KB along with enhancement chips could be also stored on a cartride at a cheaper price, the famicom disksystem eventually became obsolete. So it waagood that nintendo gave up on both disksystem addons for those systems, Trough i will always wonder why they did not come with a CD addon for the N64 with caddy cased CD’s (as 1 dutch nintendo magazine did mentioned about nintendo’s plan for a N64 CD addon,mmm🙁

[@ViperVisor]

It seems obvious now but Nintendo and video games were not massive cash cows. Back in 1994 to green-light an expensive CD system was a long term bet when companies want profits this quarter not a year+ out. The problem was the N64 as it was, was pushed back. They needed to get it in stores late '95 and push the games out the door even in not highly polished. Get an install base going if you are going to be selling them on lower profit cartridges.

[@G.L.999]

My take on improving the N64 at launch would be this. 1. Make the Magnetic Zip Disks the official media of choice 2. The Magnetic Zip Disks should have at least 128MBytes(1024MBits) of storage data than just 64MBytes(512MBits). Just enough for RPGs and other big releases to have less pressure, strain, and a bit more storage reasonable enough to warrant more support. 3. SNES backwards compatibility via a peripheral akin to that of what the Super Gameboy was for the SNES for at least $49; and if said owners have an SNES of their own and want an SNES peripheral for their N64, allow retailers to have customers trade in their SNES console for the SNES peripheral for free. Like how Sega did with the Power-Base Converter if consumers wanted to play Sega Master System games on their Genesis/Mega-Drives! 4. Increase the internal RAM just slightly from 4MGS to at least 6MGS; along with having a 6MG RAM expansion pak sold seperately 5. Increase Texture swap cashe from 4kbytes to 6kbytes 6. Price it at $299.95 7. Launch it Worldwide in the Spring or early Summer of 96; instead of the Fall! By no means do my recommendations mean the N64 would've been able to beat Sony long terms. However, an N64 console that has sold 45 to 50+ million compared to the 33+ million, would've meant more longevity and supportive effort for the GameCube(if they decide to go that same route like they did in our timeline but who knows) that would've recieved stronger and healthier support long term as well! Try not to take my list too seriously as these are just what could've possibly could have been in an alternate scenario!

[@ryanmassey1441]

I had always just assumed it was just getting production costs down.

[@coffee84]

Very cool Video. The Magazin at 10:20 Minutes must be NZONE Magazin from Germany

[@benjammin7663]

This is currently in the playlsit for stop skeletons from fighting delisted series, i dont know why.

[@TechWizard28]

5:50 they should have offered consoles with the add on for a discount with Zelda or DK

[@MrVolksbeetle]

This thing was supposed to be Nintendo's answer to the 64's lack of storage. Most specifically, the cartridges were too limiting and too expensive. I remember the articles warning that the cartridges for a 3D game were going to be really pricey next to the wall of PlayStation discs (some at the point the DD was making waves, were less than half the price of 64 carts), but would offer specific advantages over the CD-ROM: being able to save without a memory card, faster load times, etc. For whatever reason, they also went on about the DD's real time clock... I remember them saying that the Zelda game would have time of day changes, and possibly time sensitive unlocks. At this point, Nintendo realized their collective mistake outing SONY during what would be the genesis of the PlayStation, and were scrambling to come up with an answer to SONY's juggernaut. The other thing I remember most about the failed add-on was the price. It was NEO-GEO territory when you added the cost of the 64 and the DD together. The part I'm fuzziest on is I don't remember if they ever really settled on a price for the games. Nintendo being Nintendo, they were super concerned about piracy. That and the load times of your average single and double speed CD-ROM drives weren't spectacular, and I think they were trying to maintain the 'instant' on of carts. What is even weirder to me is that Ben Heck actually repaired one of the only SNES PlayStations in existence. Other than the hardware necessary to control the CD Drive, and talk to the SNES, there weren't any power adders (ie, the extra bits the SEGA CD had) so it was just a storage device. I think the DD was basically the same thing. I mean, sure, there might be some extra RAM for data transfers and such, but no additional horsepower. But, for me, I didn't care. I'd had fun with Mario Kart 64 and Wave Race, played with F-Zero (which to me, was an utter disappointment) and I think I messed with Zelda a bit. SONY had my number, and that was pretty much it. I do admit that it would have been really interesting to see what would have happened if the Ultra 64 didn't have carts or, if Nintendo hadn't parted ways with SONY. I'll have to wait till that alternative universe viewer comes out, I guess.

[@TooStupidGamerz]

Prodigious! That makes so much more sense. No point in releasing add on stuff for a system that hasn't sold enough.

[@antonionii]

This is a very well done video. impressed!

[@camrongraziano1254]

Well here is what I think...North America should have got the 64DD then. We bought way more 6million units.

[@Epsilonsama]

Nintendo is a Japanese company and at the end of the day selling overseas is always second to them than their domestic market.

[@camrongraziano1254]

@@Epsilonsama I do understand that. That's why Smash gets sword fighters and not guns. But I also know that Japanese market back then was still loving 2D games on PS1 and Saturn, while North Americans (Like me here in Canada.) Wanted 3D like N64. And here in Canada N64 actually outsold PS1 and Saturn. In Japan Nintendo sold under 6 million units. In North America 20 million. Now admittedly I think only PS4 launched in North America before Japan. Maybe that could have worked for Nintendo 64 too?

[@G.L.999]

Not mention the fact that Nintendo's North American and European branches didn't want the add-on to begin with because of how much of a notorious burden add-ons have been in the 90's with the Atari Jaguar Cd, Turbo Grafix CD, Sega CD, and 32X; which have all been deemed failures; especially in the Western hemisphere. And Nintendo's western divisions didn't want Nintendo as a whole making the same blunders Sega, Atari, and NEC had made with their system add-ons. They didn't think it was worth it! In fact Nintendo's western divisions argued that if creating games for a magnetic disc were cheaper and had more storage capacity, the N64 should've been a system that utilized magnetic discs to begin with!

[@TeraunceFoaloke]

thanks for sharing this lost tidbit of knowledge. And good on you. 9I hope you also upload those to the internet archive.

[@TubbyJ420]

0:11 Iwata spotted!

[@andyibanezk]

Not gonna lie, the Data Vending Machines sound like a very cool idea. No need for them with the modern internet, but I woulda loved to use one of those.

[@keithpoley3432]

I miss those magic n64 days. I loved the games like Banjo Kazooie were so fun to play and so much to do in them. Just can't get the same kind of feel these days. Like a drug you will never get the same high again. I really wish there was new games created for old systems. Yes I know about the 1 or 2 for the NES and the N64 a couple years ago but that's it as far as I know and those didn't really do much for me.

[@8thLife]

Some really good thoughts into why it failed, that I hadn't really thought about before. Thanks for another great video!

[@GostosasGarotas]

an exclusive subscription service and a golf game... seems like they salvaged it as a luxury item.

[@G.L.999]

I think the highest zip disc's capacity at the time was 250MBs of storage back then. Imagine the difference if the N64 had THAT kind of zip disc as its medium instead of what we were to have been given back then with N64DD. It would've been cheaper than a CD Drive and had more production manufacturing time than cartridges! Sure it would still be lower than CDs Megabytes obviously, but the extra space on those zip discs compareded to cartridges back then would've made a world of a difference in the long run! Even with all that said, would have to be neck in neck with PS1 in terms of hardware sales to be a success? No! Did it have to have the same 3rd party games that Sony and Sega(in Japan anyway) had to be a success? No! It just needed more games whether 3rd or 1st party game exclusives to really help make it stand out a little better than in our timeline. For many N64 lovers, the N64 was a success in our timeline in own right, but I don't think anyone could argue that it probably could've been a bit more.

[@kami-kitsune-va]

Now that the DD mystery has been pretty much solved, lets work on the Dreamcast Zip drive 😋

[@PyroJiro]

i could listen to Tony talk for hours about obscure video games lmao

[@JC-qu5lv]

I definitely remember being so glad they stuck with cartridges as a kid, even though now I understand the business side of it. I remember friends having stacks of PS games sitting open on top of each other, scratching, etc. Once it gets bad enough you just can't play that game any more. We never had that issue with a cartridge. I think if they had released the DD simultaneously or close to the N64 release and attracted more 3rd parties with the extra disk storage space that would have been huge. I also remember hating the mini Gamecube discs I was like they should have done CDs or stuck with carts.

[@TheMamaluigi300]

To be frank, I think that was more a “your friends” problem. Sony *had* those jewel cases you could neatly and compactly store the games in, yet it sounds like your friends lazily stacked them like they were a pack of CD-Rs

[@ZidaneSAID]

Thanks for the amazing content!

[@AgentXRifle]

I feel like the DD would have been rushed and QA would be lacking. Say all you want about carts, but they are built to last! DD should have been a optical disc attachment or something like minidisc, even then… add-ons for game systems are usually bad news! Look at the genesis!

[@TheCoolDave]

Very interesting, We know how it is in the US, we have had the mags, the web is full of info now but, Japan, is a whole different world for gaming. It's interesting to see that side. Thanks for sharing and too bad we never saw a DD in the US (besides MJR's one)

[@Gojiro7]

so at the end, they did the smart thing that Sega didn't, you have a have a system that not enough people own, (Nintendo N64: keep selling the system so enough profit has been made to justify the cost gone into the new thing) (Sega Saturn: release the system and let it compete with the other console you are supporting [32X and Mega-CD] and kneecap your own profits and erode consumer trust)

[@maroon9273]

You can add the 32x cd. Sega was reckless releasing a add-on and console the same year. After releasing the sega cd two to three years earlier which failed in every region.

[@Darth001]

Another great historical video from Hard4Games love it

[@dothedew8250]

thank you for this information, i saw it a few months back on twitter, and i am so glad it's on video form, thank you!!! it changes the perspective in the west and chagnes the way history is written

[@MovedBoxMan]

Its a shame the 64dd flopped but with its storage medium and it constantly being delayed its development comes across to me as a waste of time. I'm glad OoT and Majoras Mask jumped over to cartridge but am sad the Ura Expansion ended up becoming this mythical game we know very little about besides that it was MQ but for the 64dd

[@nintendo4life132]

Excellent review about the 64DD, yes it was my understanding that the sale didn't do so well in Japan that's why it never release in North America. Because you have to the drive as another system cost. For my best idea that they should've done was go for a CD hard drive. For the system to work is load it's CD files to the hardware(not saving it) so the game will able to load quicker from the files load up to the system not the CD, using music and media from the CD so it will simple to run. That way it would be cheap for Nintendo to have simple add-on and sale games with a simple upgrade

[@TheMamaluigi300]

“CD hard drive” That almost vaguely sounds like DVD-RAM, and you know what, I could only imagine some gaming company using DVD-RAM for their console

[@OmegaVideoGameGod]

At least it gave us the fzero x content that we didn’t have

[@videotape2959]

9:58 It's your opinion now, and you're right, but at the time of release it really was not an issue. That'd be like being mad at Olivetti today for having put the BIOS configuration utility on the HDD, on some of their computers in the early 90's. At the time, it was not an issue, the HDD was new, and even if it failed you had the configuration diskette, and the computer was supported by the company...

[@Jackpkmn]

I feel like everyone was way too transfixed on CD Quality Audio and FMVs in that time period. To the detriment of games themselves. Few actually did something nice with either feature mostly cramming in terrible FMVs and soulless music. When i first heard of the size of CDs vs Carts i thought "so that means there will be a lot more game right?"

[@Turbulation1]

People could technically make much larger games on 700MB discs, and you could easily sacrifice CD Audio to just have PCM Audio. The issue is publishers for third parties most likely didn't strive for major ambition like FF7 by Square. So most games had less than a year for development which means in order to pad out the disc to sell the game at full price, CD Audio and FMVs were used, and in some instances there would be a prototype of the game on the retail disc as padding.

[@kobaltsteel6418]

OH SHOOT!!! This is excellent, man! Glad we got this new info on the N64DD; this is very excellent for gaming history! Hmm... now that you mention it, that reason does make sense! Looking at Nintendo's JP sales figures, I definetley see Nintendo's point... DAMN, those are low figures; releasing a peripheral wasn't really going to do anything, but hurt Nintendo. Those cartridges really didn't help Nintendo, at that point

[@rars0n]

Hey Tony, I was just curious if you heard about the 3DO port of Tomb Raider? Based on OpenLara, it's only been in development for about a week but XProger has made some rapid progress with it. I'm a little surprised that nobody outside of the 3DO discord is really talking about it yet. It looks pretty impressive!

[@hard4games]

I have but the creator doesn't want anyone showing it off. So my hands are tied for a while.

[@rars0n]

@@hard4games Ah, okay. Yeah, I know he'd prefer to wait until it's finished for people to see it, but I'm positively shocked by the progress that has been made already. Super cool project. I'd have thought some other KZbinr would have caught wind and jumped all over it. I'm glad that hasn't happened yet because I think it's turning out to be quite a good port. I look forward to you making a video whenever it's ready!

[@dankmansalley417]

I feel like with proper marketing they could’ve used the DD to revive interest in Nintendo, similar to a PlayStation pro or PlayStation slim we see nowadays

[@PKMNwww411_MkII]

CDs have been around since the 1980s and held more data than HDDs during their debut.

[@pokepress]

Kinda the opposite of the Jaguar CD situation, at least in terms of the decision made.

[@aceoyame2619]

I think the Neon Genesis Evangelion cart was also a 512 meg cart. I remember my og Xbox struggling to load it

[@renakunisaki]

Well of course an Xbox will have trouble loading an N64 cartridge 😆

[@tubias21]

Oh man, i would love to see a timeline where the n64 was using this disk instead of the cartridge. This has a significant faster reading than the ps1 CD drive and was much more cheap to produce than a n64 cartridge. If using this disks, i beleave the n64 biblery would be at least dobled size.

[@asnierkishcowboy]

...obscure magazines.. at 10:20 an then you show a Zelda OoT screen from the german N-Zone Magazine? The N-Zone wasnt an abscure magazine. It came out in March 1997 and survived its competitors the german Total! (6/1993-12/2000) and the Fun Vision (i have no idea when it went defunct). I have many of the issues of all these magazines here (and the video games & man!ac). At least until ~2005.

[@hard4games]

Not all of them are gonna be super rare. Just wanted to show some neat imagery.

[@asnierkishcowboy]

@@hard4games It will be a tough challenge even finding out which of the imagines contained in these magazines are providing rare information. We need absolute pros to do this. Pros like us. Lol. Actually the E3, ECTS, TGS and Shoshinkai issues should be the interessting ones. So the problem boils down to maybe 3 issues a year. Im not sure how big of a thing the ECTS even was.

[@imikegaming2070]

It's so interesting how Nintendo does business.. even if it's only money driven, ( which ofc it is..) the love and respect that really, to be unique. The lvl of like Pokemon.. the thought process of thinking red and green. That was ment for one game. Then gold and silver was supposed to be the ending. All I see and hope.. is the VR realm. "Pokemon VR" a true experience, and if it would be in the realm of possibility.. the amount of love that would be put into.. I feel that hard, hope we get to that " true experience" and sadly the budget is still low..

[@Kevin_40]

Crazy how similar Atari Jaguar and N64 are. Same color system. 64 bit. mistake using carts. had a cool add on they shoulda released asap instead of waiting Jag CD and DD. both had controllers that many did not like. poor 3rd part support. but then both had some legendary games and both have large cult followings.

[@shift_nasty]

Great work tony!!!

[@kingjoe3rd]

I had to do a double take on your channel to make sure you were not just only doing videos on the 64DD which you are not thankfully. Don't ever let yourself become a "one subject Andy" because your channel and approach is quite good. I didn't have the "all" bell on and haven't seen you hit my feed in a while. Will you consider covering the atrocious N64 emulation on the Switch? MVG did a video on it but it seems like a lot of answer were not given and not a lot of speculations as to what happened as well. Was it incompetence? Was it someone past their prime not being able to tell the difference? I would love to hear your take on it.