Nintendo 64 or "The N64"
The Nintendo 64 was released in June of 1996 in Japan and North America. The console development started in the early 1990s and was code-named "Project Reality" which was later renamed to "Ultra 64". Nintendo opted for the cartridge format rather than the CD-ROM due to disagreements with Sony. The console was officially announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3 as the Nintendo 64.
The console features a 64-bit CPU and GPU which was an enormous improvement over the 16-bit predecessors. The game library has some exceptional games such as
- Super Mario 64
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- GoldenEye 007
- Mario Kart 64
- Super Smash Bros
- Banjo-Kazooie
- Star Fox 64
- THe Legend of Zelda: Marjora's Mask
- Diddy Kong Racing
- Paper Mario
- Donkey Kong 64
- Perfect Dark
- Conker's Bad Fur Day
- Wave Race 64
- Resident Evil 2
- F-Zero X
- Blast Corps
- Turok:Dinosaur Hunter
- Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon
- 1080 Snowboarding
Nintendo also introduced an Expansion Pack for the N64. This was a hardware accessory that added 4MByte of RAM to the system, bringing the total RAM to 8MByte, enhancing graphics and thus allowing for more detail in games. Some titles like "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" required the Expansion Pack in order to play the game.
The N64 did not use traditional sprites, like older consoles did. Instead, the N64 used polygonal 3D graphics and lacked a dedicated sprite layer. It handled 2D sprites by mapping textures onto polygons, which then could be used to create 2D sprites in a 3D environment. The N64 was able to render a moderate number of these textured polygons simultaneously.