Nintendo 64

 

Being a pretty avid gamer both retro and

modernl do own most of Nintendo's

consoles in my collection from the

original NES to the Super Nintendo and

GameCube and the switch could even be

my

favorite console of all time but there

is one line that Nintendo fans have been

using for the last decade or so and that

is that Nintendo don't compete on specs

usually used in defense of their

consoles against rabid Xbox and

PlayStation fanboys but this wasn't

always the case in fact there was a time

when Nintendo's new system was the

hottest tech in the game and promised to

bring a super computer into your

bedroomthe story of the console that ended up

being named the Nintendo 64 is possibly

the most interesting of all of Nintendo

systems and arguably the most hyped

and

ambitious of the fifth console

generation now I first heard about

Nintendo's upcoming wonder system by

watching UK gaming TV shows in the

early

90s like games master and that

influenced after the 16-bit consoles

started to look a bit long in the tooth

and early fifth gen systems like the 3do

and Jaguar had started to appear a big

hype began for the upcoming super

consoles details emerged about the very

impressive Sony Playstation and Sega'snew console the Saturn but Nintendo's

new system seemed to be quite

mysterious

but what about the other Japanese

games

giant Nintendo well there's still no

official word about their super console

the odds are 64 although we have

managed

to track down which rather tachi

photograph of it the ultra 64 coin up

game killer instinct was sheduled to

beat the first game released with the

whole machine but because of the delay

that's been canceled and replaced by

you'll never guess yes

killer instinct to all news about this

in November when the old 64 is finallyunveiled to a waiting world at the

Japanese computer trade show

the console was codenamed project

reality and initially the only thing we

knew about Nintendo's new console was

that they were working with the mighty

Silicon Graphics and the power was

going

to be out of this world

Silicon Graphics were the hottest name

in computer-generated imagery in the

early 90s with their high-end systems

famously being used for graphics and

effects on movies like Terminator 2 and

Jurassic Park their reality engine 3d

graphics architecture was made for their

high-end crimson and onyx

supercomputersoriginally designed to be used in

digital studios or universities for

running simulations this system could do

some for the time very impressive

effects in real time for a big price

seeing the rapidly growing market for 3d

video games

SGI wanted to work with the console

manufacturer to partner on high-end new

home games console originally speaking

to Sega the deal fell through when

according to former Sega of America

president tom kalinske

it was rejected by Sega of Japan SGI

then went to Nintendo and were met with

a much warmer reception and ProjectReality

was born the original hype suggested

that Nintendo and SGI we're going to

perform some kind of miracle and bring

the power of the reality engine to a

home console called the ultra 64 that

would retail for about 250 dollars

the demos they showed look

jaw-dropping

for the time but as the console hardware

wasn't actually made yet they were

running on silicon graphics high-end 3d

onyx multiprocessor workstations this

demo was called performer Atlantis and

was actually uploaded to the internet as

a CD image and a guy called bands lcahn

made this video in 2012 showing thesegraphics running on very expensive SGI

machines often running at 1024 by 768

resolution

lactually remember hearing stories of

journalists at trade shows checking out

these demos being very impressed and

then looking behind a curtain or under a

desk and seeing a 250 thousand dollar

SGI workstation running the demo the

height machine was going into overdrive

Iremember reading articles about how

the ultra 64 would essentially be able

to render a Toy Story movie in real time

now despite the demos running on

expensive SGl systems the real ultra 64

console would run a CPU based on the

mips r4000 family of high-end

workstation CPUs only needing much

less

resources just 0.5 watts of power andcosting only 40 dollars to make the

original plan was to have an arcade

system based on the technology ready

for

1994 with the home console following a

year later one of the first companies

who were developing for the ultra 64 was

British game studio rare now of course

rare were already familiar with silicon

graphics hardware having used them for

the stunning pre-rendered graphics in

Donkey Kong Country on the Super

Nintendo in fact are one of our recent

panels for our podcast the retro hour we

heard some amusing stories of race time

running SGI hardware I mean this was

one

of the incredible things that Chris and

Tim they made a real leap of faith and

they invested heavily not only in thenew the latest software also the latest

Hardware all the Indies and things that

the the SGI machines silico graphics

that these machines were hugely

expensive and they were quite rare and

literally the only

a place that had more of these machines

was Pixar which were doinga little

thing called Toy Story at the time so

whilst they were developing Toy Story

we're doing the this the same rendering

technique and turning into video games

and one quite funny story is that at one

point the Ministry of Defense had to

contact rare to say why do you have all

these beasts basically supercomputers

seal building and you know basically

like a a bunker a secret lair in themiddle of the countryside are you

playing to try and take over a third

world country right making video games

reproduced the 1994 arcade classic