The Nintendo 64 Turns 21 Today

Did you feel it when you woke up? Could you sense it? Didn't everything look just a little more [...]

n64

Did you feel it when you woke up? Could you sense it? Didn't everything look just a little more polygonal when you got out of bed and started your day? Your intuition was trying to tell you something. Today is a very special day, because today, the Nintendo 64 officially turns 21!

That's right. On June 23, 1996, the Nintendo 64 made its historic debut in Japan. North America wouldn't get Nintendo's innovative new console until a few months later, but we already knew that it was going to be revolutionary. Who can forget their first time seeing Super Mario 64 running in person?! That game blew us all away, and in 1996 an entire generation of imaginations caught fire with possibilities that 64-bit gaming and those sweet, sweet graphics would hold for our futures. This is the system that gave us Super Smash Bros. This is the system that proved that cartridges are still viable (something Nintendo is still proving today).

Does this make you feel old? Doesn't it seem like a couple of console generations ago that we were booting up our 64s and diving in to dick around the training mode in Star Fox 64 for a while? And now the N64 is old enough to drink booze.

Do you guys remember the first time you saw the water in Wave Race 64 and how it convinced you that we were approaching an apex of technology that absolutely could not be surpassed? Do you remember the first time you ran around the yard in front of Peach's castle in Super Mario 64 and felt like you had experienced true freedom in a video game for the first time? Do you remember going through packs and packs of batteries to revive your rumble pack because, once you experienced that subtle thump in the controller when shooting a silenced pistol in Goldeneye 007, you just couldn't go back?

I remember.

Happy Birthday, Nintendo 64. Thanks for all of the memories.

0comments