Nintendo 64
fifth-generation home video game console by Nintendo
The Nintendo 64 (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. It was Nintendo's third major home console, following the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and competed with Sony's PlayStation and the Sega Saturn in the fifth generation of consoles.
Nintendo began developing the N64 in 1993 in collaboration with Silicon Graphics. Named for its 64-bit CPU, the N64 features a coprocessor that processes graphics and sound separately, allowing for 3D graphics. The N64 controller was the first to include a thumbstick as a standard feature, and the console includes four controller ports for multiplayer games. Accessories include the Expansion Pak to boost system RAM from 4 to 8 MB, the Rumble Pak for force feedback, and the Controller Pak, a memory card. In Japan, Nintendo released the 64DD, a peripheral that adds internet connectivity and enables expanded, rewritable data storage via proprietary magnetic disks. It was a commercial failure and was never released internationally.
The N64 received acclaim for its hardware and technical innovations.
“Nintendo 64” enters the record as fifth-generation home video game console by Nintendo. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Nintendo, fifth-generation and home can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q184839. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996, 1997 and 1993.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nintendo 64” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.