Ballot: Which Is Your Favorite Nintendo 64 Console Variant?

© Nintendo Life

Lately, we took a take a look at what we take into account to be the sexiest consoles Nintendo has ever created. Workforce NL convened in our on-line workplace area to assemble a fine-looking shortlist which you beautiful individuals have been voting on. We have been very proud of that line up, though eagle-eyed readers might have famous one notably curvy console lacking from our shortlist: the Nintendo 64.

Be assured, expensive reader, that its exclusion did not come with out heated dialogue. Whereas we’re all in settlement that the console has some stellar software program to its title, Workforce NL is split as to the 64-bit machine’s aesthetic worth. A few of us consider it is up there with the loveliest {hardware} ever made, a sentiment solely enhanced by the satisfying “KER-CHUNK” emitted once you place a cartridge in its slot or slam one in all its many ‘Pak’ perihperals into the again of the controller. Different group members, nonetheless, cannot see it was something however an enormous bland ‘toy’, with major colored Fisher-Worth pads and chunky, unsophisticated stylings. Completely different strokes.

No matter our personal squabbling, we wished to present the 64-bit machine its likelihood to shine, and provides you the possibility to vote in your favorite variant. In any case, 2021 is the console’s 25th anniversary and we’re hoping Nintendo has a shock or two in retailer to have a good time the system that took the console gaming world into the polygonal third dimension. Fingers crossed.

Earlier than we get to the ballot, although, let’s remind ourselves of the principle variants of the console that have been obtainable…

The Nintendo 64 console variants

On this transient spherical up we have excluded a few obscure editions that solely launched in Japan. The web site Console Variations has a helpful and complete record of every N64 ever made, so test that out in the event you’re within the All Nippon Airways model (basically a bog-standard charcoal console with a sticker), the South Korean Hyundai Comboy variant (one other common model with a rebrand to get round an import ban on the time), or the notorious plug-and-play IQue from China.

The usual ‘Charcoal’ Nintendo 64

© Nintendo Life

The unique and the very best? The usual console mixes straight traces with curved edges, a mild hump alongside the entrance edge concealing the RAM growth port, and delicate vents main backwards to a recessed cartridge slot highlighted with gentle gray ‘bay doorways’. The controller ports carry the identical color with two sturdy pillar-feet framing the entrance finish and maintaining every part rock stable and symmetrical.

Its fashionable and stylish — maybe somewhat straight-laced, nevertheless it’s bought character, too. The management pad is likely to be divisive, however the console itself is a stable, beautiful lump of plastic and metallic.

The ‘Funtastic’ Sequence

The rainbow spectrum of clear fashions that Nintendo produced a number of years after the console’s debut carried the ‘Funtastic’ label. Arguably, all people that wished an N64 had already purchased one by the point they arrived, and this was a very long time earlier than incremental updates have been a factor within the house console market.

Nonetheless, Nintendo was used to promoting color variants for its Sport Boy traces, and it was refreshing to see its flagship house console observe Apple’s lead (these color choices regarded suspiciously much like the fashionable iMacs color choices of the period) and provide a variety of colors for the console itself, not simply the management pads.

Again within the day we we discovered it very robust to justify shopping for a second console simply to have a unique hue, though a number of of Workforce NL depend one or two of those ‘Funtastic’ N64s in our collections these days.

Nintendo initially produced the next six colors within the sequence:

• Fireplace Orange / Solar Orange
• Grape Purple / Midnight Blue
• Ice Blue
• Jungle Inexperienced
• Smoke Black / Clear Black
• Watermelon Pink / Fireplace Pink

Two different two-tone variants have been additionally obtainable relying in your area, every with a transparent white backside and the highest half taken from the Ice Blue or Watermelon Pink traces respectively. The latter is especially good-looking if you could find an instance the place the white half hasn’t began yellowing:

There are a pair extra vibrant variants which we cannot embrace right here — once more, see Console Variations for extra particulars on the Japan-exclusive Daiei Hawks and JUSCO 30th Anniversary Version two-tone consoles.

The Pikachu Nintendo 64s

A handful of Pikachu N64 consoles launched when Pokémania was in full swing. Each featured a Pikachu embedded in the correct facet on the highest, with the form of the usual N64 seemingly stretched on the correct facet to accommodate the little yellow man. His proper foot was the reset button and his cheeks lit up pink once you pushed the Poké Ball-shaped energy button on the left.