Nintendo 64

After its plans for a Super Nintendo CD drive with Philips and Sony fell through, Nintendo needed a new console to face the Saturn and PlayStation. In 1993 it teamed up with Silicon Graphics, which adapted its supercomputer technology, and on August 23 that year the two announced "Project Reality". The core chipset paired a MIPS CPU with the Reality Coprocessor, which handled graphics and sound. In 1994 it was presented as the Ultra 64, and the final name, Nintendo 64, was suggested by Shigesato Itoi.

The console was shown in playable form at Shoshinkai in November 1995 and, after two delays, launched in Japan on June 23, 1996. It reached North America in September at US$199.99, with only Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64, and Europe on March 1, 1997. Critics praised its 3D graphics and controller, the first with a standard analog stick, and Time named it 1996's "Machine of the Year". The most common complaint was the lack of games.

Nintendo chose cartridges over CDs for faster loading and to curb piracy, but their cost and capacity drove away many studios, which put PlayStation first. The library stopped at 388 games and relied on Nintendo and Rare, with titles such as Super Mario 64, GoldenEye 007 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Japan got the 64DD, a magnetic disk drive with internet access that failed and never reached other markets.

It was a hit in North America but underperformed in Japan and Europe; it outsold the Saturn and finished far behind the PlayStation. The GameCube replaced it in September 2001 and Nintendo discontinued it in 2002. In November 2003 China got the iQue Player, a version built into the controller. It was the last major cartridge-based home console until the Switch, and many of its games have returned via Virtual Console and Nintendo Classics.