64DD

The 64DD was a magnetic-disk drive peripheral developed by Nintendo to expand the Nintendo 64 with rewritable storage and online connectivity.⁹¹ Announced in 1996 as a controversial add-on nicknamed the “Bulky Drive,” it was billed as the first writable bulk data storage device for a modern video game console.¹⁹ The unit sat beneath the N64 and connected through the console’s “EXT.” expansion port on the underside of the system.⁹ Its name is variously given as “64 Dynamic Drive,” referencing both the console and the drive’s writable nature.¹

Although its technology — supplied by Alps — was not considered cutting-edge even in 1995, the drive did not ship until December 1999 after repeated delays.¹⁸ By that point PC ZIP drives already offered more space and faster access, and publishers had increasingly turned to CD-based systems.¹⁵ When Square announced that it would bring Final Fantasy VII? to the PlayStation rather than the Nintendo 64, Nintendo continued to extol the virtues of real-time cinemas and the 64DD in the Japanese press, but more publishers flocked to CD-based systems regardless.⁵

Hardware

The drive used high-density, double-sided magnetic disks physically about the size of a 3.5-inch floppy disk but roughly twice as thick, holding a total capacity of 64.45 MB.⁹⁸ A variable portion of each disk could be designated as read-only or writable, with divisions ranging up to 38 MB writable and 26 MB readable, and the entire disk could alternatively be set as read-only.⁹ Data was read at about one megabyte per second, roughly comparable to a 6X PC CD-ROM drive and faster than the 2X CD-ROM drives of the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, which transferred about 300 kB per second.⁹ Data was delivered in high-speed “burst access” rather than a continuous stream, making the device poorly suited to full-motion video or streaming audio.⁹ The unit (model NUS-010) measured 260 by 190 by 78.7 mm and weighed 1.6 kg.⁸

The hardware carried a built-in ROM containing sound and font data, a battery-backed real-time clock, and error-correction support.⁸⁹ Nintendo intended the clock to enable calendar-based events and features that could measure elapsed real time and adjust gameplay accordingly.⁵ Its disk bay was locked by a cover that opened only when a 64DD disk was inserted, one of several “ruggedizing” features intended to keep young children from jamming foreign objects into the drive.¹⁹ Disks were hot-swappable, and the drive was powered entirely by the N64, with a single mechanical gray eject button and no separate power switch.⁸¹ Installation involved removing the console’s Jumper Pak, installing the Expansion Pak, and attaching the drive to the underside of the N64 via two knobs.¹

Critically, the 64DD required a 4 MB RAM expansion — the Expansion Pak — that brought the N64’s total memory to 8 MB, more than any console of its generation.⁹⁵ This expansion was originally designed to enable 64DD functionality but, under pressure from American publishers such as Acclaim and LucasArts, was released separately to allow higher-resolution visuals in cartridge games.⁵ It became the only successful element of the whole 64DD program, later bundled with Perfect Dark? in the United States and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask in Japan.⁵

Concept and origins

Nintendo’s Entertainment Analysis and Development division conceived the drive to push toward more interactive environments and changing quests than the expensive EEPROM and S-RAM chips in N64 cartridges could support.⁵ Shigeru Miyamoto and his fellow designers envisioned persistent game worlds able to change permanently with the player’s actions.⁵ Company president Hiroshi Yamauchi saw the drive as a step toward a longtime ambition of a network connecting Nintendo consoles across Japan.¹

Two years before its release, Miyamoto discussed the 64DD in a December 1997 magazine conversation with Shigesato Itoi?, who had named the Nintendo 64 and overseen the MOTHER series.¹⁰² Early plans positioned the drive as the platform of choice for games including a Zelda title and Earthbound, and Nintendo pitched it to developers as a way to store unprecedented amounts of data — up to 64 MB per disk against the 8–12 MB of contemporary cartridges.¹⁹ At a Seattle developer conference held April 3–4, 1997, at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center, Nintendo previewed the drive to over 180 developers, presenting it as a surprise topic and floating expansion disks for a cartridge-based Zelda 64 as one intended use.⁹ Nintendo outlined three ideal development scenarios: loading tracks or world maps off the disk for racing games and RPGs, streaming level data into RAM for games with varied gameplay, and using the disk to add future expansions to cartridge games.⁹

Games and release

Facing retailer reluctance, Nintendo sold the 64DD in Japan through a mail-order subscription plan rather than at retail: for 2,500 yen per month over twelve months, subscribers received the drive, access to the Randnet online service, a modem cartridge with cable and software, the Expansion Pak, and six titles shipped bi-monthly.¹⁸ Those titles were Doshin the Giant, the F-Zero X Expansion Kit, SimCity 64, Mario Artist: Talent Studio (bundled with a Capture Cartridge), Mario Artist: Paint Studio (bundled with a mouse), and Mario Artist: Polygon Studio.¹⁸ A secondary plan priced at 3,300 yen per month included a special “smoke”-colored N64.¹ A limited number of drives were also released to retail stores in mid-December to clear inventory.¹

The software leaned heavily on the drive’s creative and online possibilities — a “Mario Paint? for the 3D age” that let users capture images from television, paint, build 3D models and animated movies, and design their own F-Zero racetracks to share online.¹⁸ Randnet, the drive’s online component, offered a proprietary provider service, homepage-building tools, member sites, online shopping, a digital magazine with news and weather, and a networked simulation game.⁶ The service connected consoles over a 22.8 kbps modem via an ordinary telephone line.⁶⁸

Failure and legacy

The 64DD is widely regarded as one of Nintendo’s biggest commercial failures.¹ Very few players bought the add-on, and Nintendo dropped support after only a few months.¹⁸ Nintendo of America decided early that the drive would not be released in the United States, a call attributed to executives Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa and to the company’s decision to target the drive squarely at Japanese consumers.⁵¹¹ Contemporaries contrasted it with the Sega CD: rather than a new platform meant to revitalize an existing console, the 64DD was conceived as a creativity package and a limited online experiment.¹

Many of the drive’s promises went unfulfilled. None of its titles used the disks’ larger size to improve on cartridge visuals or audio, and the disk space was instead allocated chiefly as writable storage for pictures and tracks, even as the cartridge-based Resident Evil 2 shipped in high resolution on a 64 MB cartridge.⁵ Only Doshin the Giant — Kyojin no Doshin — made use of the ever-changing environments and the real-time clock that had been central selling points, and its second, add-on disk was harshly criticized.⁵¹¹ Only one add-on disk for an existing cartridge game, the F-Zero X Expansion Kit, was ever released.⁵ Games originally designed for the 64DD, including a Legend of Zelda project and Mother 3, were eventually moved to cartridge.⁵ The Mario Artist creativity titles never left Japan owing to the drive’s commercial failure.¹²