Second-Hand Nintendo 64DD Offers Up Some Welcome Surprises For New Owner

To be fair, this wasn't a hardware flop where nobody wanted one.

I remember several people in the US who wanted one when they were first announced, but they never made in to our shores.

@Kiwi_Unlimited Well it was a hardware flop because even in Japan so few people wanted it and in all honesty I doubt it would have sold too well anywhere else as there is one thing that really confuses the consumers and that is various hardware add-ons for a system that usually only sell a small fraction of what the main system does. Just because you personally knew several people doesn't mean it wouldn't have failed to sell and Nintendo quickly realised that fact.

@Kiwi_Unlimited

i also personally knew people my age that were hotly anticipating the DD. not myself, but i was pretty into PSX at the time (though i had a 64 too.)

side thought, if the DD had been part of the 64 from day one, how INCREDIBLE would that console have been? 🥲

@Zenszulu

i take your point, but what does that have to do with what user @Kiwi_Unlimited actually said?

"To be fair, this wasn't a hardware flop where nobody wanted one." anecdotally absolutely true, from at least two of the perspectives here. 👍

"I remember several people in the US who wanted one when they were first announced, but they never made in to our shores." so do i. 👍

that was the entire comment. 👍

Anyone know how you interface with it? Was someone able to make those using the N64 controller??? That would make it extra impressive!

I always wanted one of these! The N64 is still my second favorite console (next to 3DS).
Top 3 are 3DS, N64, Analogue Pocket.

I remember reading about this peripheral and it never became available for us NA'ers.

@-wc- because simply knowing people who want something doesn't mean it wouldn't have been a flop especially when you only possibly know a small section of people who would potentially be interested in one and not the wider audience. Many people over the years have wanted things that have went on to fail so the same could be applied to every failed game console that some one some where wanted it.

@HoyeBoye there was a mouse released with it and came bundled with it so I can imagine it would be a nightmare with a standard controller.

@Kiwi_Unlimited They had to have had some legal obligation to release the device. No way a product that was in such a doomed market state by the time it was released, would've been voluntarily put out. By its December 1999 launch, Nintendo HAD to have been well into Dolphin/GameCube hardware development to know this had become their own 32X, and then only release it in the console's worst performing territory? (I mean, I read the sales numbers would put the American N64 market as stronger than the rest of the world put together.)

Those are indeed very impressive, I don't recall seeing anyone ever making anythnig actually good with this software before! Then again, almost no-one actually owned the 64DD so thats not surprising.

It was a real shame they didn't release the DD drive sooner, and have more games available for it. There was real potential with the hardware, and I remember as a launch day 64 owner I was really anticipating it... but by the time it came out there was barely any support and even the 64 itself looked to be on the way out.

@Zenszulu

i super dont disagree with you. im pointing out that you are arguing against something that user didnt say. they said they knew people who were interested and you are reading into it that they were arguing that it would therefore have been a success if released. i disagree that that was their point, and i also knew people who were waiting with baited breath.

i also knew people who were hotly anticipating 32X, are you going to argue that i therefore think it was a success? both things can be true: people were interested, and it also failed.

you arent wrong though, the dd wouldnt have made huge waves just because the two of us knew a few people that were interested. 👍 i just dont think that is actually being said, here ✌️

EDIT - of course they could come back and make me look ridiculous by saying "NO! it would have been a success if launched worldwide!" 😂

@-wc- I wasn't arguing with anyone just simply pointing something out that people wanting something doesn't change something being a flop. All I am doing is putting my point across and you have mistaken that as starting an argument. To be fair it stood no hope of succeeding anyway as it released after the Dreamcast did and just months before the PS2. It was smart to cancel the worldwide release at that point.

@Zenszulu

yeah, i get you. sorry for the mixup!

also, to be extra fair, the DD "enthusiasts" that im thinking of were during the first wave of DD hype, 2 or 3 years before its beleaguered eventual "release." 🙄

✌️

@-wc- it's fine I can be pretty blunt at times and to the point at times. I was hyped when it was announced looking back but they did announce it pretty much with the N64 when Zelda was shown off and it's something I think back on as if they had the storage medium all the way back then why not just launch with that over cartridges as they were apparently cheaper to produce too but let's not think too logically about this.

Back in the day I'd read about the 64DD in magazines, and the idea of essentially paying the price of the N64 again just to be able to then buy weird editing software that would be more at home on a computer, or games that surely would run fine on the console itself (as they ended up indeed doing) was grossly unappealing.
Over time the retrospectives and "what ifs" have given it a mysterious air... It sounds like Nintendo had wild ideas in their heads about what they could do with the machine, even if they never ended up actually doing any of the really interesting stuff. But in the end it was surely the right move to kill it when they did.