Nintendo 64DD
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The Nintendo 64DD is an expansion system for the Nintendo 64 that was announced at 1995's Nintendo Shoshinkai game show event (now called Spaceworld). The N64DD (Nintendo 64 Disk Drive), however, was only released in Japan on December 1, 1999. Nintendo, anticipating that their long planned out disc drive peripheral would become a commercial failure, sold the systems through a subscription service called RANDnet rather than selling the system directly to consumers or to retail outlets. As a result the 64DD was only supported by Nintendo for a short period of time. Named the "Dynamic Drive" at the start of its development. It is an external device that plugs into the EXTension Port of the Nintendo 64's bottom side. It is the Nintendo 64 equivalent of the Famicom Disk System, the aborted PlayStation CD-ROM add-on and the Satellaview, both for the Super Famicom.
With the release of the GameCube console, most games that had been released or were still in development for the 64DD were released instead on the GameCube.
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Hardware
The N64DD has a 32-bit co-processor to help it read magnetic disks and transfer the data to the main console. It was supposed to be Nintendo's answer to the Compact Disc that was used for Sony's PlayStation, which was cheaper to produce. The CD could also hold approximately 650 megabytes of information compared to Nintendo 64's 32 to 512 megabit cartridge.
The new media for the N64DD was rewriteable and allowed for a storage capacity of 64MB (megabytes). The games on normal N64 cartridges could also hook up with DD expansions, for extra levels, minigames, even saving personal data.
The drive works almost like a Zip drive, and has an enhanced audio library for the games to use. The main N64 deck uses its RCP and MIPS4300i to process data from the top cartridge slot and the I/O devices. To hook up with the 64DD it needed an extra 4 Mb of RAM for a total of 8 Mb. The 64DD can boot up on its own, without the need of a cartridge on the top deck because it has a standard OS, unlike the N64. This would later be carried over to the Nintendo 64 successor the Nintendo GameCube.
The 64DD had its own development kit that worked in conjunction with the N64 development kit.
Accessories
The released version of 64DD included a modem for connecting to the network RANDnet, an audio-video (female RCA jack, and line in) adaptor to plug into the main cartridge slot, and a mouse that plugged into the controller inputs.
RANDnetDD
RandnetDD, similar to the Super Famicom's Satellaview is a online subscription based service for the Nintendo 64DD. It allowed players to chat, read and write email, and was a gateway to play multiplayer games for the N64DD over the Internet. Customers who bought the unit through the Internet got a subscription with RANDnet and one game per month shipped to their postal address, with some extra magazines and newsletters related to the 64DD, its games, and accessories.
Games
- Ura Zelda (Master Quest), the expansion disk to Ocarina of Time (released on GameCube in 2003)
- Pokémon Stadium 2 (released in North America and Europe as Pokémon Stadium)
- Cabbage
- Sim City 64
- F-Zero X Expansion Kit
- Doshin the Giant
- Maker Trilogy