Modder Shrinks The N64 Down To The Size Of A Game Boy Advance SP

Seen it
Another reason for why Nintendo has no excuse, to start releasing n64 ports or a n64 mini.

@KitsuneNight
This doesn't really have much to do with game ports or an N64 mini though.

Nintendo could easily place a custom order for an N64-on-a-chip that would shrink this baby down to the size of a wrist watch and STILL play the original games exactly how they were programmed.

BUT, easy doesn't mean cheap. It's expensive to put custom chips in production.
They didn't do custom chips for the NES mini, or the SNES mini, which were both much more successful than the N64. Both of those were off-the-shelf hardware running emulators. :-/

This would have been amazing about 10 years ago.

@Pod

I'm aware but this does show that there is interest in the N64
People want the machine and the games.
And Nintendo for some reason doesn't want to give it to us.
They are content with shilling the Nes and snes to us.

Nice mod, wouldn’t have hurt to make it a bit more colourful though, aha.

This portable would be awesome if it didn't actually sacrifice an actual N64 to make one. Would be nice if these modder actually used FPGA solution for these instead of sacrificing real hardware to make these inferior products.

@retro_player_77

Since there are no, and won't be, any FPGA N64's in the near future (or possibly ever), this is fine.

Okey, it's really cool and I would love to play it. But...

My 3DS allows me to play Super Mario 64, Star Fox 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Diddy Kong Racing. My Switch Lite allows me to play Doom 64, Star Wars Pod Racer, Turok, Turok 2, and Shadow Man. I could make a case for those being the ten best N64 games, and they are all improved versions as well.

@retro_player_77

That's a bit harsh, for something that is a damn fine piece of modding.

@Zuljaras ditto. I’d love one

@KitsuneNight
I'm not sure Nintendo considers modder interest the same as consumer interest. And I feel you're using the term "shilling" in a somewhat unconventional way. ^^

@retro_player_77
The N64 is a cheap consumer electronics product, of which over thirty million units were churned out. That's the same as thirty thousand thousands. And that's a lot.

I mean, it's not that rare, it's not that valuable, and owners can do what they please with the thing.

@Pod

No off course not, but it does show that the N64 is stil popular enough for people to want it.

Probably a bit of slang I picked up along the way.
Eitherway Nintendo is more then happy enough to keep selling 8 and 16 bit games to us.

But shirk away from the N64 for some reason.
Like Sega shirks away from anything that's not the Megadrive.

@Pod

What you did there, I saw it !

That's a lot of cakes and that's terrible.

And the N64 shifted about 32 million units I think
About the same as the VCS.

Impressive as it is, "the size of a Game Boy Advance SP" is a stretch. Put an N64 cartridge next to a GBA SP; the cartridge is approximately twice as wide as an SP.

Wonder how much it was all in it couldn't have been a cheep project

I dreamed of a portable N64 the size of a gamegear when I was a kid. This is next level.

I get what @retro_player_77 is saying, honestly. While it's true the N64 is very common and not hard to find, it always sucks when a console, cartridge, etc has to be cannibalized for parts to make something since we should be looking at ways to preserve these ancient pieces of hardware rather than scrapping them for parts.

That said though this is a really cool mod and I'm just glad it was an N64 and not something more valuable. Of all the systems to cannibalize for a mod, I'd say the N64 is one of the best choices given how common it is. I've been getting into console mods more and more lately so I love seeing these kinds of things.

Also, I definitely agree we need more N64 support from Nintendo.

Cool but any newer android phone is a top notch emulator for n64 and even gamecube psp and 3ds.

@Mfreddy22

Hardly the point though.
This is a cool mod and runs on REAL hardware not emulation.

This looks really cool, but my brain switches off when the video starts getting even mildly technical. But I have 3 questions about compatibility:
1) I assume he just did the NTSC board?
2) Did he build in the Expansion Pak?
3) What about Memory Paks?

I don't have a GBA SP here, but this looks MUCH bigger than one. Also the buttons are wrongly arranged. 😕

The article says the case for this isn't much bigger than a GBA SP... an N64 cartridge alone is about as deep as one and almost twice as wide. To me it looks about three times the size simply because of the space for cartridges alone. The button placement is awful too and I can't understand why it was done as there is plenty of room to put the buttons in the standard configuration.

Looks beautiful. I want two

........but not really the size of a Gameboy SP!!!

I would have loved one of these back in the day. I like that design for the most part.

Very impressive but at the same time I hate these projects. I can never enjoy a project that involves destroying old working hardware. These are a limited quantity that will never be made again. I'd much rather see a FPGA used to create something new rather than destroy something irreplaceable.

@Mfreddy22 Then you are pretty much breaking the law by pirating those games you put on your Android phone. This only uses physical carts. Nothing can beat the original systems in terms of how a game feels.

Everyone asking for N64 Classic and all I want are cheaper prices for used cartridges. My old N64 still works to this day

If only Switch had these N64 games ;-;

@DinnerAndWine Which is why I say I'm not impressed with this as it's been done before. An FPGA N64 clone hasn't been done yet let alone a handheld version of it, had they manage to do it and do it well it would be superbly impressive. In this time and age there's nothing impressive about putting original hardware inside a 3D printed case and call it their own. Ben Heck's been doing that kind of stuff for ages now.

This is why I will patiently wait as long as it takes to purchase a future clamshell Switch Mini

@retro_player_77

Oh, I definitely agree with you there. This looks awful, I'm sure the screen is trash, and it's probably not practical to use with most games.

@TheWingedAvenger If you mean the DS versions of those games. Super Mario 64 DS is, in my eyes a totally different adventure, and Diddy Kong Racing DS is vastly inferior to Diddy Kong Racing N64 on all levels. But the rest are nicely enhanced.

Haha that's a thickboy 64! But it's an awesome piece of work none the less!

@Steven_the_2nd Emulators that can double frame rates and render at 4k beat out original systems, these old games feel much better to play. Try playing Goldeneye on the 1964 emulator with the correct plugins. Locked 60fps and crisp visuals. And yes, I do own the cartridge.

I have no interest in N64 mini unless its like 80 euro. Too little, too late and couldn't even take advantage of pokemania. Nintendo
should honour its deal with Sony and be nicer to 3d party partners like Square. One disaster after another like losing FF7 still haunts big N. (Where is FF7 remake on Switch?).

N64 games were blurry, have many limitations, terrible sound, problem with textures, couldn't properly play FMV, and the machine was a mess for programming. Arrogance and greed from Nintendo gave a 32 bit machine the edge over it.

I wait for Gamecube mini. So many great games and better 3d party support, even if it was commercial failure.