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After the NES and the SNES, Nintendo had to logically launch the Nintendo N64 Mini. That nay: the madness of retro consoles could stop there for Nintendo, even if the Neo Geo Mini and the PlayStation Clbadic arrive in store. Interviewed by Kotaku, the very charismatic president of the Nintendo of America, Régis Fils-Aimé, told our colleagues that if " consumers had anticipated (His arrival), we see (retro consoles) as limited opportunities in time. Before adding: " We were also very clear […] about the '' clbadic '' content, that a lot of things were going to happen on our online subscription service ". In short: the retro gaming at Nintendo, it will be on the Switch Online. The N64 will never be a reality? To this question, Régis Fils-Aimé explains that he never discard anything. But what I can say is that it's definitely on our schedule ".
Limitations of N64 emulation on ARM
According to Kotaku's article, the main reason for the Mini consoles was to bridge the gap between the Wii U and the Switch. But two other factors could have influenced Nintendo in its decision not to leave the N64 Mini.
The first concerns ARM processor emulation performance issues. As explained by this developer who participates in mupen64plus and GLideN64 projects, the performance of N64 emulation on a Raspberry Pi, yet powerful enough to emulate the Playstation, are bad because of incomplete support of the Open GL. A limitation that causes graphics problems … not to mention the lack of maturity of the dynamic compiler that emulates the N64 MIPS code in ARM badembly language. If, for its NES and SNES Clbadic Mini, Nintendo has been able to rely on a well-controlled Soc and mature technologies – the NES and SNES emulation has been mastered for a long time and well documented through many amateur projects like Zsnes, Snes9X, etc. – it is different for the N64, which would require a lot of work and, a priori, a more powerful processor (and therefore more expensive) to provide a perfect result.
Amputated Catalog of Rare
Then comes the catalog problem. On NES and SNES, many titles belonged to Nintendo … and others to game publishers such as Square Enix (Final Fantasy VI, Secret of Mana) with which Nintendo has been working for a long time. But on N64, most of the best sellers of the console have been developed by Rare Software. Judge for yourself: Golden Eye 007, Killer Instinct (and the Gold version), Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Donkey Kong 64, Diddy Kong Racing, etc. are all the result of the work of the English company, in which Nintendo had invested a lot at the time … before Microsoft bought the studio in 2002. Microsoft is, like Nintendo, both a consoles producer and software publisher. What complicate the negotiations on the use of games severely, even though the intellectual property of many characters belongs to Nintendo.
You'll understand, to be able to enjoy N64 titles in a miniature console you will heat the extractors of roms of your cartridges, your 3D printer … and the Raspberry Pi!
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