Was There ANOTHER N64 Add-On Planned?

The script is posted below the video.

Tarrif Ruling
Multimedia Drive information
Steven Baker’s Firm

LuigiBlood’s Twitter
Hard4Games’ Twitter

Hello YouTube!

This is PushDustIn from Source Gaming, and I have an interesting discovery to share with you today.

There is some evidence that there might have been a third add-on for the N64 that was developed.

Now of course, Nintendo is always testing and trying out new things, but generally we don’t hear a lot about it.

Some of you may be thinking — “wait, a third add-on? The N64 didn’t have any add-ons!”

Well, my friend there was one that was officially released. The N64: Disk Drive. As many of you are probably aware, the Disk Drive was released in Japan in 1999. The Disk Drive, as the name implies allowed gamers to load disk games into their N64. Sometimes this was an expansion pack, other times it would’ve been whole new games. For more information on the Disk Drive, please check out Hard 4 Games YouTube channel, as they have uploaded a lot of amazing content related to the Disk Drive.

The second device was the Multimedia Drive. This is where things get interesting.

So far, the Multimedia Drive has not been found in the wild — only patents exist for it. Therefore, we are unsure if Nintendo actually produced any of these guys.

The patents were discovered by DS2 on Assembler Games last year.

Reading through the patents reveals that Nintendo had BIG ideas for the N64. The multimedia drive would have allowed players to watch TV while playing their games, and connect to the Internet for online play, and to download games!

Can you imagine playing Mario Kart 64 online with friends? Of course this would’ve been over dial up connection for a lot of people, but that would have made my childhood!

I was researching the N64 DD, and talking to LuigiBlood about the disk format. We were discussing if the disks were ZIP-Disks or not. LuigiBlood remembered a tariff classification ruling that he thought had the format listed on it. Upon closer inspection, LuigiBlood realized that it was not talking about the Disk Drive, nor the Multimedia Drive! The tariff ruling classifies it as “N1” so that’s how I will refer to is.

There are several parts where the N1 is different from the Disk Drive and the Multimedia Drive.

The first, is that there is a disc-drive. While the DD was a disc-drive, it didn’t have a modem built into it, nor did have a hard drive as the N1! The Multimedia Drive did not have a disc-drive.

The second, is that N1 would have “The video processing circuitry of the N1 accessory provides enhanced imaging while not burdening the N64 processors”. This is not mentioned in the Multimedia Drive patents, nor is it present in the DD. The DD relies on the expansion pack for upgraded graphics.

Lastly, the N1 has a magnetic storage drive and security software to transfer data from the N1’s hard drive. The patents for the Multimedia Drive does cover some security software, but as far as the patents goes, it would have existed in the same location as the harddrive.

Another interesting tidbit is this device was being imported from South Korea. This means that Nintendo might have partnered with another company to create the N1. If we are thinking of South Korean tech companies that Nintendo might have partnered with, Samsung is probably a good choice. However, we only know the law firm that represented the company, and not the company itself. Steven W. Baker is listed on the tariff ruling, and the law firm specializes in practice of Customs and International Trade law.

Again, big shout out to LuigiBlood for helping me with the research, and answering my questions on the DD, the Multimedia Drive and the N1. I’ll be including a link to his YouTube on the screen, so please check out his channel. His Twitter will be linked in the description below. You can also follow me!

Anyway, what do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

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