This is the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive, and it’s one of the odder items in my collection. Released exclusively in Japan late into the N64’s lifecycle, only 15 thousand of these units were produced. Most were made available through a weird mail-order rental/subscription service.

N64 cartridges were far too expensive and drove off developers in droves, losing Nintendo valuable market share to Sony. The original plan for the 64DD was to combat the cost-effectiveness of the PlayStation’s CD medium. In addition, the system added an additional 4MB of memory (wow!), a coprocessor, and a better audio backend.

The disk drive unit itself is larger than the N64:

The 64DD disks? They have a 64MB capacity and can be used “in conjunction” with N64 cartridges or other 64DD disks–more or less functioning as game expansions. They are essentially giant, kid-proof floppy disks:

How can you go wrong with floppy disks?

The best part about this system is the sound of it. Every time the disk is accessed, you’ll get that adorable floppy drive access sound–it’s amusing beyond words.

Only a handful of games saw release:

Mario Artist Suite (4 disks)

F-Zero X Expansion Pack (a vehicle and level editor for F-Zero X)

SimCity 64

Some golfing game

Doshin the Giant (I can’t find my copy of Doshin! It’s the weirdest game ever…)

The bottom line is that Nintendo was fatally late to market with the 64DD. It took over four years to develop, and by that time all resources were devoted to the GameCube launch.

At the end of the day, it’s an interesting little curiosity and conversation piece. Everyone always asks what it is.