Nintendo 64 accessories
Over time, the Controller Pak lost popularity to the convenience of a battery backed SRAM or EEPROM in some cartridges.
This is most likely due to the increased production and retail costs which would have been caused by including self-contained data on the cartridge.
[7] Quest 64 and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon use the Controller Pak exclusively for saved data.
[8] Following the 1996 Christmas shopping season, Next Generation reported "impressive sales of the memory pack cartridges despite the lack of available games to take advantage of the $19.99 units".
[11] It is installed in a port on top of the console and replaces the pre-installed Jumper Pak, which is simply a Rambus terminator.
[15] Game developers found ways to use the increased memory, including greater visual appeal.
The Expansion Pak is required in order to run both Donkey Kong 64 and Majora's Mask.
In StarCraft 64, it is needed to unlock levels from the Brood War add-on from the PC version.
In the vast majority of games with support, such as Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, the Expansion Pak is merely used as additional frame buffer memory to enable various high-resolution (usually interlaced) mode options at a performance cost, in some cases dramatically so.
[18] IGN celebrated the Nintendo 64 industry's methods in launching and supporting the Expansion Pak for making a high-impact accessory with "immediate and noticeable", though mostly optional, effects.
The device was never sold in retail to general consumers and was only provided to developers and gaming press outlets, who could purchase one directly from Nintendo at a cost of $1,400 (equivalent to about $2,561 in 2023).
[29] The 64DD (NUS-010) is a 64 MB floppy drive with real-time clock, font and audio library in ROM, and a bundle of other accessories and custom games.
The mouse (NUS-017) was developed for the 64DD's GUI-based games and applications, such as the Mario Artist suite, SimCity 64, and the web browser for Nintendo's defunct online service Randnet.
It was manufactured by Mitsumi and was released only as a bundle with the 64DD's launch game, Mario Artist: Paint Studio.
[h] The modem cartridge (NUS-029) connects at up to 28.8 kbit/s, for the defunct Randnet service and compatible 64DD games and web browser.
SmartMedia memory cards for Mario no Photopi[i] contain images, backgrounds, borders, and other media assets for editing the user's photos.
Mario no Photopi was bundled with an empty memory SmartMedia card for storing the user creations.
The ASCIIWHEEL 64 is an alternate controller shaped as a steering wheel for driving games, with an accessory port.
It is compatible only with Tetris 64, which causes simpler or more complex shapes to drop depending on how fast the player's heart is beating.
The Tsuricon 64[37] (ASC-0905) is a fishing controller manufactured by ASCII Corporation and compatible with a few fishing games released in Japan, like Bass Rush - ECOGEAR Power Worm Championship[t], Nushi Tsuri 64: Shiokaze Ninotte[u], or Itoi Shigesato no Bass Tsuri No.1 Definitive Edition!
They also made a standard black backpack with the Nintendo 64 logo on the top and a zippered compartment on the front.
The Monegi Smart Pack is a collection of third-party hardware and software which facilitates real-time development while the game is running on the console.
Through the decades, many unlicensed third-party peripheral devices have provided many consumer-friendly alternative storage mediums for retail Nintendo 64 consoles.
They bypass console security for the purpose of development or for users making backups of game cartridges and save data.
The modern Everdrive 64, ED64 Plus, N64 Neo Myth, and 64Drive use SD cards for mass storage of ROM image files or USB cables to connect to a PC for transfer.
DexDrive is a retail consumer product, an adaptor to connect a Nintendo 64 Controller Pak into a PC serial port, for sharing saved games.
