The Nintendo 64 (Nintendō Rokujūyon?), also known by the code names Project Reality and Ultra 64 during its development phase, is a home video game console, released in 1996 (1997 in Europe), from the Japanese manufacturer Nintendo in collaboration with Silicon Graphics. It was the last of the fifth generation home consoles to be released.
The Nintendo 64 has several particularities: it is a “64-bit” console unlike its main so-called “32-bit” competitors (apart from the Atari Jaguar released three years earlier); the company preferred cartridge media, which was more profitable for Nintendo but more restrictive for development and more expensive than the CD media offered by its competitors; it innovates by installing an analog stick on its controller which will prove essential for real-time 3D games; it is also the first console to have four controller ports as standard for multiplayer games.
