Nintendo 64 might not have been Nintendo’s best-selling console, but it’s certainly one of the company’s most iconic and important. Titles such as Super Mario 64 rewrote the script for what a video game can be, while games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Star Fox 64, GoldenEye 007, and many others are still considered to be some of the greatest and most impactful pieces of software ever made. Perhaps more pertinent to this story, however, is the fact that these games are almost impossible to play today on current hardware.
As such, N64 has become a hot commodity among collectors on sites like eBay and other secondary market sellers. eBay is an especially active hotbed for Nintendo 64 sales— the retailer has put out a Most Wanted holiday shopping guide that details the system’s return to prominence. Apparently, during the month of September sales on eBay of Nintendo Switch and N64 were running parallel to one another!
The interest is being accredited to nostalgic Millennials, but there’s also something to be said for advancements in the retro gaming hardware community. EON, for instance, has seen great success with its EON Super 64, an adapter which allows a Nintendo 64 to be connected to a modern TV via HDMI and upscales the graphics to HD. Other companies like Retro-Bit have been producing peripherals like its Trubute64 controller, which is indispensable for those with ailing and/or broken N64 pads.
It’s likely that being able to experience actual N64 gameplay on a modern television is as much the reason for this renewed interest as people wanting to reconnect with their childhoods. What about you? Have you jumped back aboard the Nintendo 64 bandwagon? Share with us in the comments and on social media!
Source: eBay Holiday Shopping Guide