Nintendo finally put its next home system on sale in Japan on June 23, 1996. After years of delays and growing anticipation, the company shipped about 300,000 units for the first day. Every one sold. Three games sat on shelves alongside the hardware: Super Mario 64, Pilotwings 64, and a Shogi (Japanese chess) title limited to that market.
Instead of the previously announced rival systems, gamers were pleasantly surprised. A three-pronged controller was common, built around an analog stick that detected the pressure applied. Unlike prior digital pads, which only let you choose from a few predetermined orientations, this device allowed you to move freely in any direction you wanted. Super Mario 64 was the game that really brought everything home. Who would have thought we’d see Mario just walking, running, jumping, and exploring all these amazing three-dimensional areas within Peach’s castle and out in the worlds? With the camera angles altering to match your control, it felt like a game designed to be played in 3D.
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In North America, things didn’t arrive until September 29th, and many expected a higher price, but Nintendo came in at just $199.95 ($425.54 today) instead. This was a good thing because the competition outperformed them. Only two games were produced for the system: Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64. Of course, that didn’t seem to matter, as stores blew through the first shipment almost immediately. To make matters even more intriguing, several stores reported that their pre-orders had sold out before the official debut date. Nintendo of America later stated that more than half of all systems and software were sold during the opening weekend alone.
Games were all saved on cartridges, which was convenient because the data was ready to go, resulting in less annoying loading screens than before. The visuals were clear and substantial, thanks in part to the processor being based on one developed by Silicon Graphics for high-end visual effects work. The anti-aliasing smoothed out the edges slightly, and the textures were nice and crisp. All of this meant that previous titles released for other systems appeared to be quite bad in comparison.
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Pilotwings 64 was another game that demonstrated how much superior the new stick was, since you could fly through the air with hang gliders, rocket packs, and other fancy equipment, performing all sorts of feats and challenges throughout these gorgeously realistic (for the time) landscapes. The analog stick was ideal since it allowed you to control your flight path in real time with extreme precision.
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Demand for the console remained high until the end of the year. Nintendo expected to sell over a million and a half systems in North America by the end of December, and the income was phenomenal, with hardware and software sales averaging hundreds of thousands per day. A few months later, other titles were launched, including Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Killer Instinct Gold, and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, providing new owners even more reasons to return to the stores.
