Buying an N64 for the first time

Cheeky Devlin wrote:Unfortunately older systems are losing their plug and play aspect. It's rare I find cartridge games (Especially on older systems) work first time now.

If anyone has older carts or systems I would very much recommend giving the contacts on them a good clean. Don't rely on the old "blow in it" as it just shortens the life span in the long run.

Sure, they sometimes need a bit of work, but it's a fairly simple recipe provided the board itself hasn't corroded significantly.

Once you've done that, they're pretty much as good as new.

I suppose an argument could be made, that technically, optical disks have a longer lifespan (about 70 years I think) but good luck finding a working laser etc in a console by that point. All the parts in a solid state console can be diagnosed and repaired one way or another, even if parts need to be swapped.

I have a Yoshi's island cart that freezes on the 2nd world and Mickey's Castel of Illusion that doesn't boot past the developer logo. These are usually corroded traces that need to be diverted or just points reheated.

Thanks for all the responses guys.

I’m going to read up a bit more first I think. I’m not fussed about playing other N64 games and it’s an extravagance for just one game, certainly without understanding the limitations that come with 25 yr old tech. I’ve never emulated (no idea how or what I’d need) but do own a Switch. Not sure if I can get Goldeneye through that at all?

For some bizarre reason, no, you can't.

Even though they've already built an emulator for N64. Which is based on an emulator they built for the NVidia Shield. In China.

Nintendo gonna nintendo.

The licensing for goldeneye in particular is FUBAR. Nintendo paid for the License, Rare developed it, Nintendo still own the sourcecode but can't use it, Rare are owned by Microsoft, etc.

A fully functioning version for Xbox 360 was developed and finished, but never released.

GoldenEye Source might be your best bet, it'll run on anything these days, but it's not really the same game... https://www.moddb.com/mods/goldeneye-source

A raspberry Pi 3 or 4 can kinda emulate N64 reasonably but it's not perfect by any means. You can probably play the games long enough until you get bored of it.

That would cost about £40 and probably work with what controllers you have attached by USB (for example DualShock 3 or Xbox One). https://retropie.org.uk/

Green Gecko wrote:...The licensing for goldeneye in particular is FUBAR. Nintendo paid for the License, Rare developed it, Nintendo still own the sourcecode but can't use it, Rare are owned by Microsoft, etc...

This is the real reason for GoldenEye not appearing as an official re-release! License issues are notoriously complex and more so in the case of this game. Of course, GoldenEye 007 Reloaded - a new take on the film that was pretty decent - was released on Wii and, later, PS3 and 360; but this was a whole new license.