N64 mini pix leaked

[paranoid marvin]

Sadly, it won't be complete without Goldeneye & Perfect Dark in my opinion.

Would they even play that well? Goldeneye is pretty rough to play these days, or is that just down to the original hardware?

Perfect Dark got a "HD remaster" on Xbox 360 (also included in Rare Collection for XBO) and it looked and ran significantly better than the N64 original so this would be a "yes" (GoldenEye remaster was also in the works but was scrapped due to licensing issues).

It has to be said that while N64 was technically the strongest 5th gen console, it also had some serious hardware and software design shortcommings which I believe was SGI's decisions to make it cost-effective.

N64's "bigger brother" a.k.a. a SGI workstation didn't have nearly as many limitations but it also costed a fortune.

Nintendo don't need to pay a third party publisher that they have no affiliation with to put any of their games on it. Half a dozen Rare titles (probably Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, Blast Corps, Banjo Kazooie, Jet Force and Donkey Kong) and a dozen or so Nintendo titles (probably Mario 64, Mario Kart, Zelda and Majora, Mario Tennis, Super Smash Brothers, Star Fox, Wave Race, Pilotwings, Yoshis Story, Excitebike, Kirby, 1080 degrees and F Zero) will be more than enough to see it fly off the shelves, probably at a slighty inflated price of maybe £100.

Rare is owned my Microsoft so Rare owned IPs are Microsoft owned IPs, meaning Perfect Dark, Banjo, Jet Force, Killer Instinct and Blast Corps won't make an appearance on it unless Nintendo would make a deal with MS.

The only Rare developed games on the N64 which are owned by Nintendo are Donkey Kong 64 and Diddy Kong Racing since they are using Nintendo's properties.

Ah, I thought that as Rare made games for Nintendo they would be freely available for use by Nintendo. In that case other than Diddy and Donkey Kong, I can't see the others appearing. And thinking about it Goldeneye being a licensed game won't appear at all. Why pay to include games when you can just use your own? Substitute the half dozen Rare games with Pokemon, Mario Party, Paper Mario, Dr Mario and Mario Golf and Mario Tennis and you've still got a pretty decent line up; but nowhere near as good as with Rare games.

[ALK]

Well, Diddy Kong Racing might be tricky as it has Banjo and Conker in the game, both characters removed from the DS version. Not to mention they have a Kart racer contender in Mario Kart 64.

[Matt_B]

Ah, I thought that as Rare made games for Nintendo they would be freely available for use by Nintendo. In that case other than Diddy and Donkey Kong, I can't see the others appearing. And thinking about it Goldeneye being a licensed game won't appear at all. Why pay to include games when you can just use your own? Substitute the half dozen Rare games with Pokemon, Mario Party, Paper Mario, Dr Mario and Mario Golf and Mario Tennis and you've still got a pretty decent line up; but nowhere near as good as with Rare games.

Nintendo paid to include games from the likes of Capcom, Konami, Square, Namco, etc. on the NES and SNES Classics, so I don't see why they can't do the same with Microsoft when it comes to the N64.

It'll obviously cost them, because Microsoft paid big money for Rare and would want an appropriate return when licensing their games back, but I can't see them saying a flat out no. The existence of a version of Minecraft for the Switch ought to be proof enough that they can work together when there's money in it for both companies.

GoldenEye is a more complex proposition, because they'd have to get the film licenced again, but again it'd probably just come down to money. It'd appear that Activision's 007 licence lapsed a few years back too, so that's one less party that they'd have to deal with.

[JamesC]

Could Rare legally re-release GoldenEye without the 007 licence and call it Secret Agent or something?
It'd lose some if its nostalgia factor but better than not having it at all.

[RichL]

Maybe even the licence to use Brosnan has run out too...

[pratty]

Yeah, realistically Goldeneye just isn't going to happen, it's so unlikely it's just not worth wondering about, but you know half the reviews for a N64-Mini will start off criticising it's absence and ignorantly blaming Nintendo for excluding it for no good reason.

It is a shame but the N64 has a lot else to offer, including what many regard the greatest game of all time, so it's hard to see Nintendo bending over backwards as far as they'd need to in order to re-release Goldeneye when there's a lot more to sell the system.

Off the top of my head we could reasonably expect:

Mario 64
Starfox
Mario Kart
Smash Bros.
Ocarina Of Time
Majora's Mask
Kirby
Paper Mario
Mario Tennis
Mario Golf
Mario Party (1-3)
F-Zero
1080 Snowboarding
Wave Race
Pilot Wings
Pokemon Snap
Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2

So it's a pretty decent line up of classics, even without the third parties.

I would think the DK games have a decent chance of appearing too. I wouldn't bank on it but I think the original Animal Crossing could be an outside possibility.

[Antiriad2097]

Maybe even the licence to use Brosnan has run out too...

It was Daniel Craig in the superior remake.

[RetroBob]

Microsoft should do to Nintendo what Nintendo did to them... Talk game about including Perfect Dark and the pull out at the last minute. (I am referring to he HD remake of Goldeneye that was finished).

[Matt_B]

Microsoft should do to Nintendo what Nintendo did to them... Talk game about including Perfect Dark and the pull out at the last minute. (I am referring to he HD remake of Goldeneye that was finished).

I'm not sure where the idea comes from that Nintendo killed it. Quite the contrary, they wanted the game to come out on the Wii (albeit obviously not in HD) and were happy to help facilitate the 2011 re-make that eventually happened, albeit without the involvement of Rare.

The problem is rather that so many different parties own IP in the game, who would have to sign off for a re-release, and it just takes one of them to block it. If you want to make a guess at who it might have been, you could perhaps consider who wasn't involved in the 2011 game; and no, I'm not referring to Rare.

[Matt_B]

Could Rare legally re-release GoldenEye without the 007 licence and call it Secret Agent or something?

Yes, they can. You've basically just described Perfect Dark.

[outdated_gamer]

About Rare's games making an appreance on it - it really comes down to both parties (MS and Nintendo) reaching an agreement. Spencer seems to not be opposed to MS properties appearing outside of MS platforms (i.e. Windows, Xbox) but mutual communication and cooperation would have to occur between both involved parties.

As for GoldenEye, yeah, that seems to be a more delicate case also due to the movie license.

This is a problem with most licensed stuff where the rights extirpated and the reason why we don't, for example, see Sega re-release the OutRun games on modern platforms - they'd have to either acquire the Ferrari license again or change up the namings and appearances of the vehicles in the game itself.

Some companies like Rockstar use made-up brands to avoid this particular issue.

Anyway, in general, I feel that getting 3rd party stuff on the system will be problematic because many of the best 3rd party stuff on this system comes from now defunct companies (e.g. Midway, Factor 5, Acclaim, etc) or involves various licenses.

Then again, games like Rogue Squadron seem to be up for sale on Steam/GOG (Star Wars brand is owned by Disney now) and games like Turok got remasters on modern systems, so you never know.

Maybe things like Ridge Racer 64, Mega Man 64, Rayman 2 and The New Tetris could make an appearance too.

[RichL]

Maybe even the licence to use Brosnan has run out too...

It was Daniel Craig in the superior remake.

Ah yes, well he’s a bit of a tool too lately with his will he won’t he approach.

[RetroBob]

Microsoft should do to Nintendo what Nintendo did to them... Talk game about including Perfect Dark and the pull out at the last minute. (I am referring to he HD remake of Goldeneye that was finished).

I'm not sure where the idea comes from that Nintendo killed it. Quite the contrary, they wanted the game to come out on the Wii (albeit obviously not in HD) and were happy to help facilitate the 2011 re-make that eventually happened, albeit without the involvement of Rare.

The problem is rather that so many different parties own IP in the game, who would have to sign off for a re-release, and it just takes one of them to block it. If you want to make a guess at who it might have been, you could perhaps consider who wasn't involved in the 2011 game; and no, I'm not referring to Rare.

Not the reimagining which did come out, the HD version of the original game... it was ready to go and Nintendo killed it...

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/1749 ... happen.htm
https://www.gamespot.com/forums/system- ... -26622245/
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox- ... 0-6442996/
https://www.gamezone.com/news/goldeneye ... s-3443016/

[Matt_B]

Microsoft should do to Nintendo what Nintendo did to them... Talk game about including Perfect Dark and the pull out at the last minute. (I am referring to he HD remake of Goldeneye that was finished).

I'm not sure where the idea comes from that Nintendo killed it. Quite the contrary, they wanted the game to come out on the Wii (albeit obviously not in HD) and were happy to help facilitate the 2011 re-make that eventually happened, albeit without the involvement of Rare.

The problem is rather that so many different parties own IP in the game, who would have to sign off for a re-release, and it just takes one of them to block it. If you want to make a guess at who it might have been, you could perhaps consider who wasn't involved in the 2011 game; and no, I'm not referring to Rare.

Not the reimagining which did come out, the HD version of the original game... it was ready to go and Nintendo killed it...

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/1749 ... happen.htm
https://www.gamespot.com/forums/system- ... -26622245/
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox- ... 0-6442996/
https://www.gamezone.com/news/goldeneye ... s-3443016/

Ah, come on. There's no authoritative statement that it was Nintendo in any of that. It's just one of those anonymous-sources-on-the-internet-must-be-true things.

All we know definitively, because Nick Burton and Phil Spencer said so, was that the rights couldn't be worked out and Nintendo are but one of many who would have needed to be brought on board.

[outdated_gamer]

Btw, if anyone wonders how N64 was supposed to be experienced, here's how:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAGf-Hcl9pU

High quality CRT screen (Sony PVM), RGB mod, NTSC 60 Hz, CPU overclock to eliminate slowdown in some games.

Our slowed down, 50 Hz PAL machines with composite output were indeed the worst possible way to experience it.

There's also "Ultra HDMI", however, while that will provide the sharpest picture quality and as such is the most suitable for modern LCD screens, it's also not the way the console was supposed to look like and exposes the graphical inconsistencies that were hidden on CRT screens (more so than some older consoles even, since the N64 uses a lot of those filtering effects).