Retro gamers are rejoicing all over right now at the sheer possibility of what was recently found by youtuber MetalJesusRocks; he has found a unique N64 Disk Drive. The Nintendo Disk Drive was a planned expansion to the N64, basically pushing the boundaries of what the N64 could do to compete with the power of the Playstation. In the early 2000s, sites reported fervently on the next big thing, even after it released in Japan.
However, not long after its run overseas, it was clear that the add-on had tanked and would not be seeing international release. Collectors have been able to rustle up some of the Disk Drive games over the years such as Doshin The Giant or the F-Zero expansion, but this new find could change everything we know about the 64DD. MetalJesusRocks has found some sort of American retail demo unit of sorts that could lead to a revolution in the retro community. Check out his video below.
What does this mean for the retro community? Tons. There could be some valuable code on the unit itself, let alone what is on the disk itself. As MetalJesus says towards the end, it could be nothing, but it could be a fairly complete version or at least a demo of games like Mother 3 or the DD expansion to Zelda: Ocarina of Time. This could be the greatest retro find in history since the ET cartridges buried in the desert. Not only that, but if the development code breaks loose for this thing a ton of homebrew projects could become available, as well as emulation.
It’s an exciting time to be a fan of classic gaming! Imagine being able to play games that were lost to the archives of history. Lost ideas and designs could bring up lessons for game design of the present and future. Lessons to be learned by the current generation.
Only time will tell what’s on that mysterious disk, but I can imagine that MetalJesus won’t keep us waiting long.
