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|2-Ultra 64






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|1-Balls-up or what?


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                            written by D!ck
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Everyone has heard of the Nintento 64, it is promised to be the ultimate
in  videogaming  experiences,  the most powerful home console available,
and  backed  by the world's greatest video-games company.  Unfortunately
for  Nintento,  there  has  been  a  whole series of problems and gaffes
regarding the machine, it's launches, the games and the hardware...

|1-Launch Date???



Many  people have simply got fed up of waiting for the N64 and have gone
on  to  the  system's main rivals, the Saturn and the Playstation, which
have  a  well-established  user-base  in  this  country already.  At the
moment  only  a few impatient types have got their mits on N64's, either
direct from Japen or via the USA, either way they are resigned to a life
of  imports and adjustments.  At the time of typing the N64 STILL is not
here in Britain, over a year after the original Japanese launch.

|1-Pirate Attack!



Yes,  those lovable rogues the software pirates with attitude (and a bit
of  technical  know-how)  have done it again.  N64 carts can be read and
dumped onto a PC harddisk, and several of them can be written out to one
gold  CD  and flogged dirt cheap to millions!  As usual there is NOTHING
that  Nintendo  can  do  about  these  copying devices, but to have them
available at such an early stage surely spells disaster!

I  was  talking  to  a  software  programmer who told me than one of the
available  devices  came with a built-in CD-ROM drive, something the N64
should have had from the word go.

|1-Bad by Design...



The  same  guy  told me some interesting stuff about the capacity of the
N64  carts,  before  stuff like the "Bulky Drive" - another nonesensical
move  -  is  taken into account.  He claimed that the amount of RAM in a
N64  cart  was  LESS than the claimed 80Mb, a LOT less, like it is about
32Mbs  altogether, and that 80Mb is the COMPRESSED figure.  Not a lot of
good in the face of 660Mb CD's and imminent DVD drives!

|1-Talking Numbers!



Possibly the worst mistake - after the one about being a year later than
everyone  else - is that only 20,000 N64's will hit the UK shores on the
official  release  date!   20,000?!?!?  Millions have been sold in Japan
and  the  States,  the N64 won't even get a toe-hold, let alone a decent
footing, with those sorts of numbers.

-!-
