The 64DD: Techs and Specs.

The 64 Disk Drive or "Bulky Drive" unit is expected to hit Japan in the summer and later in the U.S. What I plan to explain here is what the 64DD really is.

The 64DD is a disk dirve that uses a 3.5" 64MB high-density disk that will be writable as well as readable. The amount of space that will be writable will be at the descretion of the developers. It will have a seek time of aproximately 790KB/S. The 64DD will possible be packed with Zelda64 and will cost less than the Nintendo 64 unit did. It is estimated that it will cost between $100 and $150 and to be released in November 1997. It will also attach to the bottom of the Nintendo 64 so that a cartridge/disk or just a disk game can be created. It is also possible that it will have a RAM upgrade but the size of that has not been announced. The thing you are probably wondering is, "what does this mean for me, just another periphal like the Sega CD etc.?

The 64DD will not be just another peripheral attachment it will in fact open up many possibilities for game designer and publishers. Cartridge games can be update periodically such as sport games which change each year because of players. Also with the more room on the disk bigger and more complex games cam be created. With the writeable faculty of the system the game could actually change each time you play so the return game play is immense. Not only that it is very likely that games will have modem play and game updates could even be downloaded. Games could also be created with the tools on the cartridge and the game being made on the disk. This will cost far less than the $750 new Playstation that is coming out. Game players as well as designers will be open to more possibility where the player can have a hand in the action that happens.

There was actually one game playing on the 64DD, but it was Mario 64 and not the long awaited Zelda 64(Zelda 64 was shown of video tape). According to reports from Shoshinkai(Nintendo's once a year personal show) there wasn't any noticeable slow down on the game. At Shoshinkai they also took people pictures on a digital camera and put them on the 64DD and rotated and manipulated them to show the 64DD storage capacity. All that was done in real time with no slow down shown.



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