Nintendo 64

The Nintendo 64 is a video game console developed by Nintendo, and was released in 1996 in Japan and North America. The Nintendo 64 was the last main home console to use the ROM cartridge as it's format for games and other software released by Nintendo. (excluding Nintendo Switch, as that is occasionally referred to as a portable console) The console, at launch, sold for $199.99 in U.S. stores. The Nintendo 64 (partially under the working title of the Ultra 64) was also the console that Super Mario 64 was first designed and published for before being redesigned and republished for the Nintendo DS.

Pre-Development Period
The concept for the Nintendo 64 first begun during the development of Star Fox for the SNES, along with the Super FX chip that made the 3D graphics of Star Fox possible. Shigeru Miyamoto, while working on this had the idea for a Super Mario game in 3D utilizing the Super FX chip, however this idea never came to fruition, and instead was merged into ideas for the next console, a 64-bit console to be able to compete with SEGA as well as Sony, a newcomer to the console wars. The console began development in 1993 soon after Star Fox was released. Nintendo partnered with Silicon Graphics along with MIPS Technologies to make necessary components for the console, such as graphics cards and processors. The console's development was officially announced during the span of Nintendo's August 1993 Shoshinkai (Space World) event when Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics met with Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi, officially launching "Project Reality", the codename for the Nintendo 64

Development
The working title Ultra 64 was first revealed June 23rd, 1994 along with the reveal of the console's design. Shortly afterwards, in September of the same year, Super Mario 64 began development. A couple months later, in July of 1995, Nintendo partnered with a currently unknown company to create personalization technology to implant in the Nintendo 64 to enhance the game to the player's wishes judging from gameplay style, skill and semi-randomization. This technology was planned to be used in nearly all games developed for the console, although it was only used for Super Mario 64 officially.

Project Daedalus
In March of 1996, Project DAEDALUS begun, which involved a thorough testing of the Personalization AI. Part of this project was the testing on the Focus aspect of the Personalization AI. Due to complications in the AI, the Personalization AI could not work correctly if at least 50% of the participant's attention (conscious or sub-conscious) was focused on other topics. To distract participants to test this, Nintendo played sounds of a man drowning over speakers during the "Let's-a-Go! Play it Early Contest". It is unknown how Nintendo obtained these noises, as the clips were not from any stock-footage library known at that time. Other distractions were also created, ranging from cat-scratching noises, to audio-visual distortion and atrocities shown to participants. During the planning of these tests, Mr. Seiyro passed away due to disagreements with Nintendo over how to obtain distractions and which distractions were to be used. Due to his death, the Personalization AI was completely reworked.

Later in 1996, the console was released to the public.

Personalization Bond
The Personalization Bond is a special bond between Super Mario 64 cartridges and the system. When activated, the system sends commands to Super Mario 64 to inititate Personalization protocol.