Even the most die-hard Nintendo fanboys could be forgiven for not knowing about the 64DD.
The 64DD was a magnetic drive that snapped onto the bottom of the Nintendo 64, slated to run bigger, rewritable games, and give the massively popular console internet connectivity. After four years of development delays the 64DD finally launched in Japan in 1999. Only 10 games ever came out for it—fewer than the equally embarrassing Virtual Boy—and Nintendo eventually scrapped the US release.
Since flopping on the consumer market the 64DD has become highly valued among collectors, and over the years some rare
developer units and
prototype discs have surfaced. They can sell for thousands of dollars each. YouTuber
MetalJesusRocks thought he had both, but it turned out he had something much more precious.
The working 64DD unit MJR got through Craigslist had one very strange feature: the boot-up screen was in English. Why would such a thing exist if it was never released on American soil? His first theory was that it could have been a developer unit, but Mark DeLoura, a former lead engineer at Nintendo, helped disprove that. This was an honest-to-goodness retail model that had gone through quality assurance (hence the unusual “lot check” sticker on the front).
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