The Nintendo 64 (N64) was Nintendo's third entry into the home console gaming market. The N64 went on sale in both the United States and Japan in 1996 in competition with Sony's PlayStation console. Like both of Nintendo's consoles before it, the N64 used cartridges as its game storage media. The console's physical design was a step up from the Super Nintendo in that it had four built-in controller ports, eliminating the need for an external controller expansion plug-in. The console itself was also much more advanced than its predecessors, supporting full 3D environments and characters, and advanced particle and transparency effects that first became prevalent in this, the fifth console generation. During the later portion of the console's life, Nintendo released a 4MB RAM expansion, which allowed gamers to enjoy more advanced titles, specifically designed for use with the expansion.

The standard N64 controller was also much more advanced than anything before it. The controller featured a directional pad, two shoulder buttons, six face buttons, a trigger button located underneath the controller, as well as an analog stick that was primarily used for controlling the main character in most games. 

Despite being a more advanced piece of hardware, the Nintendo 64 could not keep up with the Sony PlayStation's exponentially-growing market share, and ended up reaching sales of only 32 million worldwide. This was obviously a disappointment for Nintendo whose Super Nintendo console had managed to sell nearly 50 million units during its life cycle. The Nintendo 64's best selling title was Super Mario 64, selling over 11 million copies, over 1/3 of the entire install base.