# Nintendo 64

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/nintendo-64/

14 people recommended Nintendo 64 in Hacker News comments, 3 had mixed feelings and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 12 months, in 13 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for nostalgia, fun games played with friends and family, and its influence on a generation of players. Critics say its graphics looked blurry and foggy and its hardware was hard to program.

Summary written by Claude from 27 comments.

## Why people recommend it

- Nostalgia and fond childhood memories (7 comments in the sample): "I remember pre-ordering an N64 with my brother and getting it on launch day with Mario 64." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47114653)) "I wouldn’t trade the hours I spent with a group of friends in front of a n64" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48407168)) "I was a very happy owner of both consoles back in the day" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46229607))
- Influential platform for a generation (3 comments in the sample): "The N64 really laid down an entire historial footprint for the millennial generation despite its significantly smaller sales." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47110121)) "It felt almost like what going from a NES to a Super Nintendo to a N64 felt like." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47719213)) "The PlayStation 1/2 and Nintendo 64/GameCube were a thing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239277))
- Fun to play with kids (1 comment in the sample): "it's great just being able to play my games with my kids" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49169092))

## What people warn about

- Blurry, foggy, washed-out graphics (4 comments in the sample): "If the N64 had launched with better alpha blending, then "N64 style" would include PS1-esque explosions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48159565)) "The low draw distance and blanketing everything with fog was pretty horrendous in a lot of games" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49842349)) "I always thought the image from it was blurry and washed out." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49945146))
- Odd, hard-to-program hardware design (4 comments in the sample): "The N64 was just really weirdly designed: they went with an overpowered CPU for bragging rights" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46707332)) "the CPU would freeze if the next instruction was also a multiply" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48389356)) "absolutely brutal to program bare metal" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47704954))
- Poor design tradeoffs and bets (2 comments in the sample): "They just got some bets wrong and calculated some tradeoffs poorly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46237545)) "from a purely technological perspective, it is wasteful" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46228349))

## Other game consoles people recommend

- [Valve Steam Machine](https://hackerapproved.com/p/steam-machine/): 221 recommend, 79 mixed, 207 criticize
- [PlayStation 5](https://hackerapproved.com/p/playstation-5/): 73 recommend, 35 mixed, 168 criticize
- [Xbox 360](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xbox-360/): 31 recommend, 7 mixed, 18 criticize
- [PlayStation 2](https://hackerapproved.com/p/playstation-2/): 31 recommend, 9 mixed, 6 criticize

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Nintendo 64", https://hackerapproved.com/p/nintendo-64/ (14 recommend, 3 mixed, 12 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.