Concept
Nintendo 64 accessories are first-party Nintendo hardwareand third-party hardware, licensed and unlicensed. Nintendo's first-party accessories are mainly transformative system expansions: the 64DD Internet multimedia platform, with a floppy drive, video capture and editor, game building setup, web browser, and online service; the controller plus its own expansions for storage and rumble feedback; and the RAM-boosting Expansion Pak for big improvements in graphics and gameplay. Third-party accessories include the essential game developer tools built by SGI and SN Systems on Nintendo's behalf, an unlicensed SharkWire online service, and unlicensed cheaper counterparts to first-party items. In the fifth generation of video game consoles, the Nintendo 64 had a market lifespan from 1996 to 2002. First-party Nintendo 64 accessories have a product code prefixed with NUS, short for "Nintendo Ultra Sixty-four". Nintendo 64 controller The Nintendo 64 controller (NUS-005) is an "m"-shaped controller with 10 buttons (A, B, C-Up, C-Down, C-Left, C-Right, L, R, Z, and Start), one analog stick in the center, a digital directional pad on the left side, and an extension port on the back for many of the system's accessories. Initially available in the seven colors of gray, yellow, green, red, blue, purple, and black, and it was later released in translucent versions of those colors except gray. The Controller Pak (NUS-004) is the console's memory card, comparable to those of the PlayStation and GameCube. Compatible games can save player data to the Controller Pak, which plugs into the back of the Nintendo 64 controller (as do the Rumble and Transfer Paks). The Controller Pak was marketed for exchanging data between Nintendo 64 owners, because data on the game cartridge can not be transferred. The original models from Nintendo have 256 kilobit (32KB) of battery backed SRAM, split into 123 pages with a limitation of 16 save files, but third-party models have much more, often in the form of 4 selectable memory banks of 256kbits.