{"id":137703,"date":"2026-06-23T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-202283"},"modified":"2026-06-23T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T15:00:00","slug":"feature-i-lent-out-my-n64-like-a-deku-dealer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2026\/06\/23\/feature-i-lent-out-my-n64-like-a-deku-dealer\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: I Lent Out My N64 Like A (Deku) Dealer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Whaddabuyin'?\"<\/a>
<\/span> Image: Omar Hafeez-Bore \/ Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The N64 is 30 years old! This week, we’re running a series of articles<\/a> celebrating the 64-bit machine, its industry-shaping software, and its effect on a generation of gamers.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Today, Omar remembers the wonders of carting around consoles before Nintendo added a carry handle…
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Do you remember blowing the dust from a cart to try to clear the copper pins? Mistakenly thinking a translucent third-party pad that looked like a shark must<\/em> be better, but then always dodging it for multiplayer GoldenEye<\/a>? Re-reading game manuals in your bedroom as if they were novellas? Sort-of-fancying Linda from Snowboard Kids<\/a>? Feeling betrayed when Andrew\u2019s house got a PlayStation with Spyro<\/a> and said the graphics were “better”? (With their paltry 32 bits, are you actually kidding me?)<\/p>\n

But most of all, do you remember lending your N64 to a friend? Or carting it around to a classmate\u2019s birthday party so everyone could laugh in hysterics at the No Mercy<\/a> dick-hit ding<\/em>?<\/p>\n

This was the sharing economy of the 1990s-2000s, before consoles were as household as fridges (and Fortnite<\/a>) and also because the N64 was almost exactly half as prevalent as PlayStations, at least in the UK.<\/p>\n

Even in my family, there were two PlayStation destinations: at my Uncle Brian\u2019s (not his real name) and my cousin Hashim had one, too (I once used my Older Cousin privilege to somehow blame him<\/em> when I accidentally overwrote his FFVII<\/a> save). But we had the only N64.<\/p>\n

\"N64\"<\/a>
<\/span> Image: Omar Hafeez-Bore \/ Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The N64 felt so robustly plastic, droppable, rucksack-able, portable. There wasn\u2019t the fragility of a disc cover hinge or the worrying Posh Tech weight of a modern console. And without a CD involved, it feels happily upside-down-able, agnostic of polarity. You didn’t mind it tumbling and rotating, and even without trying I’m pretty sure it’d work even upside down. But also needs must, and I was evangelical about people playing Ocarina of Time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019m one of Those Guys? As in, sometimes my excitement for things so overflows that I feel the need to recount, discuss, and share very intensely<\/em>. But also sincerely!<\/p>\n

We had Sky TV (or maybe Telewest), and so I used to tape VHSes of Dragonball Z<\/strong> off Cartoon Network to dish out to my mate Yass periodically, a happy missionary spreading Good News. And it was Yass I also force-lent my N64 to, like a (Deku) dealer, so buoyed on the life-changing possibilities of Ocarina of Time that he just had<\/em> to play it. And, soon after, get stuck on the Deku Tree web break and have to call my other mate Hass to explain it.<\/p>\n

My friend Manish and I had many involved debates about\u2026 well, everything, I suppose. Such is the work of teens making very important and deep<\/em> new intellectual discoveries. But frequently we also discussed the relative merits of bona fide Zelda vs Hype: The Time Quest<\/a>, which he played on his PC.<\/p>\n