Right, we covered Nintendo’s failed 64DD N64 peripheral a while back (2020). Typically innovative from the company, it was a magnetic floppy disk drive that worked a bit like a PC add on.

Heavily delayed, the 64DD launched only in Japan in 1999 and was done with by 2001. It shifted only around 15,000 units and those lucky few got to play titles like Mario Artist.

This was advancing on from the Super Nintendo’s Mario Paint (1992) suite of PC-like experiences. Now with more power and (for the time) cutting-edge graphics, the title offered creative opportunities and all that jazz. Let’s explore this one!

Explore a World of Creativity on the 64DD’s Mario Artist Thing

Nintendo really did come up with all manner of ideas here. Some of them intriguing, others bizarre, others outright mad. That Japanese surrealism is on show here big time.

There are three games: Paint Studio, Talent Studio, and Polygon Studio. They launched at different times to form a full interoperable suite of titles, with the first arriving in December 1999. Everything else rolled out in the first six months of 2000 (again, in Japan only).

Communication Kit is the fourth element, which is a utility app offering early gaming internet access (it wasn’t much of a thing as it is now).

Well, what are we waiting for!? Let’s explore these madcap things a little closer.

Paint Studio

Nintendo has a long history of encouraging gamers to channel their own creativity. It continues to this day with the company launching the likes of Nintendo Labo, a cardboard-based concept for the Switch.

Back in 1999, Paint Studio was its offering for the 64DD as a launch title. It’s a painting program along the lines of Microsoft Paint, but with Mario themes and all sorts of other tomfoolery.

It’s safe to call it Mario Paint 64, which it was titled during its development, before being re-branded for the 64DD. However, the SNES outing shifted over 2.3 million units. This one was played by mere thousands. Hmmmm.

We actually remember being hyper-excited about this whole thing back in 1999. With the 3D model graphics, you could make animations and we somehow convinced ourselves we’d be able to make an ENTIRE movie! Complete with dinosaurs and everything!!

To be fair, it’s possible to make short movies in the thing. It’s just with the intentionally bizarre assortment of tools provided, you end up with fantastically weird stuff like this (the below clip does work by the way, ignore the grey screen of doom).

It was all cutting-edge for the time and a mouse was bundled with the game to make painting/animating easier. There were some fancy features, too, which arrived once Talent Studio was made available.

Notably, there was the option to import images and movies from an NTSC video source (VHS tapes etc.) with the Transfer Pak. Nintendo also chucked some mini-games into the experience.

Talent Studio

Initially called Talent Maker, the end result is a strange character design concept… thing. Think of it as an animation production studio where you create 3D models of humans (you use Polygon Studio to make them and more on that below be patient, dammit!).

You can dress the models up as you see fit, animate them, add sound effects, and other stuff.

Ultimately, you can then connect a video source to record movies into this, such as capturing a person’s face and adding into onto a 3D model.

Whilst this may all sound baffling and pointless, contemporary reviews from renowned entertainment site IGN really loved this concept. Players can create all manner of scenarios (for example, a fashion show) and insert characters into the experience.

Nintendo eventually adapted the concept into the Mii Channel characters for its enormously popular Wii console. So, the basis of a hit was there in Talent Studio. The problem is it just launched on the 64DD, so probably less than 10,000 people in Japan played the original idea.

Polygon Studio

This one launched in August 2000 as a 3D graphics editor. Players can design and render polygons with an impressive level of detail.

Thus, if you really, really want to design a 2000 era chair on the extremely rare 64DD N64 peripheral, you can go ahead and source all of this on eBay (or elsewhere) to fulfil your lifelong dream.

To add to the experience, a bunch of mini-games were also added in. These are kind of basic things and short filler, but you can tell Nintendo adapted the concept for its later WarioWare games.

Communication Kit

Last but not least, this June 2000 release allowed players to connect to the internet and share their creations from the above three game things.

There were even contests and printing options available, with the option to create 3D papercraft and postcards.

Once again, Nintendo went to a lot of effort with all of this. Only for thousands of people to use any of it, rather than the millions worldwide they may have expected.

Mario Artist: The Critical Reception

Nintendo hasn’t had many commercial failures over the last 40 years, but the 64DD was probably the biggest of the lot (even over the doomed Virtual Boy, which at least shifted around 500,000 units).

Despite the 64DD being met with mediocre feedback from players and the press, Mario Artist and its suite of games was met with solid feedback. IGN really rated it, handing it a 7/10.

Remember, at the time this was all incredibly unique.

A lot of people didn’t have a PC around the 1999 mark. The idea of having a relatively affordable add on for your Nintendo 64 where you do lots of PC stuff was all very novel. That ambitious tone is what the 64DD was aiming for.

The problem is Nintendo made a bit of a mess of it, with the peripheral heavily delayed and a bit weird looking (it tucked under the N64 like cement foundations).

Full marks for trying something new, though, as we’ve seen on YouTube there are people out there enjoying creating stuff on Mario Artist. And isn’t that a good thing, eh? 🎨