On September 29, 1996, Nintendo decided that the world (and more specifically, North America) needed to be more three-dimensional. To solve this problem, they dropped the Nintendo 64—and one of the greatest games of all time—creating the blueprint for what modern gaming would become over the next 30 years.

Let’s keep it a buck, the console itself even looked futuristic. That charcoal gray design, with those elegant curves, was something straight out of The Jetsons. And that weird controller? It was literally designed for when humans evolved into having three arms. I think. Maybe.

As if that wasn’t enough, during its lifecycle, Nintendo started releasing colorful, translucent versions of the N64. That’s right, somehow, they managed to make the future of gaming look even more futuristic.

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