Nintendo 64 Controller Trademark Filed (Seems to Indicate N64 Mini is Coming)

[Zippo]

 

On July 18, 2017, Nintendo Co., Ltd. filed in Europe via the European Union Intellectual Property Office four figurative trademark applications related to various game controllers. The applications are as follows:

No. 016991325 - Nintendo 64 controller
No. 016997637, NES controller
No. 016997652, SNES controller
No. 016997702, Nintendo Switch controller

They are all registered under the same goods and services:
 

9 Telecommunication machines and apparatus; Electronic storage media recorded with programs for computers; Electronic storage media recorded with programs for consumer video game apparatus; Electronic storage media recorded with programs for arcade video game machines; Electronic storage media recorded with programs for handheld electronic game apparatus; Electronic storage media recorded with programs for smartphones; Cases for smartphones; Controllers and joysticks for cell phones; Parts and accessories for cell phones; Controllers and joysticks for computers; Computer peripheral devices; Battery chargers; Rechargeable batteries; Integrated circuit card; Earphones for consumer video game apparatus; Earphones for handheld game apparatus with liquid crystal displays; Microphones for consumer video game apparatus; Microphones for handheld game apparatus with liquid crystal displays.

28 Consumer video game apparatus; Parts and accessories for consumer video game apparatus; Controllers and joysticks for consumer video game apparatus; Cases for controllers for consumer video game apparatus; Protective films for controller of consumer video game apparatus; Arcade video game machines; Parts and accessories for arcade video game machines; Handheld electronic game apparatus; Parts and accessories for handheld electronic game apparatus; Controllers and joysticks for handheld electronic game apparatus; Cases for controllers for handheld electronic game apparatus; Protective films for liquid crystal displays for handheld electronic game apparatus; Card game toys and their accessories; Amusement machines and apparatus for use in amusement parks; Game machines and apparatus; Sports equipment; Toys; Toys with built-in chips.

The same thing was done prior to the SNES mini announcement earlier this year. 

https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/#details/trademarks/016361784

This icon was also featured with the trademark:

It's styled in the exact same way the NES and SNES classic controller icons were. Looks like the N64 Mini is indeed coming, not a surprise, but it's still great to have official documentation now. 

[Tornado]

I look forward to playing the 2 games that were worth a shit when using the N64 controller. Especially if it recreates the actual internals.

[Tara]

The only reason this interests me is because N64 emulation is kind of... well, bad.  So if they manage to pack the games I actually want to be re-released (which admittedly isn't incredibly likely), this could be a good for me.

[Zippo]

So, what games are we expecting? I think these games are all but essential:

Super Mario 64
Mario Kart 64
Paper Mario
Mario Party (2 most likely)
Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
Super Smash Bros. 
Star Fox 64
Yoshi's Story
Kirby 64 
F-Zero X
Wave Race 64
Crusin' USA (Nintendo fully owns that property now, if I'm not crazy)

Third party games will be very tricky with this one. What do they have? What can they choose? Resident Evil 2? Bomberman 64? Mystical Ninja? Mega Man 64? Turok? Shadows of the Empire? Rogue Squadron?

And we can't ignore the elephant in the room. Rare. Think about many of the games that defined this console. Rare is responsible for 95% of them. How could they possibly get around that? The only game they can rerelease is Donkey Kong 64, and DK64 is...ugg.

[Tornado]

I'm not sure we should expect any third party games, really. The N64 took a deserved beating since what few third party games it had were usually crappier versions of whatever was already released on the PSX, so I would be surprised if the games you listed as essential weren't close to the full extent of the ones that made the jump period (I'd guess Donkey Kong 64 is a lock, though). Maybe Nintendo pads the roster with the more irrelevant Cruis'n games, or goes out of left field and includes the side Pokemon games like Snap, Stadium 2 and Puzzle League. Maybe they put all of the N64 Mario sports games on it as well. If we're lucky we'll see Mischief Makers, or maybe Ridge Racer 64 for third party representation; and that would probably it because what else really was there?

 

 

 

And as far as regular old multiplats... well, they weren't really notable at the time, so I'm not sure Nintendo would try to angle on nostalgia for something that people don't recognize as part of the N64's identity. Resident Evil 2's port was impressive and probably the most triumphant example of the exception to the loose rule about N64 multiplatform games, but Resident Evil was never franchise closely linked with Nintendo and Nintendo wouldn't put Resident Evil on one of these collections anyway and limit their market. Mega Man 64 is another one, fondly remembered by many, but as Mega Man Legends, which was a Playstation game.

Or you have games that were somewhat big deals when they were new and Nintendo could probably get because the companies in question love money; but would never include in a compilation just like they wouldn't Resi 2, like Doom 64. Really, the "Mini" concept as it has been performed thus far is already somewhat at odds with the platform in question, since the N64 would be the first of the series that wasn't actually very successful or as fondly remembered even with the nostalgia goggles taking flight for all things Nintendo.. It was the first that Nintendo can't include a bunch of multiplatform games and pretend they Nintendo games first, like they can with Street Fighter II on the SNES mini.

 

 

Also:

59 minutes ago, Zippo said:

And we can't ignore the elephant in the room. Rare. Think about many of the games that defined this console. Rare is responsible for 95% of them. How could they possibly get around that? The only game they can rerelease is Donkey Kong 64, and DK64 is...ugg.

I suspect Diddy Kong Racing could probably be gotten around if Nintendo and Microsoft were willing to play ball with each other; and if not probably with some edits.

[Mick]

Not interested.  I already have a Nintendo 64 and owning a mini-version is pointless.

Pilotwings 64 should be one of the games included.  It was one of the launch titles.

[Mr Loopone]

Hmm.. N64 Mini is a bit interesting to me. If only for the image quality and if there is a way to put games on like with the NES Mini. The downsides being limited availability and the small library with its high price but will still work out cheaper than getting a PAL cart of Paper Mario and one of the Mario Parties. Besides N64 is the only old console that I still get games for due to its naff emulation and cartridges are more safer to get.

55 minutes ago, Zippo said:

Third party games will be very tricky with this one. What do they have? What can they choose? Resident Evil 2? Bomberman 64? Mystical Ninja? Mega Man 64? Turok? Shadows of the Empire? Rogue Squadron?

And we can't ignore the elephant in the room. Rare. Think about many of the games that defined this console. Rare is responsible for 95% of them. How could they possibly get around that? The only game they can rerelease is Donkey Kong 64, and DK64 is...ugg.

It is more trickier than it seems to the point where I wonder if Nintendo will just go for it alone and highly likely that they will. A lot of the 3rd party support for the console are from companies that just aren't around anymore. Acclaim, Midway, GT Interactive/Ocean/Gremlin/Infogrames, THQ, Seta, 3DO, Human, Titus and a couple of small studios. Rare, Activision, Take2 (Silicon Valley, possibly Body Harvest) and EA are out. Turok, Forsaken and Shadow Man are with Night Dive Studios and they have no relationship with Nintendo. Gearbox who owns Duke Nukem, the very same. I don't know if Atlus still has rights to Snowboard Kids. If it wasn't for Rare going to Microsoft at least it would have been easier to extend the library excluding GoldenEye and Mickey's Speedway USA (then again Rare Replay has much of these anyway).

Some are licensed games that the chances of getting re-released are pretty much nowt and some of them are some of the known/lesser known games. Many are also sports games too that even Konami provided. GoldenEye, F1 World Grand Prix 1 + 2, Mission Impossible, Rogue Squadron, Shadows of the Empire, Lamborghini, South Park (mostly rubbish but they were big back then), Beetle Adventure Racing, Top Gear (the Rally games aren't but its the NAME and Overdrive), WWF Wrestlemania 2000/No Mercy, Superman and of course the old FIFA/Madden/Blitz/NBA/NHL/Ken Griffey Jr. games. Then there's the Disney, WB, Tetris, cartoons/TV shows, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and the other wrestling stuff. The Star Wars games is all down to Disney but the others? Nope. The ISS games aren't licensed and are known on the console (plus its Konami) but its an old soccer game. It's what you get for a console that is more Western focus than the previous and next consoles, more like the original Xbox.

If they do get any 3rd party support, then I suppose that Ubisoft re-releases Rayman 2 yet again. They have a partnership with Nintendo, sort of well known and it is considered the 2nd best version of the game (after the Dreamcast version). At best Konami might put Mystical Ninja or the lesser liked Castlevania game (or its update Legacy of Darkness, as much as fans of the console want Hybrid Heaven that itself is a cult game), again both known. Operation Winback might be possible since Koei/Omega Force has partnered with Nintendo before on games. Nothing from Capcom. I don't even see Ridge Racer 64 to be honest. Did a quick count and there is about 20 games max that Nintendo can choose from 3rd parties from companies that still exist and not licensed.

[Blacklightning]

It's hard enough to find an N64 pad without a broken stick as it is - I hope for their sake they use a sturdier one this time, otherwise this will probably age badly too.

11 hours ago, Tornado said:

Stadium 2

I'm really not sure how this could work tbh, considering the game for the most part is overwhelmingly balanced towards importing your own Pokemon directly from Gen 2 - playing the game entirely with rentals is torture, mainly because you can't choose movesets (and worse still, the more evolved Pokemon are deliberately given less useful movesets for some reason). Rebalancing the rentals or reintroducing means to import your own teams again seems like a whole lot of trouble that Nintendo probably wouldn't go to when they could basically just throw in a rom and be done with it.

[Zippo]

As Backlightning said, Stadium 2 would need serious modification to be even remotely fun to play, Puzzle League is closely associated with the anime, and Nintendo doesn't typically promote that, but Pokemon Snap is incredibly likely. Some of the Mario Sports and Crusin' games are very likely, though. 

 

On 7/20/2017 at 9:15 AM, Tornado said:

 If we're lucky we'll see Mischief Makers, or maybe Ridge Racer 64 for third party representation; and that would probably it because what else really was there?

Well, there's three Bomberman games, two Snowboard Kids games, three Turok games, and two Goemon games. They aren't AAA system sellers by any means, but they were well regarded by many owners of the system. Those could all work. The WWE and Blitz games were also great, but that would be a mess to get the licenses for. The 4 Star Wars games were also all well received, as far as i can remember. But Disney could potentially make licensing them a nightmare. 

On 7/20/2017 at 9:15 AM, Tornado said:

And as far as regular old multiplats... well, they weren't really notable at the time, so I'm not sure Nintendo would try to angle on nostalgia for something that people don't recognize as part of the N64's identity. Resident Evil 2's port was impressive and probably the most triumphant example of the exception to the loose rule about N64 multiplatform games, but Resident Evil was never franchise closely linked with Nintendo and Nintendo wouldn't put Resident Evil on one of these collections anyway and limit their market.

I would have said this, but then I remembered that isn't actually true, Resident Evil Remake, Zero and most notably, RE4, were Nintendo exclusives back in the day. Nintendo getting RE4 instead of Sony was a huge deal during E3 2003 and 2004. The Wii version is still considered by many as the best version of the game. I doubt RE2 would happen, but i figured I would put that out there anyway. 

On 7/20/2017 at 9:15 AM, Tornado said:

 

I suspect Diddy Kong Racing could probably be gotten around if Nintendo and Microsoft were willing to play ball with each other; and if not probably with some edits.

Nintendo and Microsoft are publicly on much better terms than they used to be (Nintendo allowing Minecraft cross play on their system is a really big deal) but I just don't see that happening, as great as it would be. They just don't seem to be willing to exchange that type of money in order to use Rare's catalogue. 

On 7/20/2017 at 8:43 PM, Blacklightning said:

It's hard enough to find an N64 pad without a broken stick as it is - I hope for their sake they use a sturdier one this time, otherwise this will probably age badly too.

 

Honestly, I just wish they would use the much better upgraded controller released exclusively in Japan instead. The OG N64 ccontroller is a piece of shit. No ifs, ands or butts. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I'm really hoping that if this is true, Nintendo might be able to make a deal with Microsoft to include Banjo Kazooie, Tooie and Conker onto it, seeing as they're pretty much labelled as some of the selling points of the console for being so good. Goldeneye would be pretty good too, but nearly impossible to implement due to rights issues of James Bond, and would depend on how much they value attaining the rights for the film for a re-release. 

In the more obvious pile, stuff like Kirby 64, Mario 64, Paper Mario, both Zeldas etc would be must haves. Mega Man 64 (The port of Legends) would also be likely seeing as the prior two consoles had Mega Man titles.

[JezMM]

On 20/07/2017 at 1:46 PM, Tornado said:

I look forward to playing the 2 games that were worth a shit when using the N64 controller. Especially if it recreates the actual internals.

Just out of curiosity what games do you percieve these to be?

For me it'd be Treasure's Mischief Makers and Sin & Punishment.  The only two games I can think of that make use of the N64 Controller's odd design perfectly, and are a pain to play with modern controllers (even the Wii Virtual Console S&P using a Gamecube controller was an inferior experience to when I played it emulated with an n64 controller).  Both of these games used the C-Buttons for digital movement controls in a way that just doesn't work as well when substituting a second analogue stick.

Meanwhile every other N64 game I bought on Wii VC was a substantially better experience for using the more comfortable GameCube controller. 

 

Of course, due to it's VC release, Sin & Punishment is a possibility... but Mischief Makers I don't see happening, for absolute shame (to be fair it doesn't emulate perfectly, a lot of the 3D visuals have incorrect textures or are completely invisible on Project 64... but Project 64 also had visual issues in Paper Mario that the official emulation on Wii VC managed to avoid so who knows).

 

Zippo's list seems about right for what I'd personally expect (except Cruisin' USA, simply due to lack of personal familiarity with it).  I'd also throw in Mario Tennis/Golf, Pilotwings 64, Excitebike 64 and 1080 Snowboarding, the latter two kinda compliment Wave Race 64 as the big three straightforward racing titles Nintendo released.  I can't think of anything that would be a big attractive system seller like Star Fox 2 is for the SNES Mini other than them finally sorting the rights out to include Goldeneye.  Though like Star Fox 2, not making it available on Switch VC later on would be grossly unfair.

 

Oh, tell you what I would love as a 3rd party entry - Snowboard Kids.  No idea where the rights sit with that, I assume Atlus held onto it but who knows.  Nintendo also have a good relationship with Ubisoft, so maybe Rayman 2 could be a surprise inclusion.  And as for one I'd personally want but am fully aware would never ever happen: my boy Glover.  Project 64 really hates the end-of-level score screen in that game, making it a pain to play emulated.

[Meta77]

Wait who said emulation on 64 is bad. Besides pilot wings being a like shadowy in some maps every game I run runs perfect. Shadows of empire. Mario. Mario kart. All run smooth

[Remy]

16 hours ago, JezMM said:

 

Of course, due to it's VC release, Sin & Punishment is a possibility... but Mischief Makers I don't see happening, for absolute shame (...)

To be honest, is a 64 Mini without Mischief Makers, the stealth best N64 game and SBK even worth existing? Perfect Dark is probably out too right? because I imagine MS have the rights...

[Tara]

15 hours ago, Meta77 said:

Wait who said emulation on 64 is bad. Besides pilot wings being a like shadowy in some maps every game I run runs perfect. Shadows of empire. Mario. Mario kart. All run smooth

It depends a lot on hardware and the emulator of choice.  Banjo-Kazooie has some wonky texture problems on Ultra64, can't get Jet Force Gemini to play without graphical stuttering, and the problems only get worse when you delve into specialized hardware.  My brother has a modded Xbox with an N64 emulator and the vast majority of the games on there suffer from texture glitches and audio delay that make the whole venture rather pointless actually.

It basically boils down to if you happen to own a computer with hardware specs that WANT to be compatible with the emulator, since even some lower end computers than mine sometimes have no problems running most games.  And the problems that do occur tend to vary from machine to machine.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

11 hours ago, Remy said:

To be honest, is a 64 Mini without Mischief Makers, the stealth best N64 game and SBK even worth existing? Perfect Dark is probably out too right? because I imagine MS have the rights...

It depends. If Nintendo deems it worth it, then I could see a possibility of them and MS attempting to cut a deal for Rare titles. That's a big If, but if I remember correctly, a few years back, there were hopes by certain employees a deal could be cut for a 3DS port of Banjo. Although I'd argue it's unlikely as hell, because of the fact Nintendo tend to have horrible supply and demand, so to me, that indicates they wouldn't go to such lengths for Rare titles.

Unfortunately, without MS and Nintendo cutting a deal, the only feasible Rare title would be Donkey Kong 64.

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

What's the point of an N64 Mini without all those juicy Rare games? I already have like 2 or 3 different version of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, lol. 

[DiamondX]

At this point, I wonder if they will do this for every console.

Like, are we gonna get a Gamecube Mini next year?

[Meta77]

That be ridiculous.  GameCube are cheap already