The Nintendo 64 Van

Posted 1 Jun 2016 by Squid, last modified 13 Sep 2016

I’ve seen a few portable N64 mods here and there in the past, but this one is a little bit different. Why not instead modify the portable medium into something that can adopt a Nintendo 64 inside of it? Well here is what you get if you try to do install a Nintendo 64 inside a van.

Transcript

Narrator:

Sometimes in life you encounter things so legendary, they make you question your very existence. And sometimes those things come in the shape of a really creepy van. No, we’re not talking about hordes of free candy, but we’re talking about something that every kid wish they had in the 90’s. Before me stands a great landmark in the history of our beloved planet. I present to you, a tricked out Nintendo 64 van.

Starting off, the display orientation in this van is incredible. We have the larges one in the back and two smaller one up front. So while a group of friends is thrashing about in Mario Kart in the back, someone could be enjoying a movie up front. With customised audio ports throughout the van, tuning into your media choice is super easy.

But that’s only the beginning. What’s really impressive about this van is the Nintendo 64 itself. It is literally a part of the van. It isn’t just adhered to the wall, it is custom-fitted inside the wall. And if that isn’t impressive enough, what really got my nerd heart racing is that each of the controller ports are located next to each of the seats in the back. Controller cord extensions are wired throughout the van and feed directly into the Nintendo 64 so you don’t need to have a large jumble of wires strung about. You just plug your controller into the port nearest to you and you’re ready to crush your does at your earliest convenience.

But of course, there are plenty of other bells and whistles within this beast that are worth highlighting. Besides the insanely comfy seats, there’s a strange black box that is in the back. Within this box is a spare battery for the car, ensuring that even in the most dire of situations you’ll be able to finish that last race in Mario Kart. But it isn’t a car battery that lies within this box. A car battery would be too dangerous because if it failed, it could be very toxic for all the car’s passengers. What lies within this box is actually a cell phone tower battery: one of those huge batteries that keeps cell phone towers active in case of a power outage. It is pretty comparable in size to a PC, actually.

Overall, the setup was very impressive to say the least. Combine these things with a super-handy storage compartment above the seats, a custom-made speaker ensemble which was crafted from fleece dipped in a fiber-glass solution and some pretty slick lights around the upper perimeter of the car and you essentially have the ultimate dream machine when it comes to childhood road trips. And also the best van for kidnapping children. That just got really dark, really fast.

Anyways, thank you for tuning in for our highlight of this Nintendo 64 alien spaceship. I forgot to mention that it is capable of flying, time travel and breaking free of Randy Orton’s deadly grip. If you’re not into kidnapping children and you’d like to nerd out with us even further then the subscribe button is just what you’re looking for. Thanks for watching guys and gals and until our next video, cheers.

Now this is pretty cool, isn’t it? Being able to play N64 on the go. It might seem so and is definitely a feat of DIY engineering. However, it does seem like it is a very situational concept. While driving, it could be dizzying for the player and dangerous for the driver. If you go over to someone’s house, you can just connect an N64 into their TV rather than stay cramped up in a van. It seems as though this would be best used in cases where neither of these cases are possible such as on camping trips, or parked outside a building waiting for something.

Also something that I didn’t understand is why they needed to use a separate battery rather than just use the one in the car. Car batteries output 12V, just like what the N64 uses as an input so I don’t see why they’d want to keep it separate since there is already a toxicity risk from the usual battery used by the van.