Nintendo 64 ad: Project Reality promo

This promotional video for the Nintendo 64 really is something else. Technically it isn’t for the N64, but for its code name, making this a Project Reality promo instead.

I’m not exactly sure when this video was made, but since it’s using the code name for the console, it’s safe to assume that it’s before June 1994 which is when it was renamed to Nintendo Ultra 64. Furthermore, it says ” this time next year. And by 1995″ which implies that the video is from 1993. Probably August which is when Project reality was first announced.

Looking through the video, it seems unlikely that any of it had to do with how the N64 ended up. All it did was announce that Nintendo was teaming up with Silicon Graphics to develop their next project. None of the footage looked like it belonged in a Nintendo game.

What this project reality promo was is just a sample of visuals produced by Silicon Graphics hardware, with little care for whether it would be able to run on real video game console hardware. It’s strange that they didn’t even bother to show any renders of Nintendo characters like Mario or Starfox since that would really drive the point home that they were working together.

They do mention that it would make the graphics look like the CG from movies like Jurassic Park or Terminator 2, but that was a bold statement even back then. The graphics for movies will always look better than those in video games because movies have time on their side, they can take as long as they want to render a single frame. A video game on the other hand has to render 30 frames per second at a minimum.

The kids that they interviewed for the video likely were talking about some Silicon Graphics demos they saw rather than any real video game.

Overall, it’s a fun bit of history. The style of the Project Reality promo reeks of the early 90’s, and just for that it’s worth the watch.