When this thing was new it was certainly all the rage, but its main rival, the Sony Playstation was still a step ahead no matter Nintendo did.  Nintendo releases games like Goldeneye and Starfox, two GREAT games, but then Square and Sony release Final Fantasy VII to america, which certainly changed things.  On specifics, the N64 is 5 times more powerful than the playstation.  But the N64 cartridges hold no where near as much space as the playstations black CDs.  Why Nintendo didn't bother to use CDs as they originally planned confuses many to this date.  CDs last longer, and in truth, are harder to damage.  A bad drop on a tile floor may send fragments of plastic and silicon from your "F-Zero X" could be all over the kitchen floor.  Nintendo did have one thing going for it over Playstation, remakes of classic games.  With the 8bit Nintendo, they started some great games out.  Then with the 16bit Super Nintendo, they made 16bit counterparts to the 8bit games.  Now with this 64bit system, they made counterparts to the 16 bit games.  This was their edge, and it made the system sell very well.  In the long run was this systems downfall.  Games are much harder to produce for N64 than they are playstation.  Even though it it more powerful than the playstation, it is still second to it.  What will happen soon, is anyone guess.  Nintendo next year will release their new Gamecube.  Gamecube doesn't play DVDs like Sony's Playstation 2, and it doesn't appear so far to be anymore powerful.  Playstation 2 will be hard to beat for one, as you can see by it's current demand.  It seems that Nintendo has become the underdog, with giants such as Microsoft entering the race.  Perhaps they'll pull through, its unknown.  Sega's Dreamcast is certainly on it's way down, it will not be possible to compete with the much more powerful Playstation 2 and Microsoft's X-Box, and possibly the morepowerful gamecube.  Word to the wise, if you're planning to buy a top of the line system, I do not currently suggest this system.  Dreamcast is a good bet for the buck, but waiting a while seems to be a wiser choice.