Nintendo Ultra (Of Bits and Bytes)

The Nintendo Ultra is Nintendo's fifth generation home video game console.

Development
Development for the Nintendo Ultra began in 1993, after Nintendo accepted SGI's chipset.

By quarter 2 of 1994, the prototypes, "Ultra 64", were revealed to the public. Appearance wise the earlier system designs were more bulky, and rugged, they also had a cartridge slot on the top instead of a CD drive on the sides.

On July of 1995, after falling out with 3DO, Panasonic offered a deal for Nintendo regarding the console. After Nintendo accepted, Panasonic started working on the console's CD drive. They also invested $97.5 Million into developing the console overall.

Japanese
The Nintendo Ultra was released in Japan on August 15th, 1996, at a price of 37,500 yen. Launch titles include of Ultra Mario World, Pilotwings USA, and Saikyō Habu Shōgi.

American
On November 25th of 1996, the Ultra was released in North America; over three months after its original release, at a price of $300. While critics were concerned for the system, due to its low number of launch titles in Japan, the number of launch titles in America was fairly healthy. Instead of launching with 3, it launched with 7, these being Ultra Mario World, Pilotwings USA, Wave Race Ultra, Killer Instinct Gold, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey, and Tobal No. 1.

Hardware
The Ultra dominated competitors in terms of power. It had the better CPU, using a 64-bit NEC VR4300 running at 93.75 MHz. And better graphics, using SGI's RCP (running at 62.5 MHz).

It also had the better memory, using 8 MB of RAM, and storage, using a 64 MB "Game Pak".

The only area it was lacking in was sound, using no physical sound chip, but a 16 bit 48 kHz stereo.

Software
There were over 875 titles released for the Ultra overall. These include, but are not limited too, multiple titles from Nintendo themselves, Rare, Square, and Capcom.