Capturing the vibe of summer of 1999

Thats very true. Personally I wish Sega Saturn and N64 continued to be the best of the best like it was in the first half of the 1990s.

But I do think Sega Saturn, PC, N64 and Playstation all had something to offer at the same time in  late 1996- early 2000. I see it more like you needed to have at least 2 systems and a handheld to fully experience the era since so many systems had great things to offer at the same time. 

Even if the PS1 had kicked off in late 96, I think N64 had the strongest appeal and wow factor ever in 1996-1997 just because of the hype and 3d graphics and all the buzz, I would say that was probably peak N64, it had this untouchable out of this world factor that slowly expired across late 1997 to mid 1998.

Playstation seemed better in terms having more options of really good games, cost, choice and variety during 1997-1998 but N64 still had some advantages like golden eye, banjo kaazoie and f zero x, you really couldn't get of that quality anywhere else, so I don't really see it as that bad of a system

Late 1998 to Late 2000 was like last period before the N64 hit the dust. We were kind of forced into accepting N64 games even if you knew the weren't the greatest at the time.
Overall It was very short lived era. I remember nes games still coming out in 1993-1994!

I do think N64 gets bashed a lot, a lot of those games hold up. I kind of prefer the cartridge look. 

Summer 1999 was in the midst of having that exciting vibe of big n64 games everyone was talking about, checking out friends or renting at block buster. 

I know but I’ll still take that over that horrible trauma and denial of having an n64 in 2001 and pretending it’s a really good system.

it wont be the same will look like crap because Tech has advanced so much, ps1 and n64 era aged like milk, when the era was happening it looked like how we
see ps5 now,  DONT DO IT , I made the mistake of getting a Playstation Classic  thinking I could remember all the good times.......nope it didn't hold up

I used to collect games myself and I can definitely confirm that. Nintendo 64 especially is crazy expensive to collect for, the prices have gotten so ridiculous. The big reason why I gave up on game collecting is because, I got all the games I really want and the prices have increased so much in the past 8 years. Back in like 1999/2000ish, NES games commonly went for a few dollars (not kidding!).

It's absolutely ridiculous, I've seen Mario Kart 64 go for $80? Luckily, most of my games from the 5th gen onwards was originally mine anyway (I take good care of my stuff). I originally started collecting NES, SNES and Genesis games because, I was (and still am) a huge fan of the AVGN and that sparked my interest in the hobby. I do remember collecting a few games in the early 2000s too but, it wasn't too much of a hobby yet. Overall, those resellers completely ruined the hobby for me. It used to be quite fun collecting retro games until the price started skyrocketing in 2012 (after slowly rising since 2006).

this is why we rented games back then . I remember looking at the like 12 n64 boxes ( the full library lol) you could even rent the system in 1997 at block is reed

I have been saying this for a while. 1999 felt more 90s than people give it credit for especially the early part of the year.