The company Trogg Tech has just launched a new kickstarter campaign for injection molded Nintendo 64 replacement shells. While they’re trying to get the quality to match 100% to the original, there will be slight changes like allowing for a region free cartridge slot. Prices are $70 for a single colored shell, $95 for two-tone and there’s some “special editions” for about double the price. The goal is to ship in March of 2023, which seems reasonable. More info below the link.
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/trogg-tech/n64-the-new-funtastic-series
Details on each of the colors they’re offering are in the kickstarter page, but I wanted to highlight the changes here:
- No top logo will be present.
- Internal Cartridge Support will be region free and will match external shell color in most cases.
- Rear Digital Output Shroud and Main Lower Shell are slightly modified to allow easy-to-cut HD mod support (see Fig. 1 below).
The first point should be obvious to everyone and the second makes sense: The cartridge slot can be easily made to support both Japanese and North American cartridges with zero change to the outer shell. I’m really happy to see support for HDMI mods included too! It’s really hard to cut those holes to look factory, but if the plastic is made in a way that provides an easy to cut hole, anyone should be able to have an HDMI-modded N64 with a “factory” look!
Plus, now we can stop hacking the plastic of our N64’s…
