The Super Mario 64 Beta Archive channel will only be active for a limited time, and will become inactive after the end of March 2021.

Why do I feel nostalgia towards a menu that never even existed

God that BIOS is ridiculously well made, this is above Nintendo quality.

This is sick as hell, feels exactly like the dreamcast's internal BIOS.

For some reason, this video makes me uncomfortable but relaxed as well

This BIOS feels like a nice cross between the Dreamcast and Gamecube's BIOSes. It also feels like an appropriate evolutionary step down from Gamecube's BIOS.

"Position your hand on the controller" "Do not turn the console off, or let go of the controller" "a system that automatically applied settings to the user" "the console's shell looked mostly the same, but the interior was much different" ... Well no wonder I felt so uneased...

Oh man, the way the logo turns red after the “Game Sync” is so cool. I love subtle details like that.

this has such a well defined foreboding atmosphere like petscop. especially when there's error screens; they give me such a feeling of existential dread :)

This looks... Pretty modern all things considered. Even used the loading icon from the 3DS I think, the square loading icon.... Also >After the Game Sync is done the logo went from blue to red

This looks WAY WAY too nintendoy, Might as well stop guessing and start believing you're ACTUALLY a nintendo employee. The game sync gives off a lot of personalzation vibes though :o

No one's gonna talk about the cut off explanation about the "incident" on the boot menu?

**coin sound** YEAH!

Holy shit Game Sync is just the personalization part of the iceberg

I was kind of expecting during the game sync part for everything to just stop and have a pop up that just says “you took your hand off the controller” in ominous looking text

“Don’t make a every copy is personalized joke” “Don’t make a every copy is personalized joke” “Don’t make a every copy is personalized jo-“ Galaxy 2 was too personalized to be in the new game

This is real. Too real. Cmon, wheres the "THEN A SKELETON POPPED OUT" formula back when these Mario 64 things started a few months back? Amazing vids, i like the actual realism and time taken into these videos

Lol I love that its Argonaut that’s responsible for the BIOS considering the narrative is how nintendo screwed them over a bit Nice little detail there

I actually thought this was real lol also I like how it freezes during the game sync. It makes it feel more realistic.

So now we have an official term for Personalization: "Game Sync" or "Synched".

this is literally the technology they mention in the original "every copy is personalized" copy pasta. the player places their thumb on the control stick and the system collects data with the "game sync" when mario 64 is booted up again, the opening logo changes from blue to red, to match the players favorite colour. that's just... so cool

This is seriously high-effort stuff. I can't believe how authentically Nintendo it all looks and feels. You guys have real talent.

This looks like it could've been an actual Nintendo 64 menu!

I always dreamed of a start menu like that for the Nintendo 64.

Ever since the influx of "every mario is personalized" videos, it got boring real quick, but I think there's something very special with this channel =)

Argonaut working on this game with us is important ever since that one incident happened with that one **text cuts off** Oh no, they can't be doing it.

Former Nintendo employee hear to elaborate on this a bit, this menu was in the system boot memory until about 4 months before release, Argonaut had a huge fallout with Nintendo behind the scenes, leading to this menu being scrapped. Ironically, Argonaut later sold this menu to Sega for use in the Dreamcast a few years later, all though it had been heavily modified from its original N64 version. Game Sync was some thing where you could kind of personalize your N64, it was based of how you used the joy stick, thus why you had to put your thumb on it for setup. The controller would change stick tightness and stuff like that for the best game experience. Hopefully Nintendo won't take this down.

N64:Uh-oh! I can't read my settings ! Now I'm gonna play the SM64 Game Over Audio.

i love the AU-style story this channel is telling, along with the really well-made visuals please keep this up i love it

I really admire how this channel has strayed from the usual SM64 iceberg cliches like the wario apparition and whatnot and chosen to create its own story out of the personalization and Argonaut sections of it, like they threw darts at a picture of the iceberg and decided to make the plot out of whatever they hit, and they’re doing a damn good job of it. I absolutely adore this, keep up the good work.

One thing that makes this eerie for me is that the screen freezes as the console processes the game sync information

My theory is that the Game Sync was the experimental AI and was what made the game personalized in the first place. Spooky

I love how some of these videos are just genuinely well made videos that seem like they’d be from the beta and others have a creepy twist, like it’s always got you on your feet

I like where you're taking the whole "every copy is personalized" thing, and actually trying to explain how that could work. So far I'm theorizing that the "game sync" is an experimental AI that would somehow customize your experience by scanning your body, but they gave up on the idea because of some unknown, possibly sinister reason. Maybe it was just too ambitious for the time, but maybe there was something more to it...

Man this feels so high quality and authentic, I'm just speechless, I love it!!

Thanks Meg for helping Eric, honestly, I didn’t think you’re relationship in finding these unused items would go that far. But hey, expect the unexpected

Well, now we know that Argonaut was definitely more involved with more than just the games, and they're pretty prideful about it too. The whole Game Synchronization that has been shown is quite the technological feat, especially considering that some of these menu assets seemed to go used on things like the 64DD to a certain extent. The fact that they show the Nintendo logo changing from blue to red shows that this tech, even after many years, is still functional and capable of synchronization with players. This ties back to what we see with Eric and the testing video. The game synchro literally can change things subtly, even text that was written by devs may seem different. By using this particular video, we can at least piece together a lot of the other unnatural content we've seen in some of the others. It's not seemingly malicious, but rather is the work of a prideful company that went way out of control. I can only hope that what we see next from Meg is a more in depth look at this sort of technology EDIT: Also, the cut off text seems to be hiding something pretty important. People are saying it's the Wario Apparition but I actually think it's something else entirely, perhaps the Yoshi Game? Either way, whilst we may have some answers ,more questions are being brought up in their place.

this channel is really neat, 10/10

Wish you luck on more things dude! This is awesome. It’s so realistic. I mean , something someone would see on a BIOS or an really old beta cartridge! Or , maybe even an beta N64 model for testers to use.

LET’S A GOOOOO!!!! This is what I’ve been waiting for! I really can’t express enough how much I needed to see this. I’m personally impressed with how much content we’re getting. Although I am slightly confused. I’ve never seen the BIOS before!

> and a system that automatically applied settings for the user Spooky!

"game sync" ah yes the lowkey unsettling part i was waiting

Even the Japanese is really good. Japanese manuals usually write "Nintendo" in all capitals, and when they refer you to another manual usually write ご覧ください (please take a look at) rather than 確認してください (please check). But either way works. Really fantastic work on this.

I like how cryptic all these models are, and how close they are to something you'd see at Nintendo Very well done, keep up the good work

this reminds me of what they did for the wii... interesting find, meg!

Things to take note (VERY LONG COMMENT): -The Nintendo logo changes blue to red after the game sync. -In the description, Eric mentions that the Ultra64 was exactly the same as the N64 from outside, but really different from inside. -There was an incident associated with an error with the "Save pack", I dont know what that is (I didn't have a N64), that memo was made maybe by Dan. -In the recent instruction video, mentions how not to scrape the exterior plastic, also remove carefully the power button (I don't know why is that "important" for the playtesting) -In that same video, mentions that the playtester need to stop playing if suffers deja vu, sickness or if the game display the tester's name (that's creepy). -In this BIOS has the date 24/10/95 , and the Spaceworld (or the Shoshinkai event) was in 22 to 24 of November of the same year. I think the N64 from this video is one of the few copies of the Ultra 64 from the Spaceworld, but I still don't know if this video was recorded that year, or Eric turn on the console this year. -Lastly, it says this BIOS is made by Argonaut (the creators of the SFX chip used in the first Starfox and Yoshi's Island, both SNES games). There was a rumor where Argonaut were the creators of SM64, but Nintendo stole the concept (or maybe the entire game), and made changes from it. Maybe this channel is based on that idea. I'm not good at english, but I want to support with information too.

This channel is so mysterious and if these are fake there really good at making the slightly uneasy feeling without just making it creepy. Like when the music stops and everything freezes up

Too much effort was put into this, I love it.

1:56 YEH-

Seriously, this could have been a brilliant BIOS menu instead of the usual "going straight to the game" thing that most consoles do.

Man I kinda wish the N64 actually had a proper BIOS like that now. Super cool, and props to you for how well made it is.

So far I like how you being so creative of these

This is really getting interesting

The fact you have to keep your hand on the controller for "Game Sync" and the fact the system freezes up for a second while it's happening for a little bit too long is a nice unnerving touch.

This looks SO WELL DONE OH MY GOSH I LOVE IT

Love this Meg, thanks for sharing! Would have been cool to have this on retail though, kinda reminds me of ps2/gamecube bios

Scary part is that this could potentially be a thing in the future.

damn. looks like a predecessor to the GC UI!

It feels a lot newer than the N64 but is insanely cool! Good job on making it so cool!

Yo, this looks really well done!

this is really, really well done-the only issue i have with this is that game pak storage is referred to as "blocks" instead of "pages"

This is like a cross between the Dreamcast, Gamecube, and Wii menus

I was seriously fooled there for a moment. Incredible work to make it look like it's running on real N64 hardware.

I love your channel so much.

1:26 That loading symbol was used on a lot of systems after the N64 Beta. DS WiFi, 3DS System Updates, WiiU, Wii Internet Settings, 3DS Internet Browser, etc. Crazy how this would have been the first time seeing it had the N64 used this BIOS.

it's a shame that this whole thing is over, i'd have loved to see a video focusing more on the n64 itself

God I haven't slept all night and now I'm watching this. My legs are getting ready to run away any second

all creepiness aside, the loading sound at 1:25 is actually pretty sick :P

It’s not deliberately spooky with jump scares and shit. I feel like it’s creeping up on you, and that can be hard to pull off well. Everything should be fine, but something is a bit.......o f f.

So basically, the N64 would have you hold the controller so it could personalize the games to you? That actually makes sense and I love it.

this is professionally done really well I wish it turns out that all these video are actual unreleased media of Mario64

This is really well made!

...I feel like that first error screen with the sm64 gameover music would've scared the shit out of me as a kid...

dude i would love to love in a world where the n64 had a system bios like this

This really looks official! Really god job dude!

i like that ambience/music for the system menu

This reminds me a lot of the 3DS system menu, Especially with the sounds.

0:15 this definitely would’ve scared me as a child, like the ps2 red screen of death

Very cool and snazzy-looking bios menu

Honestly, Beta Archive, Your lore is fucking amazing. By applying the new fact in the ‘Every Copy is Personalized’ theory that the N64 had a system where the controller is synced to the Player is so great, and gives an explanation by how games can be personalized to people.

よくこんなそれっぽい画質で作れるよね笑

the effort going into this is absolutely spectacular.... consider me Gripped its interesting how the nintendo logo turns red after the game sync. i wonder if thats a relevant detail, but its just a little something-something

you so realistically depict what it feels like to spend all day playing video games as a kid then have weird creepy dreams about them when you sleep

Super cool to see all these hidden secrets that see the light of day decades after the console is released.

This has too much of a "2000s" feel to be for the N64.

How did they make "or let go of the controller" so damn unnerving

These types of videos freak me out at night.

Somehow you made something more nostalgic then the wii menu and I wasn’t even born in the 90’s or seen this vid before.

This actually fits if an N64 had it's own Menu ^^

This made me feel incredibly uneased and I don’t know why.

That looks sick! You don't just have a personalized copy, your whole N64 is personalized!

I love the sound effects and music.

* Ba-ding * "Y E H H !"

This is suspiciously similar to the wii’s menu, with the background music, the pointer thing, the general aesthetic.

NGL that 'BIOS' really gives me Dreamcast BIOS vibes and I love that.

Thats a really well made fanmade bios! I really would wished the n64dd had that!

Missed opportunity to use the N64DD start-up to make this more convincing.

Dear God it's spreading from outside of Ultra 64 Mario Bros and onto the Ultra 64 it's self

now you really make me wish there was a bios like that for the n64

What sucks is this looks really good and real. Then the game sync thing really got me, how I wish for some alternate universe where the 64DD was successful