The Nintendo 64 (officially abbreviated as N64, hardware model number pre-term: NUS, stylized as NINTENDO64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. Named for its 64-bit central processing unit, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, and March 1997 in Europe and Australia. It was the last major home console to use the ROM cartridge as its primary storage format until the Switch in 2017.