Your take on the 64 is so spot on bro. Hell, I'd go so far to say that, in my neck of the woods, the n64 was a staple of sleepovers well into the ps2 era. Atleast until around 2003 or so me and the boys would throw down on smash, 007, mariokart, conker, mario tennis and whatever else anyone brought over. And if a neighborhood kid dropped by on Saturday morning? You'd better believe he'd say "I'll be right back," before rushing home to grab his controller.
The 64 was definitely a flawed machine, but for any kid with a friend group in the late 90s to early 00s it was most definitely "the fun mutiplayer machine", and no amount of revisionist history from youtuber dorks will ever change that.