Depends how you see the question, n64 hardware could easily be emulated on new 3ds and old 3ds but the old 3ds lacks from buttons so that's a problem, running a n64 emulator is not really even relevant to hardware anymore since the worst piece of hardware right now is like 20x more powerful than a n64, the deal with emulation is who makes it. nintendo has teams of programmers who have a salary and all the tools required for this job like n64 documents and support from the company. while here in the hacking scene we don't even have an idea on how to make it possible on a new 3ds so, is the 3ds able to handheld n64? yes, can we make the 3ds run n64? it will take a lot of time and maybe nobody wants to make one so maybe not, i even bet if nintendo had programmers trying to run some early gamecube game they could even probably do it since especially new 3ds hardware is far more superior than the gamecube because newer and better hardware overall, now the question will nintendo do it? NO. even gameboy advance emulators aren't perfect yet but the one nintendo made is perfect to give an example and you can see how xbox one emulates xbox 360 while xbox 360 emulation is maybe 15 years from perfection on pc. that's my opinion