2024-10-02 09:33:43
A woman stands at the entrance of the Nintendo Museum in Kyoto, Japan, September 24, 2024 (Richard Brooks/AFP)
Nintendo will open its dedicated museum on Wednesday in Japan, allowing visitors to explore the history of the Japanese video game giant, which has surpassed 130 years since its inception in the playing card industry.
This museum is located just a few kilometers from downtown Kyoto, western Japan, where Nintendo’s headquarters stand on the site of a former factory where the company produced traditional Japanese playing cards, known as “Hanafuda.”
The site features many products from the company, which was founded in 1889 and has worked in various fields since then, starting from producing unusual cards to games and board games, before achieving global success with its video games.
Famous content creator Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the character “Mario,” explained in a video published online in late August, “We wanted to show the evolution of entertainment while highlighting the elements that have been shared and built over the years” by Nintendo.
The museum also includes more unexpected items made by Nintendo, such as a camera or a stroller. Additionally, an interactive section allows visitors to play via their smartphones using giant cards displayed on the ground, or hitting balls thrown by a machine with a paddle in an interior design reminiscent of the 1960s and 1970s, or controlling video games via a giant controller that forces two people to coordinate their movements.
Entrance tickets are sold through a lottery system, costing 3,300 yen (22 dollars) for an adult. All tickets for the months of October and November have been sold out.
This museum falls under Nintendo’s strategic transformation plan launched nearly ten years ago, aimed at increasing the number of people interacting with its characters through derivative products and opening shops or amusement parks, such as the “Super Nintendo World” areas in Universal Studios parks in Japan or the United States.
Nintendo entered the video game industry in 1977 with the launch of home consoles “TV Game 15” and “TV Game 16,” while simultaneously creating games for arcade centers, such as “Donkey Kong,” released in 1981. It then achieved global success with the Famicom, launched in Japan in 1983, known overseas as the “NES.”
In addition to its museum, the company is set to open by the end of the year a new space dedicated to its character “Donkey Kong” at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, western Japan.
(AFP)