Nintendo opens its own museum in Kyoto

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02 October 2024 – 10:49

Nintendo will open its own museum in Japan on Wednesday, allowing visitors to learn about more than 130 years of the history of the giant Japanese video game company, which began its activities with playing cards.

This museum is a few kilometers from the center of Kyoto (west), where Nintendo’s headquarters are located, and is located on the grounds of a former factory where the company used to manufacture, especially traditional Japanese playing cards, “Hanafuda.”

The site includes many of the company’s products, which have been around since 1889 and are related to various fields, ranging from manufacturing Western cards to toys and board games, before it achieved global success with its video games.

“We wanted to show the evolution of entertainment while highlighting the elements that have been shared and built over the years” by Nintendo, explained famous content creator Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the “Mario” character, in a video clip posted online at the end of August.

The museum also includes more unexpected items made by Nintendo, such as a camera or a stroller.

An interactive part also allows playing via a smartphone using giant cards displayed on the floor, hitting balls thrown by a machine with a bat in a Japanese interior design from the 1960s and 1970s, or controlling video games via a giant console that forces two people to coordinate their movements.

Entrance tickets are sold through a lottery system, with the cost of entry for an adult being 3,300 yen ($22). All tickets for October and November are sold out.

This museum falls within the framework of the strategic transformation launched by Nintendo about ten years ago with the aim of increasing the number of people who interact with its characters, through derivative products and the opening of stores or theme parks – such as the “Super Nintendo World” areas in Universal Studios parks in Japan or the United States.

Nintendo entered the field of video games in 1977 with the launch of the “TV Game 15” and “TV Game 16” home consoles, and at the same time created games for gaming centers such as “Dankey Kong” released in 1981.

Then it achieved global success with the “Famicom” device, which was launched in Japan in 1983, and known abroad as “NES”.

In addition to its museum, the company is scheduled to open by the end of the year a new space dedicated to its character “Dankey Kong” at the “Universal Studios Japan” amusement park in Osaka, west of the country.

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