Here’s Our First Look At The Nintendo Museum

Instead of game or console announcements, Nintendo’s latest Direct gave fans a look at the brand-new Nintendo Museum, set to open in Kyoto this October. Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto gives a 13-minute tour of the building, located on the site of an old Nintendo factory that was built in 1969 to manufacture playing cards.

From the entrance lobby to the Mario-themed courtyard, the tour continues to the second floor where a massive display hall shows off the history of Nintendo’s products. As Miyamoto explains, this room displays a physical timeline of Nintendo’s various consoles, as well as its prior history as a toy and playing-card manufacturer.

Other exhibits in this area show off the evolution of Nintendo’s approach to design, including a display with some of Nintendo’s unique peripherals, a digital display of the evolution of graphics in Mario games, and a display showing how the iconic Mario question block has changed over the years.

While the second floor offers more of a standard museum experience, the first floor is reserved for interactive experiences, including an upsized, digital version of one of Nintendo’s earliest card games. The museum includes a total of eight interactive experiences, with three of them demoed by Miyamoto in the Direct. Upon entry, each visitor will get a card loaded with digital coins that can be used to experience the first floor’s attractions.

As well as the attractions listed above, the museum also has a workshop where visitors can create their own hanafuda playing cards, as well as a cafe and a retail shop. Like other popular experiences in Japan, entry to the Nintendo Museum will be available on a lottery basis once it opens on October 2 this year. Fans wanting to visit during the very first open period this October and November have until the end of August to enter the draw.