When Nintendo announced it was building a museum dedicated to its 135-year history, it was easy to picture a cartoonish facility with lots of bright colors and cheery music that would be a thrill for young children and a nostalgia trip for their parents.
In fact, the Nintendo Museum, which opens to the public Oct. 2 in a sleepy neighborhood of Uji, Kyoto Prefecture (about 30 minutes by train from Kyoto Station and 1 hour from Osaka Station), delivers in spades on the latter but is surprisingly lacking in the former.
The first sign that the Nintendo Museum is not a playground comes just after you pass through the exterior gates. The classic Nintendo symbols are there: A display with warp pipes, blocks and a power-up mushroom, plus an 8-bit depiction of Super Mario sliding down a flag pole provide an initial burst of what will be many hits of nostalgia.
Beyond those modest displays and speakers playing various Mario tunes, however, there’s little on the outside of the building to distinguish it from any other corporate office you might find in Uji. There’s a good reason for that: The building that now houses the Nintendo Museum opened in 1969 for the production of hanafuda playing cards and the Famicom (known outside Japan as the Nintendo Entertainment System) before finding a second life as a customer service center until 2016.
Of course, it’s the inside of the building that you’re paying the ¥3,300 ticket price for.
The standard route through the facility starts with the main museum hall on the second floor, an expansive space with dozens of large displays for each of Nintendo’s consoles and handhelds — from the Famicom released in 1983 right up to 2017’s Switch and everything in between (there is even a section dedicated to the wearable Virtual Boy, including headsets through which you can view some of the console’s games).
The front side of each display showcases original packaging of key software (including Japanese, North American and European versions) as well as various hardware models and related accessories. Items like the Game Boy Printer and the Power Pad, the company’s earliest attempt to combine fitness and gaming, provide nice shots of nostalgia on their own for children of the 1980s and ’90s. Overhead, a series of televisions showcase some of the systems’ key titles alongside giant controllers (more on those later).
On the reverse side of each display is a look at what made the console unique and innovative — long a source of pride for the Kyoto-based firm — including what the company calls “world firsts,” such as the NES’ use of voice controls and the early stages of network gaming.
Visitors looking to discover bits and pieces from the company’s pre-gaming history won’t be disappointed. A sizable section shows off some of the company’s early analog games, including hanafuda cards and a large variety of toys. It’s quite a collection and sure to recall memories for people who knew the Nintendo name long before it hit it big in electronic entertainment.
The displays are nicely presented and could easily provide a couple hours of browsing for anyone who grew up playing these games — think of it like the definitive, refined version of retro gaming shops in Tokyo’s Akihabara or Osaka’s Den-Den Town neighborhoods. Curiously, though, the exhibits are presented with few additional explanations — in order, a sign at the entrance notes, to allow visitors to form their own thoughts and connections with the displays.
That feels like a missed opportunity to highlight the work of the people beyond some of gaming’s greatest creations. Aside from a signed drawing of Mario at the entrance to the museum, there’s hardly a mention of the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto, let alone other luminaries like the pioneering former President Satoru Iwata or Game Boy designer Gunpei Yokoi. A small collection of prototypes give some insight into the process behind the creation of Nintendo’s consoles, but there’s little space devoted to the origin stories of Mario, Link and Nintendo’s other favorite characters.
Back on the first floor, the next area on the route is where the museum breaks out of its shell and shows off the creativity that has made Nintendo famous. Here, it’s time to play.
Inside a room full of Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo (SNES) and NES kiosks that can play a handful of favorites, visitors can use cards preloaded with virtual coins to play solo or with a friend. One coin gets you seven minutes of gametime (so you won’t be able to hog playtime on an entire run of Super Mario Bros.).
Another area has mini batting cages dressed up like a Showa Era (1926-89) living room, allowing visitors to do their best Shohei Ohtani impression on Nintendo’s Ultra Machine batting toy. All that’s missing is a mother’s voice telling you to knock it off and take it outside as you swing a big foam bat and (hopefully) lace line drive after line drive around the mock living room.
The highlight, though, is undoubtedly the room that features giant controllers that allow you to team up with a partner to play various games. On the SNES, for example, one person controls the directional pad and the other handles the A, B, X and Y buttons as you both attempt to make your way through the opening levels of 1990’s Super Mario World. It makes for an exciting, albeit challenging, experience.
If you plan on bringing young children to the museum, the first floor is where they’ll have the most fun, although this still feels more geared toward adults who grew up with classic ’80s and ’90s Nintendo games.
Of course, no trip to a museum would be complete without a stop at the gift shop. Unfortunately, the one at the Nintendo Museum is rather disappointing. There’s a decent selection of goods that you can’t find at Nintendo’s growing number of retail stores in Japan, but unless you’re in the market for a mug, T-shirt or magnet — or are prepared to fork over ¥11,000 for a giant plush controller — there’s not a lot to get excited about here.
If all that playing has you feeling hungry, however, the Hatena Burger shop is right next door to the gift shop. The burgers are tasty, albeit a bit on the expensive side at ¥1,900 for most combo meals, but the real disappointment is a lack of creativity in both the interior decor and the menu. Visitors expecting anything like Kinopio’s Cafe at Universal Studios Japan will be sorely disappointed.
Still, “disappointing” is not the right word for the Nintendo Museum as a whole. Despite the hype, it doesn’t quite rise to the level of a can’t-miss experience for visitors with limited time and packed itineraries. That goes doubly so for those traveling with children: For a company that’s been bringing joy to young gamers for decades, the Nintendo Museum is a better destination for kids at heart than actual kids.
But if you grew up on consoles from the NES right through to the GameCube, this place is going to bring back all kinds of long-forgotten memories. The recurring exclamation from journalists and photographers when the museum opened for members of the media on Sept. 24 was, indeed, “Natsukashii! (How nostalgic!)”
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.