By Andrew Webster , an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 20

Nintendo’s shiny new museum needs more dirt

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2024-09-29 08:00:06

By Andrew Webster , an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.

The inspiration for Nintendo’s new museum came, at least in part, from an ongoing irritation for Shigeru Miyamoto. At a certain point every year, the Super Mario creator does a presentation for the hundred or so new staff that have joined the company. It’s an attempt to explain the core of what makes Nintendo a creative force.

“I talk for two hours,” Miyamoto said during a roundtable interview ahead of the museum’s opening. “And after 20 years, I don’t want to do it anymore.”

The solution to that problem comes in the form of a two-story building that used to be a playing card manufacturing plant in Nintendo’s hometown of Kyoto. It opens on October 2nd, but visiting isn’t as simple as taking the train; tickets can only be reserved through a random selection process. If you do make it, though, you’ll be greeted with an experience that explores more than a century of the company’s history, dating back to 1889 when Nintendo got its start making hanafuda cards.

From the outside, the museum is nondescript, a bland gray structure that wouldn’t look out of place in an office block. (It’s not unlike Nintendo’s central office, also in Kyoto.) But the playfulness becomes more apparent the closer you get. You’re greeted by a series of warp pipes and floating blocks, complete with a mushroom (naturally), as you approach the entrance. Inside the door, there’s a quartet of colorful Toads, along with a framed copy of Miyamoto’s whimsical signature.