Nintendo’s shiny new museum needs more dirt

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.

The main floor has something of a theme park vibe. There are a handful of interactive exhibits, each meant to be a slightly modernized take on an older Nintendo product. Nintendo once made a batting machine, for instance, so you can head into quaint Japanese-style living rooms and knock balls around. There's a version of a Game & Watch platformer where you use your shadow to help a character cross perilous gaps and a shooting range where you can wield an NES Zapper to shoot virtual paintballs at classic Super Mario enemies. The most straightforward exhibit is simply a room filled with classic games, emulated through Switch Online. Also, there's a love tester machine (another little-known early Nintendo product).

The floor's highlight is arguably a room filled with massive classic controllers so big each requires two people to play. In order to get through Super Mario Bros. using an NES controller the size of a novelty check, one player controls movement with the D-pad, while the other handles running and jumping. If you want to fly in Pilot Wings, it takes two people to lift up the jumbo-sized Wii Remote and tilt it around to pilot a plane. These experiences are fun in the way you'd expect from Nintendo, especially as it continues to refine its skills in designing physical spaces. But I can't say I learned much about the company from trying to use a huge N64 controller.

Image: Nintendo Image: Nintendo Image: Nintendo