One night at Marufukuro, the Nintendo hotel

When you’re Nintendo, creator of some of the most beloved games of all time that are just bursting with playful innovation, wonder, and creativity, you might expect that to be reflected in the building where the magic all happens. Sure, maybe it’s not Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory or even Google’s gimmicky offices that exude a cringey big-kid energy, but you wouldn’t think Shigeru Miyamoto, or all the other creative minds of Nintendo EPD, would spend their day-to-day in a giant corporate concrete block, which another developer I spoke to jokingly referred to as, “the place where dreams go to die”.

Yet that seemingly oppressive exterior also lends it a curious enigmatic quality, if you think of that concrete block as a giant question block instead, one that dedicated fans want to reach out and bump for the chance to find out a little more about the company they love.

Since my previous visit to Japan in 2019, when I did attempt to make a pilgrimage to see the outside of Nintendo’s Kyoto headquarters, there have however been developments for more physical spaces that embody the history and spirit of Nintendo that members of the public can appreciate. These include specialty stores like the Tokyo, and recently opened Osaka, branches of the Nintendo Store (which actually began in the US with Nintendo New York in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center), and theme parks like Super Nintendo World, which first opened in Osaka’s Universal Studios Japan in 2021, with more set to be built Stateside. Nintendo is also repurposing its former Uji Ogura Plant to become a museum that will open in 2024, tentatively named the Nintendo Gallery.

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