This story originally appeared on WIRED Japan and has been translated from Japanese.
Built in 1969 in Uji City, Kyoto, the Uji Kokura factory was originally responsible for the production of toys. Now, more than half a century later, the factory has been reborn as the Nintendo Museum. It will open to the public on October 2, 2024.
Nintendo has recently unveiled details about the new museum. In addition to exhibiting products the company has released in the past—going all the way back to its founding as a playing card company in 1889—the facility will also feature interactive exhibits. There are three interactive sections, named “Learn,” “Experience,” and “Create and Play,” where visitors can experience what it would be like if Nintendo's various products from its long history were created today, using current technology.
Reinventing Fun
The first floor of the museum is dominated by an exhibit where you can experience new interactive content, newly created just for the museum, that's based on older Nintendo products. There's a giant version of a card game based on Hyakunin Isshu, a set of 100 historical Japanese poems, that takes over an entire room. Players open a dedicated app which reads aloud the first verse of one of the poems. Then the players have to wander around the room where giant cards are scattered on the floor to find the corresponding card that continues the poem they just heard.
Shigureden SP is a giant version of Hyakunin Isshu that can be played by up to 20 people at a time. You listen to the first verse read aloud by a dedicated smartphone, and search for the card with the second verse written on it that is spread out at your feet. Players mark their progress by holding the phone over the card.
Photograph: Nintendo
