In the Nintendo Museum Direct, Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda series creator Shigeru Miyamoto says, "In the more than 100 years since the company was founded, Nintendo has created many different forms of entertainment"—referring to the history of the company that's been operating in Japan since September 1889, not branching into video games until the fateful release of the Color TV game in 1977.
Nintendo's first handheld series of per-game Game & Watch devices started just three years later. Nintendo's start with Hanafuda cards is reflected in the exhibits and placement of its Nintendo Museum—the site is converted from a card manufacturing plant.
A showcase dedicated to the pre-gaming era of Nintendo is one of the most interesting exhibits at the Nintendo Museum set to open its doors on October 2 in Kyoto, Japan, but far from the quirkiest. The most viral is the giant controllers exhibit, which shows multiple Nintendo console generations needing to be piloted with two players per controller, including a giant Wii Remote. Plenty of exhibits are dedicated to specific Nintendo series and art or graphics evolution throughout the years— mainline series like Mario and Zelda are lucky enough to get a wall with TVs showcasing the graphics of major console entries to date.
One exhibit in the Nintendo Museum is dedicated to eight small rooms, each used to host an Ultra Machine baseball pitching machine and differing retro-themed Japanese home interiors complete with interactive objects if you have great aim with a bat.
Another fascinating Nintendo Museum exhibit is based on a 70s bowling alley-to-shooting gallery experiment called Laser Clay. With a similar setup, Zapper & Scope SP allows users to use modernized NES Zapper and Super Famicom Super scope designs to tackle a shooting gallery of Mario enemies, using their now-familiar New Super Mario Bros. designs rather than a newer aesthetic based on Wonder or Galaxy.
Other highlights include a beginner-friendly touchscreen Hanafuda game, a multiplayer mobile version of the Japanese card game Hyakunin Isshu played with a provided smart device and an entire, shared touchscreen floor, and exhibits dedicated to Nintendo's pre-gaming (or at least pre-83 Famicom) era.
Besides that, the other themed museum fare you may expect is all here. It includes a shop with exclusive merch (of course), an on-site café specializing in custom burgers, and, most importantly, a spread of showcases representing the property's history (or properties).
