A Physical Nintendo Store is Opening Up in Japan

The Building Will Probably Be Shaped like Mario or Wear his Hat

Nintendo has famously (and sometimes infamously) gone against the grain of business trends when it comes to gaming. In the era of the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3, Nintendo’s console had underwhelming power and laughable graphics in an age where graphics were a big talking point in the “console wars”. The draw to the Wii was the big push in motion control, which was risky considering its level of quality and popularity, and had fans very divided. The very nature of the motion control-based console left the Wii without many of the multiplatform games that the PS3 and Xbox 360 benefited from. Now, that Nintendo has moved on up to being a major competitor for the Microsoft and Sony consoles, they have opted to open up a physical Nintendo store in Tokyo.

Nintendo Store

This story opened up with the Wii for a reason, particularly because of the decision by Nintendo to do something different than Sony or Microsoft. While both of those companies already have physical stores, Nintendo is a company exclusively in the gaming industry. Any of their products that are not games are in promotion of their games and consoles. That is why the Nintendo store will likely be different. Instead of selling PCs and TVs with the Nintendo name on them, I imagine there will be a lot of Mario plushies and Yoshi backpacks. An entire store might end up looking like a GameStop crossed with a toy store.


The image above is from a financial results briefing Nintendo did. Now, that entire building is not meant to be the store Nintendo Tokyo is opening. It will be in the building somewhere. The briefing states that the store will be a location for Nintendo events as well as a place to shop for Nintendo products. The store is set to open in Fall 2019.

What’s your take on the Nintendo store? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: IGN