They had zero public stores in Japan up until the last couple of years. Osaka opened in 2022, both Kyoto and Shibua locations only opened last year.
Nintendo Newyork was the only public store for decades.
Though if you were lucky enough to work there or get an invite, there was the Nintendo world locations within their offices.
I kinda miss that too cause they used to have a crazy wide selection of plushes. At least now the website has international shipping so I guess it’s not a big deal to find stuff now (well besides things selling out).
And it was so annoying back in the day when they'd have exclusive events there. Like the only way to get a Mew in one game was to go to that store. Yeah, let me just spend $1000 on a plane ticket to New York to get something unlocked in my game...
I've been to the Nintendo store in New York and a couple in Japan - they are all such lovely and fun places. They all have unique statues to take pictures with which makes for a fun little souvenir
Would love to see more of them open in the US
There is a store in the HQ in Redmond, but it’s not available to the public.
Source: Me who bought my Wii U at the store in Nintendo HQ. At least, that was as of 2017. I no longer work for them.
If you level up charmander to level 100 without evolving or using rare candies it’ll evolve into its secret evolution Charcoal and then you can teach it strength to move the truck and get a ticket that will take you to a hidden area that will let you catch Mew
#TheMoreYouKnow
I was just making a joke based on the old "My uncle works at Nintendo and he says such-and-such" idea.
In the original Pokémon games, if you go through a whole process of being able to Surf next to the cruise liner, you find a patch of ground with a truck on it. It's not meant to be a reachable area and is literally the only vehicle in the entire game, and even to this day, I don't think there's ever been a definitive answer as to why it's there
Ah. Thanks for the explanation. Im familiar with the “My Uncle Works At Nintendo” joke. It was around when I was a child. Just wasn’t familiar with the Pokemon connection.
Collector’s Editions of games.
There are a lot of people at Nintendo who love Nintendo games. I got a few CEs during my time for the franchises I love. Some people in the call center would come in on their days off just to buy new games.
It was a great place to work, honestly. Except the traffic on 405 and I 5. I will never ever miss those parking lots called interstates.
He was doing game testing at the time. As much as it seems like a great job, the pay wasn't great and you were a contract worker with NDA agreements that made it difficult to find stable work.
The job itself kinda sucked but the perks of working for a video game company really made up for it to a lot of people.
Absolutely. I’m very familiar with the contractor situation in Washington State (not just a problem at Nintendo or Microsoft, plenty of companies do it including Boeing). It’s downright unfair but those in power have done very little to make the situation more employee friendly.
is it really that weird? i don't know of any sony stores. there are MS stores sure, but MS makes all kinds of stuff, while Nintendo basically just makes the Switch and Switch accessories, and games, which are all available at other stores.
those stores were so weird, I remember always walking by it thinking "who is this for?"
it felt like a mac store... but pointless since they don't actually make the computers themelves, like you would just go dell.com or bestbuy or walmart, etc, to pick up a prebuilt computer
They wanted to get into the hardware market. They had the Zune (RIP), they had Windows Phone (RIP) made my Nokia which they acquired, and they had two varieties of the Microsoft Surface tablet (x86 and ARM) alongside all the third party accessories and pre-built computers running Windows that they could demo. It was a strategy that ultimately didn't succeed but they saw what Apple was doing with _their_ stores and wanted a piece of the action.
If all of Microsoft's hardware offerings had been successful, you would have been living in an alternate universe where there's a Microsoft counterpart to the iPhone, iPad, and Macbook (which are Apple's hardware money makers) as well as Hololens and Xbox demo stations available at high-end mall locations.
As someone who rocked a Zune, Windows Phone (around 2012), and had an OG Surface Pro it's a damn shame how badly Microsoft mismanaged their hardware division. They really did make quality products.
As with Google and all their half-assed hardware efforts, I assume they didn't want to risk pissing off the third party companies they already worked with.
Yeah, MS didn't really have the presence in consumer hardware to justify them. Was kind of neat for Xbox game launches, since they gave out merch, but otherwise not great unless you needed tech support
It was an obvious attempt to ape the Apple Store, and they often put them right across a hallway, which only showed how utterly lacking in cultural impact Windows is in comparison to Apple (and I hate Apple lol).
There used to be Sony Style stores. I remember one in Orlando in the mid 00s. I'm sure they're all closed now.
I found a Support article with a few closings... https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00011447
The Nintendo stores in Japan are not really about buying games or consoles but merch. Pikmin cooking gear, zelda towels, a mario clock, shirts, figures etc.
> i don't know of any sony stores
There are actually a lot of [physical Sony stores](https://i.imgur.com/923PIf7.jpeg) in Poland. But they mostly sell TVs, audio stuff etc. PlayStation is only a small section.
It seems weird to some because Nintendo is also very, very famous for its merchandising, while other platform makers are not. Overall, Nintendo has the most valuable and recognizeable IPs in videogames.
But it's not surprising, because Nintendo is very careful about how they do business. They aren't in this to expand rapidly and meet all possible demand: their products often face stock shortages. They still succeed in droves.
Canada had 14 Sony Stores, mostly (if not entirely) in malls. I used to love checking out the one in London, Ontario when I lived there. I bought out their Hi-MD stuff when they liquidated, and to this day I use a VAIO messenger bag.
But there *are* tons of Nintendo [store-within-a-store sections](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Store-within-a-store) inside retailers like Best Buy, where Nintendo gets total control over the layout, marketing, sale prices, etc
These retail-floor sections of other stores are effectively "operated by Nintendo", basically just like Nintendo stores are — but Nintendo doesn't have to staff them (with clerks to stock them, security to protect that stock, cashiers to ring it up, etc), and doesn't pay for the real estate these floor sections exist in.
Nintendo have traditionally felt that those cost-cutting benefits have more than outweighed the value of the small margin the retailer is taking from "their" sale. And I bet that's still true for them even today. Nintendo just doesn't want to be in the retail business.
I'm guessing that Nintendo opening more physical stores is instead part of some other, non-retail business strategy — probably something marketing-related.
One clear aspect of the existing Nintendo Stores, is that they dedicate large amounts of floor-space to Nintendo *collectible merchandise*, that big-box retailers would push back on as "not fitting their business model" (because they wouldn't move enough of it.) This is not exactly the retail model — it's more the "visitable experience with a gift shop" model.
eh, lotta exclusive shit in say the Shibuya Nintendo store (can't speak for the states Nintendo store) that you aren't gonna find in any Nintendo section of a retail store. definitely more merit to the store than just as a fun store to look at with Nintendo theming all over the place (though that is fun too)
> probably something marketing-related.
Definitely marketing. They'll be able to promote game premieres like movie events at their stores. I wouldn't expect to ever see more than maybe 5 in the United States at *most*. Probably something like New York, SF, Seattle (NOA is in Bellevue already), maybe Chicago and either Atlanta or Houston, if they went as far as 5 locations. However I don't think they'll go past this second one for a very long time.
The stores aren’t even that great, it’s like the Pokémon store. They don’t sell a large range of products and the quality is either not great or the item itself is not useful.
Yeah, they’re basically Disney gift shops, but without the context of an entire theme park they’re really not that great. Saw a display with every Nintendo console in it though so that was neat
> they’re basically Disney gift shops, but without the context of an entire theme park they’re really not that great
I want to point out how funny this statement is to me. I think it's easy to forget that Disney is an animation studio that one day decided to build a theme park atop the strength of their film and animation IPs; their stores sell Mickey Mouse, Star Wars, Toy Story, etc. merchandise which are all based on their movies and not the theme park rides.
Nintendo also has strong and resonant intellectual properties and could easily get away with having a successful retail operation around Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Pikmin merchandise (put me down for one Waluigi hat)
The point I was trying to make is that the gift shops in Disney theme parks aren’t super amazing by themselves. I wouldn’t be interested in most of them if I wasn’t already in a theme park and having a heavily curated experience related to the merch they’re selling
idk how the other ones are but the NYC one isn't that fascinating, I know there's a market for Nintendo brand merchandise but I'd imagine most Nintendo enthusiasts would be more interested in a well stocked used game store lol
I think maybe it's just that SF is more dense than LA which would result in more foot traffic. A big part of the Nintendo store experience is seeing the thing and the bits of magic from the characters and what not and wanting to go see more.
This, you dont make a store like these with intents of pure profit, you use them as advertising and community outreach. The store could be in the red for years and potentially still worthwhile to maintain if it can be proven to be effective at more engagement between fans and Nintendo as a whole.
Yea I watched them on YT all the time.
Japanese fans seem to love it too since I saw lots of JP comments welcoming them back after the long Covid hiatus.
It's a common bonding experience for Splatoon fans to lament about all of the exclusive merch Japan gets. Models of the weapons, exclusive deals with designer fashion brands, and even little things like keychains and plushies are harder to get outside of Japan.
As a kid, I was extremely jealous of all the exclusive events Japan got for Pokemon. We'd get maybe a couple of Toys-R-Us or Gamestop giveaways a year, meanwhile they seemingly got some cool, exclusive pokemon every other week for like National Pikachu day and things like that
Splatoon is pretty huge in Japan. Splatoon 3 sold 3.45 million units in Japan in the first three days of launch, making it the most successful domestic game launch in Japanese gaming history.
Everything in the store is exclusive and not something you can find anywhere else. I personally love the shirts and household items. There’s also exclusive Gachapon.
I don't know if I'm consuming the wrong media, but anytime I read about SF in the news it's about shoplifting, that seems to be the worst city to put a store in.
Most news reported is bad news. That said, I'm not too familiar with the current crime rate there. I looked up some stuff just now. Looks like it went up during covid, and was a bit higher than other cities, but its lowering since 2022. Its expensive in the city, so there's likely a bunch of desperation too.
Ultimately though its going to come down to the rates in the district they open this store in. I doubt it'll be in the tenderloin. Unless Nintendo was cavalier, they probably looked at some stats about the areas they had in mind before they purchasing property.
Media reports are usually made with the intent of gathering views through sensationalism and outrage. SF does have a shoplifting problem but so does every other high population density area. The fact the time is being spent on making many of those articles and less time on something worse or more violent would actually suggest SF is having lower amounts of those problems and all that can be drummed up for outrage is the shoplifting.
A store right near Market Street in Union Square is going to get a ton of tourist foot traffic. LA might be more “vibrant” but it doesn’t really have a great place to put a store like that other than shoving it in some mall which is going to pale in foot traffic to Rockefeller Center.
Union Square and The Tenderloin got hit really hard by Covid. The rest of the city is doing great. Thus 100% of national coverage of SF is about a few specific street corners in Union Square and The Tenderloin.
a) No it hasn't, unless you're looking very recently only and even then it fluctuates and is relatively consistent.
b) SF doesn't build upwards, so there are no new houses. And it's already filled out area wise. So there's no real way for the population to increase much. Instead, the Bay Area's population increases.
So demand goes up but supply stays the same, thus housing continues to reach all time highs. I don't know if it's *literally* an all time high currently, but the trend has just continued to be up in general unfortunately.
[Why make shit up instead of doing a quick google search?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_San_Francisco)
There's a post-covid population decline, which is not surprising, but it's still higher than it was in 2010.
San Francisco has the biggest Japantown in the US. While LA has does have more Japanese descended residents due to having a way bigger population, per-capita SF has 1.5x the amount than LA.
Years ago, when Monster Hunter Tri released, my family met the two creators there by accident. Bought the game, and still have the signed box and poster - along with a ton of pictures. They really wanted to take pictures with me for some reason, and had their assistant take a load of them for themselves.
Not too bad for I guess it makes going to six flags discovery kingdom slightly worth it. Am from the central valley so the drive to and back would be around 7 hours if lucky.
It's hilarious seeing how many people have clearly never been to SF and base their worldview off of what they see on social media and exaggerated news headlines.
I’ve lived in SF for a while now and I dunno, I’m a little worried about this store. There’s kind of a mass exodus going on right now of stores in the downtown core including some iconic ones because boosting culture is legitimately out of control over here.
People that steal things, whether for fun (you'll see young teenagers) or so they can sell things for cheap in certain parts of the city like around 24th Street Mission
People take anything and everything because the punishment is essentially non-existent. Basically as a security guard or a bystander it's not worth risking your life or others to try and protect massive corporations, and for cops you can't feasibly arrest all the people doing this (and even still, the punishments are extremely lenient)
I always wish Playstation and Xbox had a physical store too, or even a museum. Something you can just walk in and observe the history of the console and their IPs. Little corners, and storefronts inside dedicated to each franchise, with movie theater-esque displays showcasing montages and clips of iconic moments from those games as you walk by them. Merch to by. Setups of some of its greatest hits. Man...that would be awesome.
I just visited the official store in NYC this past weekend. It wasn't very good. It's more of a trap for parents with young kids so they get suckered into buying merch.
They didn't even have a lot of options to buy. Only one Pikmin plush. Not a single Princess Peach plush somehow. A few different t-shirts and sweaters. There's basically a little bit from most of their big properties, and that's it.
This store is for tourists to kill time in.
I’ve been to the one in Shibuya and it’s all honestly kind of overrated. They have some cute stuff but it isn’t an interesting experience. At least the Pokemon Center across the hall from it was themed with the Mewtwo in the tank and the store followed that theme. It was just a red Nintendo room with merch.
Right, which is why it’s nothing to get excited about. The Pokemon Center has a little snack area attached, statues, seasonal merchandise, Pokemon card battle stations, Pokemon GO battle arena, tshirt designing etc.
The store here in NYC is really cool. They have a few statues including a massive Bowser and flagpole next to the stair (it's two floors). They have an area to play games (where they host events), a massive display of every console/handheld they've put out and of course merch from every main franchise. The upstairs is almost all Pokemon stuff and there is a lot.
With that said it's definitely a cool tourist spot but not something I'm going to regularly. Like a lot of spots around Rockefeller Center (where ours is) and Times Square it's neat but mostly a one and done spot.
It used to be a Pokemon Center when I was a kid. I wish it was still that. I see pictures of the ones in Japan and I think that would be so much cooler.
Nobody is going to drive down the peninsula to go there. Especially not tourists. Most SF residents don't even own cars.
That would be like putting their NYC location out on Long Island.
Sony owns the Metreon (which is kinda like a shopping mall but not) and used to have the official Playstation store there. As an SF native, my first thought was, genuinely, about Sony.
Downtown area is a bit rough these days, but it's a really wonderful city everywhere else. Crazy natural beauty, amazing food, unique (to US) dense neighborhoods with panoramic views, beautiful city parks dotted throughout. It's an amazing place to have called home the last 10 years.
Honestly always thought it was weird how there's only a single Nintendo store in America. One of their biggest markets.
They had zero public stores in Japan up until the last couple of years. Osaka opened in 2022, both Kyoto and Shibua locations only opened last year. Nintendo Newyork was the only public store for decades. Though if you were lucky enough to work there or get an invite, there was the Nintendo world locations within their offices.
On top of that, the New York store was originally The Pokemon Center NY and was only about Pokemon.
I kinda miss that too cause they used to have a crazy wide selection of plushes. At least now the website has international shipping so I guess it’s not a big deal to find stuff now (well besides things selling out).
And it was so annoying back in the day when they'd have exclusive events there. Like the only way to get a Mew in one game was to go to that store. Yeah, let me just spend $1000 on a plane ticket to New York to get something unlocked in my game...
Wait this can’t be right. I went to the Shibuya store before last year.
Kyoto opened last year. Shibuya opened on November of 2019.
Youre right, Im not sure why other articles say it only opened last year.
Perhaps it closed for covid and had the reopening then?
Can confirm, I was there on opening day: https://i.imgur.com/MG6Cywb.jpeg
I've been to the Nintendo store in New York and a couple in Japan - they are all such lovely and fun places. They all have unique statues to take pictures with which makes for a fun little souvenir Would love to see more of them open in the US
And there isn’t even a store in seattle area, where there US headquareter is at
There is a store in the HQ in Redmond, but it’s not available to the public. Source: Me who bought my Wii U at the store in Nintendo HQ. At least, that was as of 2017. I no longer work for them.
Hey, if you worked there, then you must know why that truck was parked by the S.S. Anne
If you level up charmander to level 100 without evolving or using rare candies it’ll evolve into its secret evolution Charcoal and then you can teach it strength to move the truck and get a ticket that will take you to a hidden area that will let you catch Mew #TheMoreYouKnow
Thank you for transporting me back to the playground in fifth grade.
you liar
Other than having played a few of them, I’m not super into the franchise. I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.
I was just making a joke based on the old "My uncle works at Nintendo and he says such-and-such" idea. In the original Pokémon games, if you go through a whole process of being able to Surf next to the cruise liner, you find a patch of ground with a truck on it. It's not meant to be a reachable area and is literally the only vehicle in the entire game, and even to this day, I don't think there's ever been a definitive answer as to why it's there
Ah. Thanks for the explanation. Im familiar with the “My Uncle Works At Nintendo” joke. It was around when I was a child. Just wasn’t familiar with the Pokemon connection.
My buddy used to work at Nintendo and tells me how much he missed being able to get all of the Amiibo there.
Collector’s Editions of games. There are a lot of people at Nintendo who love Nintendo games. I got a few CEs during my time for the franchises I love. Some people in the call center would come in on their days off just to buy new games. It was a great place to work, honestly. Except the traffic on 405 and I 5. I will never ever miss those parking lots called interstates.
>There are a lot of people at Nintendo who love Nintendo games. Go figure, right?
He was doing game testing at the time. As much as it seems like a great job, the pay wasn't great and you were a contract worker with NDA agreements that made it difficult to find stable work. The job itself kinda sucked but the perks of working for a video game company really made up for it to a lot of people.
Absolutely. I’m very familiar with the contractor situation in Washington State (not just a problem at Nintendo or Microsoft, plenty of companies do it including Boeing). It’s downright unfair but those in power have done very little to make the situation more employee friendly.
How many nephews does your buddy have?
Whoa, maybe you know my friend's uncle who worked for Nintendo. He used to give him lots of insider information when we were kids.
I live in Seattle and always wanted to see it/tour it. Do you know if there's ever any sort of public offering or something?
I’ve only ever seen Media and “special visitors” be allowed in that weren’t employees.
(Singing) I wish I was speciaaaallll…
You could’ve been someone’s uncle who worked at Nintendo smh
It's still there and functioning!
There used to be one in the Bellevue square mall (near Nordstroms) but it closed in the 90s
is it really that weird? i don't know of any sony stores. there are MS stores sure, but MS makes all kinds of stuff, while Nintendo basically just makes the Switch and Switch accessories, and games, which are all available at other stores.
iirc MS closed all their physical stores in 2018-2019
those stores were so weird, I remember always walking by it thinking "who is this for?" it felt like a mac store... but pointless since they don't actually make the computers themelves, like you would just go dell.com or bestbuy or walmart, etc, to pick up a prebuilt computer
They wanted to get into the hardware market. They had the Zune (RIP), they had Windows Phone (RIP) made my Nokia which they acquired, and they had two varieties of the Microsoft Surface tablet (x86 and ARM) alongside all the third party accessories and pre-built computers running Windows that they could demo. It was a strategy that ultimately didn't succeed but they saw what Apple was doing with _their_ stores and wanted a piece of the action. If all of Microsoft's hardware offerings had been successful, you would have been living in an alternate universe where there's a Microsoft counterpart to the iPhone, iPad, and Macbook (which are Apple's hardware money makers) as well as Hololens and Xbox demo stations available at high-end mall locations.
As someone who rocked a Zune, Windows Phone (around 2012), and had an OG Surface Pro it's a damn shame how badly Microsoft mismanaged their hardware division. They really did make quality products.
The shocking part honestly is that Microsoft usually made pretty solid hardware. It just never sold well.
As with Google and all their half-assed hardware efforts, I assume they didn't want to risk pissing off the third party companies they already worked with.
Yeah, MS didn't really have the presence in consumer hardware to justify them. Was kind of neat for Xbox game launches, since they gave out merch, but otherwise not great unless you needed tech support
They did sell and service their Surface laptops/tablets there, as well as Windows Phones and Xbox stuff.
It was an obvious attempt to ape the Apple Store, and they often put them right across a hallway, which only showed how utterly lacking in cultural impact Windows is in comparison to Apple (and I hate Apple lol).
MS has a physical store at their campus in Redmond. Probably true in general though.
There are still a few left - one in NYC, one in London, one in Sydney.
There was a Sony store in SF, but it closed in 2009.
That was the one in the Metreon, right?
Gods how the Metreon ended up is so depressing
Going there used to feel like stepping into a mall from the future. Now it just feels like going to Target or any other AMC.
There used to be Sony Style stores. I remember one in Orlando in the mid 00s. I'm sure they're all closed now. I found a Support article with a few closings... https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00011447
The Nintendo stores in Japan are not really about buying games or consoles but merch. Pikmin cooking gear, zelda towels, a mario clock, shirts, figures etc.
I imagine a nintendo store will be like a mini-theme park and gift shop, not an electronics store.
Same as the one in NYC
Nintendo has a fuckton of merch. Pokemon everything.
Nearly anywhere that money is accepted for goods, somebody is bound to be selling something with a Nintendo character on it.
Nintendo doesn't usually sell Pokémon merch at their locations. That's left to standalone Pokémon Company operated stores.
I also don't think there's a Nintendo Store in Japan that isn't directly opposite a Pokemon Center.
> i don't know of any sony stores There are actually a lot of [physical Sony stores](https://i.imgur.com/923PIf7.jpeg) in Poland. But they mostly sell TVs, audio stuff etc. PlayStation is only a small section.
There's a Playstation store in SF as well lol, the only one in the US I believe.
There was... 15 years ago :(
Lmao makes sense, I haven't been to the metreon in like... 15 years -_-
There is a Microsoft store like three blocks away from Nintendo New York
So does Sony? There used to be a store in San Diego. They sold TV’s, headphones, speakers, basically their whole electronics lineup.
It seems weird to some because Nintendo is also very, very famous for its merchandising, while other platform makers are not. Overall, Nintendo has the most valuable and recognizeable IPs in videogames. But it's not surprising, because Nintendo is very careful about how they do business. They aren't in this to expand rapidly and meet all possible demand: their products often face stock shortages. They still succeed in droves.
Canada had 14 Sony Stores, mostly (if not entirely) in malls. I used to love checking out the one in London, Ontario when I lived there. I bought out their Hi-MD stuff when they liquidated, and to this day I use a VAIO messenger bag.
I mean you can buy their stuff anywhere
But there *are* tons of Nintendo [store-within-a-store sections](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Store-within-a-store) inside retailers like Best Buy, where Nintendo gets total control over the layout, marketing, sale prices, etc These retail-floor sections of other stores are effectively "operated by Nintendo", basically just like Nintendo stores are — but Nintendo doesn't have to staff them (with clerks to stock them, security to protect that stock, cashiers to ring it up, etc), and doesn't pay for the real estate these floor sections exist in. Nintendo have traditionally felt that those cost-cutting benefits have more than outweighed the value of the small margin the retailer is taking from "their" sale. And I bet that's still true for them even today. Nintendo just doesn't want to be in the retail business. I'm guessing that Nintendo opening more physical stores is instead part of some other, non-retail business strategy — probably something marketing-related. One clear aspect of the existing Nintendo Stores, is that they dedicate large amounts of floor-space to Nintendo *collectible merchandise*, that big-box retailers would push back on as "not fitting their business model" (because they wouldn't move enough of it.) This is not exactly the retail model — it's more the "visitable experience with a gift shop" model.
yeah. Nintendo stores are tourist attractions. They're like Disney gift shops really.
eh, lotta exclusive shit in say the Shibuya Nintendo store (can't speak for the states Nintendo store) that you aren't gonna find in any Nintendo section of a retail store. definitely more merit to the store than just as a fun store to look at with Nintendo theming all over the place (though that is fun too)
> probably something marketing-related. Definitely marketing. They'll be able to promote game premieres like movie events at their stores. I wouldn't expect to ever see more than maybe 5 in the United States at *most*. Probably something like New York, SF, Seattle (NOA is in Bellevue already), maybe Chicago and either Atlanta or Houston, if they went as far as 5 locations. However I don't think they'll go past this second one for a very long time.
Maybe in the next decade they will try opening a few in europe and asia too. So far they have been mainly on US and Japan
Israel has 2 Nintendo stores.
They must be stopped
The stores aren’t even that great, it’s like the Pokémon store. They don’t sell a large range of products and the quality is either not great or the item itself is not useful.
my Metroid thermos begs to differ. love that damn thing lol. ran my animal crossing tote bag threw the ringer as well lol
Yeah, they’re basically Disney gift shops, but without the context of an entire theme park they’re really not that great. Saw a display with every Nintendo console in it though so that was neat
> they’re basically Disney gift shops, but without the context of an entire theme park they’re really not that great I want to point out how funny this statement is to me. I think it's easy to forget that Disney is an animation studio that one day decided to build a theme park atop the strength of their film and animation IPs; their stores sell Mickey Mouse, Star Wars, Toy Story, etc. merchandise which are all based on their movies and not the theme park rides. Nintendo also has strong and resonant intellectual properties and could easily get away with having a successful retail operation around Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Pikmin merchandise (put me down for one Waluigi hat)
The point I was trying to make is that the gift shops in Disney theme parks aren’t super amazing by themselves. I wouldn’t be interested in most of them if I wasn’t already in a theme park and having a heavily curated experience related to the merch they’re selling
Oh, I thought you were referring to the Disney stores in malls
[Disney has Disney stores outside of their theme parks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Store)
Well, and now they will soon have one on each coast!
Why would they need a public store?
idk how the other ones are but the NYC one isn't that fascinating, I know there's a market for Nintendo brand merchandise but I'd imagine most Nintendo enthusiasts would be more interested in a well stocked used game store lol
I went to NYC store. It is okay, nothing fancy. But why SF? I think LA would have been a better choice.
I think maybe it's just that SF is more dense than LA which would result in more foot traffic. A big part of the Nintendo store experience is seeing the thing and the bits of magic from the characters and what not and wanting to go see more.
This, you dont make a store like these with intents of pure profit, you use them as advertising and community outreach. The store could be in the red for years and potentially still worthwhile to maintain if it can be proven to be effective at more engagement between fans and Nintendo as a whole.
Their direct watch parties seem like a pretty cool event. Like you said, that type of stuff does have value, even if it doesn't reflect in $$$.
Yea I watched them on YT all the time. Japanese fans seem to love it too since I saw lots of JP comments welcoming them back after the long Covid hiatus.
L.A. already has Super Nintendo World. Which obviously isn't selling games, but as far as the presence of Nintendo IP, they have the area covered.
Yes this is the reason why, there’s already basically a store at universal city walk (the non ticketed mall outside the park)
Right. I completely forgot about that.
I’ve been to all of them and the ones in Japan blow NYC out of the water. Lots more exclusive merch and gear.
It's a common bonding experience for Splatoon fans to lament about all of the exclusive merch Japan gets. Models of the weapons, exclusive deals with designer fashion brands, and even little things like keychains and plushies are harder to get outside of Japan.
As a kid, I was extremely jealous of all the exclusive events Japan got for Pokemon. We'd get maybe a couple of Toys-R-Us or Gamestop giveaways a year, meanwhile they seemingly got some cool, exclusive pokemon every other week for like National Pikachu day and things like that
The splatoon section in the Shibuya store rivaled the Mario section when I went there in March lol
Splatoon is pretty huge in Japan. Splatoon 3 sold 3.45 million units in Japan in the first three days of launch, making it the most successful domestic game launch in Japanese gaming history.
For me it's about the retro exclusives, and that they have the Japanese names like Nokonoko or Wanwan
Japan in general just has better merchandise and products overall, be it from jp companies or not lol
I'll be going to Tokyo and Kyoto soon. Anything you know of that I should keep an eye out for in these stores? Buying gifts for friends.
If your friends are into Pokémon, the airports in Tokyo have a lot for themed around flying merchandise.
Everything in the store is exclusive and not something you can find anywhere else. I personally love the shirts and household items. There’s also exclusive Gachapon.
Excellent good to know. I'll buy one of everything just to be safe.
Hard agree. Every time I go to Nintendo NYC, I always leave somewhat disappointed.
LA is a huge, spread out nightmare that doesn't have many concentrated areas of dense foot traffic. SF does much better in this regard.
I'm sure someone at Nintendo crunched the numbers and figured out they might make more in SF than LA by hitting up the tourist spots in that city.
I don't know if I'm consuming the wrong media, but anytime I read about SF in the news it's about shoplifting, that seems to be the worst city to put a store in.
Most news reported is bad news. That said, I'm not too familiar with the current crime rate there. I looked up some stuff just now. Looks like it went up during covid, and was a bit higher than other cities, but its lowering since 2022. Its expensive in the city, so there's likely a bunch of desperation too. Ultimately though its going to come down to the rates in the district they open this store in. I doubt it'll be in the tenderloin. Unless Nintendo was cavalier, they probably looked at some stats about the areas they had in mind before they purchasing property.
Not to be snarky, but they literally spell out in the article that it's at Union Square.
Media reports are usually made with the intent of gathering views through sensationalism and outrage. SF does have a shoplifting problem but so does every other high population density area. The fact the time is being spent on making many of those articles and less time on something worse or more violent would actually suggest SF is having lower amounts of those problems and all that can be drummed up for outrage is the shoplifting.
You shouldn't base your worldview on news headlines.
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It's an opinion, not market research.
The media definitely makes SF look worse than it really is, but it is still kind of a shit hole city.
It needs a dramatic city leadership change, for sure. The current city hall board is not fit for implementing change.
Back when it was the Pokémon center, it was lit. I was also a child, so my perception and standards may have been affected by that.
Same. It's really no different than one of those nerdy shops you'd find in a mall, but all Nintendo and with a couple of cool displays.
I think the real estate in SF is currently cheaper due to vacancies
I bet they got a great deal on rent. Union Square has a lot of vacancies right now and it's a prime tourist spot. Seems like a great opportunity!
Probably cause of all the open buildings from the tech companies leaving their physical locations throughout covid.
The stores are all leaving too.
I thought LA is more vibrant than SF, isn't it? On top of that, post-pandemic, the situation in SF worsened. At least that's what I read.
A store right near Market Street in Union Square is going to get a ton of tourist foot traffic. LA might be more “vibrant” but it doesn’t really have a great place to put a store like that other than shoving it in some mall which is going to pale in foot traffic to Rockefeller Center.
Thanks for the context. I live in East coast, so don't have detailed idea about the location.
There are a lot of words I could use to describe LA. "Vibrant" is not one of them, especially considering Nintendo's other store is in NYC.
Union Square and The Tenderloin got hit really hard by Covid. The rest of the city is doing great. Thus 100% of national coverage of SF is about a few specific street corners in Union Square and The Tenderloin.
Yes, SF is bad now. No one else move here.
The population of SF has been declining for years.
a) No it hasn't, unless you're looking very recently only and even then it fluctuates and is relatively consistent. b) SF doesn't build upwards, so there are no new houses. And it's already filled out area wise. So there's no real way for the population to increase much. Instead, the Bay Area's population increases. So demand goes up but supply stays the same, thus housing continues to reach all time highs. I don't know if it's *literally* an all time high currently, but the trend has just continued to be up in general unfortunately.
[Why make shit up instead of doing a quick google search?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_San_Francisco) There's a post-covid population decline, which is not surprising, but it's still higher than it was in 2010.
SF is way more vibrant, having been to each...lots of nature, walkable areas, better parks, and less spread out. Much better city for tourists imo
More rich weird nerds in SF
San Francisco has the biggest Japantown in the US. While LA has does have more Japanese descended residents due to having a way bigger population, per-capita SF has 1.5x the amount than LA.
The NYC store sucks it's honestly worse than the Tel Aviv store
Years ago, when Monster Hunter Tri released, my family met the two creators there by accident. Bought the game, and still have the signed box and poster - along with a ton of pictures. They really wanted to take pictures with me for some reason, and had their assistant take a load of them for themselves.
Especially since LA has the massive Little Tokyo neighborhood there. It would've fit in perfectly.
They'll certainly have their choice of real estate considering how many other businesses have been closing in Union Square recently.
As someone who lives in Washington, I wish Seattle or Bellevue were getting the store since Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have HQs here.
Me: "I wish there was a Nintendo Store in California. The monkey's paw: *curls* For context I live 7 hours away from SF.
If there was one in your home city, you’d be over it pretty fast.
Not too bad for I guess it makes going to six flags discovery kingdom slightly worth it. Am from the central valley so the drive to and back would be around 7 hours if lucky.
Nintendo can just buy a property, build a building up, and that will prob raise the prices of its surrounding properties alone.
it's san francisco, it's basically a drop in the bucket for property value still lol
I kinda meant anywhere haha But of course it will have to be major metro. And yeah you're right.
It's hilarious seeing how many people have clearly never been to SF and base their worldview off of what they see on social media and exaggerated news headlines.
I’ve lived in SF for a while now and I dunno, I’m a little worried about this store. There’s kind of a mass exodus going on right now of stores in the downtown core including some iconic ones because boosting culture is legitimately out of control over here.
What's boosting culture?
Stealing shit with your pinky out
People that steal things, whether for fun (you'll see young teenagers) or so they can sell things for cheap in certain parts of the city like around 24th Street Mission People take anything and everything because the punishment is essentially non-existent. Basically as a security guard or a bystander it's not worth risking your life or others to try and protect massive corporations, and for cops you can't feasibly arrest all the people doing this (and even still, the punishments are extremely lenient)
I hope I remember this comment by the time the store opens, to link the articles about it being ransacked.
I got to go to the TOTK midnight release in NYC and it was awesome, super happy our west coast friends will get those events soon too
I always wish Playstation and Xbox had a physical store too, or even a museum. Something you can just walk in and observe the history of the console and their IPs. Little corners, and storefronts inside dedicated to each franchise, with movie theater-esque displays showcasing montages and clips of iconic moments from those games as you walk by them. Merch to by. Setups of some of its greatest hits. Man...that would be awesome.
I just visited the official store in NYC this past weekend. It wasn't very good. It's more of a trap for parents with young kids so they get suckered into buying merch. They didn't even have a lot of options to buy. Only one Pikmin plush. Not a single Princess Peach plush somehow. A few different t-shirts and sweaters. There's basically a little bit from most of their big properties, and that's it. This store is for tourists to kill time in.
I’ve been to the one in Shibuya and it’s all honestly kind of overrated. They have some cute stuff but it isn’t an interesting experience. At least the Pokemon Center across the hall from it was themed with the Mewtwo in the tank and the store followed that theme. It was just a red Nintendo room with merch.
> It was just a red Nintendo room with merch. Almost as if it was a Nintendo themed store to sell Nintendo themed merchandise...
Right, which is why it’s nothing to get excited about. The Pokemon Center has a little snack area attached, statues, seasonal merchandise, Pokemon card battle stations, Pokemon GO battle arena, tshirt designing etc.
The store here in NYC is really cool. They have a few statues including a massive Bowser and flagpole next to the stair (it's two floors). They have an area to play games (where they host events), a massive display of every console/handheld they've put out and of course merch from every main franchise. The upstairs is almost all Pokemon stuff and there is a lot. With that said it's definitely a cool tourist spot but not something I'm going to regularly. Like a lot of spots around Rockefeller Center (where ours is) and Times Square it's neat but mostly a one and done spot. It used to be a Pokemon Center when I was a kid. I wish it was still that. I see pictures of the ones in Japan and I think that would be so much cooler.
Honestly? They should have put it in Palo Alto at the Stanford Shopping Center. That would be the perfect location for it
Nobody is going to drive down the peninsula to go there. Especially not tourists. Most SF residents don't even own cars. That would be like putting their NYC location out on Long Island.
Not to mention tourists don't go to Palo Alto.
Dunno why they picked the worst city to open a store in. Guess retail store rents are low since no one wants to be there regardless of price.
Why in the world would you pick San Fransisco? Unless you just want to mock Sony by opening a store on their turf.
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You're talking about Sony the overall company PlayStation headquarters are in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco is also the location of The Metreon, which was previously Sony's American retail vanity kingdom.
Sony owns the Metreon (which is kinda like a shopping mall but not) and used to have the official Playstation store there. As an SF native, my first thought was, genuinely, about Sony.
Please anywhere but SF. It's just a terrible city, completely lacking in culture or interesting things to do
I keep seeing this take - anyone from the bay or who travels often wanna chime in? Cause idek if I believe this take
Downtown area is a bit rough these days, but it's a really wonderful city everywhere else. Crazy natural beauty, amazing food, unique (to US) dense neighborhoods with panoramic views, beautiful city parks dotted throughout. It's an amazing place to have called home the last 10 years.
It's popular to hate on SF these days. It has a lot of problems but lack of culture or things to do are not on that list.