NintendoThe original headquarters building is currently undergoing renovation after years of being largely abandoned. But come April, the building will reopen as a hotel.
It wouldn’t be a Nintendo themed hotel – at least, not the Nintendo we know and love today. Its walls won’t be covered with Marios and you won’t be greeted by Samus upon opening its double doors. It would be a nice hotel in Kyoto.
“Kagiyacho, Kyoto – dates back to 1889, there was Nintendo’s first headquarters,” reads hotel information website. “Coming up in 2022, this landmark is once again being revived, transformed into a brand new hotel ‘Marufukuro.'”
The building has remained in the possession of the Yamauchi family since Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo in 1889. The project to convert it into a hotel is originally announced back in 2020 with plans to open in 2021, but then COVID happened and everything was delayed.
It’s a myth to think how far Nintendo has come in 130 years. Initially, the company started selling playing cards – a product they specialized in trading for decades. It was only in the late 60s that Nintendo developed into classic board games such as chess, Go and mahjong, and then video games in the 1970s. Then Famicom in 1983 and The original Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985.
But go back to the beginning and those are just cards sold at a wood store. That store expanded in 1933 to include a brick building, and then Nintendo moved into a brand new headquarters in 1959. After Nintendo really started with video games, the company moved to an even larger building today, despite the numerous other Nintendo offices found around the world.
Original wood shop was demolished in 2004, but the brick building attached to it remains. Hotel Marufukuro will open in April with 20 rooms, a restaurant, a bar and a gym. You can make a reservation at the hotel’s website here. And while you won’t find Mario, you will at least see a plaque on the wall marking the hotel as Nintendo’s birthplace.
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https://www.thegamer.com/nintendo-original-headquarters-hotel/ Nintendo headquarters converted into hotel