Nintendo Museum

photo by Nagomijirap · CC BY-SA 4.0

You do not buy a ticket: you win one in a draw, and only those who are drawn know the price.

You only get in if the draw has gone your way, in the former Uji Ogura plant where Nintendo printed playing cards and later made cartridges. Inside, consoles and games are lined up by date; in the workshop you make your own deck of hanafuda, the Japanese cards with twelve floral suits that the company started with.

Nintendo's corporate museum, opened in 2024 inside the former Uji Ogura plant, south of Kyoto. It displays the company's products in chronological order, from traditional playing cards to recent consoles, and has building workshops alongside the exhibition. It is the first site where the company opens its own product archive to the public.

ℹ️ You do not just turn up at the gate: you enter a draw on the official site, with a Nintendo account, which is free. The page says that you pay only if you are drawn, by credit card, and the price does not appear beforehand. Open 10:00–20:00, closed on Tuesdays (the following Wednesday if the Tuesday is a public holiday) and from 30 December to 3 January. Five minutes’ walk from the east exit of Kintetsu Ogura Station, eight from the north exit of the JR station. ⚠️ You do not build a day of your trip around a place where entry is a lottery: you decide once the draw is done.

🚉 Ogura · 4 min walk

Sources: museum.nintendo.com

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