So, as many people probably know, Nintendo NYC, previously the Nintendo World Store, reopened yesterday after a month of renovations. They’re doing an event for the reopening this weekend and I made sure to go yesterday for the first day or it which… may have not been in my best interests.
The store itself looks great. Despite being the same squarefoot, they managed to make it look a lot roomier and with so many things on wheels, I’m guessing it will be easier to move things around. I feel like how things are organized now will make it easier to find stuff as well.
While Press and People with young kids were allowed in at 9AM (to cupcakes and hot drinks while everyone outside was freezing–I feel especially bad for people in the front who had to watch food when many of them were starving due to having been there from as early as Thursday morning), everyone else had to wait until noon at the earliest. Despite that, I tried to take some nice photos from outside:
The Golden Mario at the corner of the entrances–I wonder if it will be a permanent addition or be switched out from time to time for events. I feel like a lot of choices in the store were made for easy switching though.
The familiar screens are still along the front wall and look nice:
And the backs of the various demo stations on the first floor:
Also, these were the press-cupcakes which a few people first got excited for thinking they were for everyone, but ended up just being for press:
Now, before we get into interior pictures, I want to talk more about the opening event itself. We ended up getting there between 7AM and 8AM and were right around the corner. When the line was condensed a bit about 11:30AM, we ended up being about 80% down the first block. We’ve been down that far before for the Black & White 2 event. It took 30-40 minutes tops that day and everyone on the line was given a scarf while we waited.
This time? It took us over 3 hours to get in. People were barely being let in, the lines itself took roughly 40 minutes (and there weren’t even that many people–I’m not sure what the delay was), the autograph wristbands were gone nearly instantly. The Splatoon Posters and Lanyards were gone shortly after we went in. The line was all the way around the block and over to the next. There were at least several hundred people on line. The frustrating part is a lot of this could’ve been subsided if things were more prepared (and there really were way too few Splatoon posters and Lanyards–rather than making it a three day thing, it may have been better to have all three posters for people to pick from). The special shirts were only available in Small hours after we left and have since sold out earlier today.
Fates Special Editions also were gone shortly after we got there, though, we already had a copy preordered so we didn’t need to pick one up there. So many people came just for Fates, the autograph signing, and/or the Splatoon Poster and actually -mentioning when these things sold out- probably would have helped a lot with the disappointment some fans felt. Not to mention the running out of the Splatoon Posters and Lanyards were really silly and besides the fact that there should have been much more of them, it would’ve been a lot better to actually hand those out to everyone who was waiting in line. It would’ve given people something to be excited about rather than freezing and hoping there could be something by the time they got into the store.
Back to the interior, I want to show one of my favorite aspects of the redesign which is the giant flagpole in the center of the staircase with Mario at the top:
(photo from NintendoNYC’s own website as we were unable to get a picture with all the crowds)
I do feel the event was poorly done and makes me worried for next weeks. There just needs to be better crowd control. Like I said, the overall design is great. My only mixed feeling is with the big screen as I feel that could’ve been put into other things rather than just one big gameplay screen–but it’s probably a good way for people to try out upcoming games.
As a note, they ended up giving out some Fire Emblem: Fates posters after running out of Lanyards and Splatoon posters (Though, I don’t believe too many as I believe they were supposed to be for those picking up the game). Besides the two shirts and retrospective coins, we got a few other things as well:
With that out of the way, onto some of our own interior & display pictures!
