Few people have influenced global pop culture as much as the creator of Mario and Zelda, widely considered the father of modern gaming. But when you have changed the world, what comes next?
You can tell a Nintendo game not just from its feel – the satisfying swish of Link’s sword in the Zelda games, the weight of Mario’s jump – but by its look. They are bright, energetic, characterful. In Splatoon, the game-maker’s most recent hit series, the shooter is reimagined as teams of transforming squids splattering arenas in glossy paint. Mario’s red cap and blue overalls, originally designed to create a recognisable character with just a few pixels for 1981’s arcade hit Donkey Kong, is now a stylistic signature – Nintendo’s logo is the same shade of red. When you look into the company’s department store outlets in Japan, a dozen colourful characters stare back at you from reams of merch: Animal Crossing cookware, Super Mario gloves, Zelda wallets and ties, Pikmin vases.
Next to the riot of colour that characterises its most famous games, Nintendo’s HQ is conspicuously bland: two mid-rise white buildings in close proximity a half-hour’s walk from Kyoto’s central station, a grey Nintendo logo outside each. A small basket of Mario plush toys on the receptionist’s desk is the only clue as to what’s made in this building. Perhaps it’s more interesting-looking upstairs, but that’s a mystery to anyone who doesn’t work here. As I am firmly but politely told when I ask if there’s any chance of a tour, nobody goes up there.
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