As frequent readers of this blog will know, Nintendo has a history that is over 120 years long. A past that deserves to be shown.
There are a number of museums around the world that depict the history of video games in general, including Nintendo's role in this. But there is no place where the public is presented the full history of Nintendo, including their days as maker of cards and toys. The only permanent exhibition that I am aware of, is the one on the second floor of
Nintendo World in New York. This includes some nice items, but it is quite small and does not really do the rich history justice.
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| Nintendo World, New York |
These showcases at Nintendo's American flagship store, though modest in scale, are even an exception for this company, as they usually do not dwell too much on their (pre video game) past. They rather focus on the future and the latest, newest game systems and games.
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| Modest Nintendo history exhibit at Nintendo World, New York |
The
company history page on Nintendo's US website even starts in 1985, with the NES! Completely skipping the first hundred year since the company started in 1889. A period, admittedly, when the focus was primarily on the Japanese home market. For that matter, the Japanese site
shows the full history, but with very short statements only and without any illustrations.
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| According to nintendo.com nothing of note happened before 1985... |
In recent years, the
Iwata Asks series of interviewes have given glimpses into Nintendo's past. But overall, Nintendo provides the general public very limited options to see all the great toys and games that they produced over the course of their long history.
Up until now there has only been a single event in the world that presented Nintendo's past in its full breadth. This was a temporary exhibition that was held in 2007, in a department store in Osaka, close to Nintendo's Kyoto homebase.
The event was called "Nintendo Museum" (ニンテンドー ミュージアム), and Isao Yamazaki, who was
featured on this blog in a recent Meet the Collectors episode, was involved in its inception. The items on display also stemmed for a large part from his collection.
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| The 2007 Nintendo Museum exhibition in Osaka lasted only eleven days |
In the interview below, Isao relates how this unique one-off event came about. Hearing his tale and seeing the pictures from this exhibition, I really hope a simliar event will happen again sometime in the future.
