Nintendo, the Japanese video game giant, announced on Tuesday the opening in December of an area dedicated to its famous gorilla Donkey Kong at the Universal Studios amusement park in Japan. This is a new step in its expansion strategy beyond consoles.
This new area, which will open its doors on December 11, will be an extension of the “Super Nintendo World” area opened in 2020, almost doubling the area dedicated to the brand on site.
In this jungle world, visitors will be able to discover attractions such as a mine cart traveling inside a gigantic “golden temple” or participate in conga duels.
Universal Studios Japan attracted 16 million visitors last year, making it the third most visited theme park in the world, according to consulting firm Aecom.
Derivative products
“Donkey Kong made its debut over 40 years ago in the first arcade game I created,” recalled Shigeru Miyamoto, father of many of Nintendo’s flagship characters, in a video posted online Tuesday. “He started as a 2D pixel character […] and, now, its world has come to life and can be experienced by visitors,” he added.
This park is part of a strategic shift launched by Nintendo around ten years ago in order to increase the visibility of its characters, via films or stores selling derivative products.
Donkey Kong was born from a failure, when, in the early 1980s, Nintendo urgently had to create a new game to reconvert thousands of the company’s arcade machines which had been a commercial flop in the United States.
Shigeru Miyamoto, then a young creator, first imagined a game in the world of Popeye, but for legal reasons had to transform his characters: this was the birth of “Donkey Kong”, whose arcade machine was put on sale in July 1981.
The character controlled by the player is not the famous gorilla but a little jumping man who does not yet have a name. He will become Mario, the most famous plumber in the world, eventually stealing the spotlight from Donkey Kong.
The red-tie gorilla, however, will establish itself as an essential Nintendo character, present in numerous titles, such as “Mario Kart” or “Super Smash Bros.”, in addition to his own adventures.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
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