When the news first broke about the ‘Nintendo Experience’ – I can honestly say I was surprised. Nintendo Australia actually trying something like the Nintendo World Store in the US. Granted, that’s not exactly what the NE is, but it’s still a nice first step. It’s the first of it’s kinda in Australia, and great to see it debut right here in Melbourne.
The extent of my experiences with the Nintendo experience range from attending a party prior (thanks to Will from Aussie Nintendo) and actually showing up on Day 1. The party itself was kinda cool – I mean, being one of the first in a brand new gaming retail endeavour, and the first in Australia? You can’t say no to that. But otherwise – unless if you were one of the VIP entrants (that weren’t media or an executive in some way), you didn’t really get much out of it. It was also really easy to tell who was whom. The executives were obvious in their suits. The media and VIP guests were easily recognizable in their casual clothes. The cosplayers were also easily recognizable in their cosplays.
Yes. I’m serious about that.
Aside from that, props to Nintendo for giving the VIP winners a copy of Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City. And with the Wii Speak peripheral also! Say what you will about Animal Crossing, it’s still pretty cool of Nintendo to actually give away a $130 bundle. Here’s hoping they weren’t planning to transfer their DS characters over...
The next day was the official launch of the store, and my god was it insane. I got there at around 10am (some of the forumites and I had agreed to do some shopping), and already there was a decent queue. When I came back around 10:30, the line had doubled. When I returned at 11:50am to do a podcast, they had only let in 100 people into the actual store. And there was an even bigger line outside. I’d liken it to something like a midnight launch to an upcoming videogame. Personally, I’d never experienced something quite like this.
And then people were being let in...
It was probably a smart idea for Nintendo to advertise the fact that the first 100 entrants to the Experience got a Wii or DS game (the visitors weren’t given a choice). It definitely attracted a hell of a lot of people – which is easily what Nintendo wanted. I honestly bet that they weren’t expecting THAT much of a turn out - just for people to get a copy of Wii Music or a Petz game. But wow, were people happy to get a copy of said game. I’ve heard stories about people getting there at MIDNIGHT for this. Hell, two of the forumites from the Level 3 boards got there are 8:30 in the morning for this. I guess you really can’t argue with the power of a free game – even if it is a bloody Petz game.
The real reason that Jason and I were there was to record a podcast. It was an interesting scenario, because this was only our second live interview based podcast (our first being the eGames one), and everything just fell into place. Really, the only interviews that we had established beforehand were with Kristy and Sandra – the Daisy and Peach cosplayers (who were big Level 3 fans). Everything just fell into place.
By far the most interesting interviews that we did were with Heather Murphy (the head of Public Relations for Nintendo AU) and Debra Mitchell (the head of Public Relations for EB Games Australia). What made this interview interesting was the method we recorded in. You see – we had decided early on that it was going to be really difficult to record using the in-built mic on a Mac Book Pro. I mean, you try doing that. So we decided to bring some mics. Jason couldn’t find his Guitar Hero World Tour mic, and we had no other USB mics on us, so I decided to bring my Singstar mics.
When we got the mics out, this made Heather extremely adamant not to be seen with them. I mean, YOU try explaining to the head of Nintendo PR that the only way that we can interview you and get your voice correct is by using microphones branded by one of your competitors. After explaining to Heather and Debra that it was only audio – there wouldn’t be any video/imagery taken, did the interview commence. As a joke, I tried to take a picture – but she didn’t see that as a joke. Though Jason did pass off the whole Singstar thing as a joke, which was kinda cool.
Interviewing Kristy and Sandra was also rad. What struck me about the girls were just how hardcore they were into Nintendo and Japanese culture. Example – I took a picture of them, and for some stupid reason, shouted out “Very Kawaii” (Japanese for cute). Their respose? “KAWAII DESU NE!” (or something to that effect, I can’t recall precisely). But just how hardcore Nintenphiles these girls were just completely stunned me. For instance, Alioth (one of the Level 3 fourmites) had brought in a Game Boy Advance SP with the Game Boy Camera add-on. Kristy noticed this, and responded that she actually had the Game Boy Printer companion add-on WITH HER. Then both Sandra and Krirsty also brought up how awesome “Dot Matrix” was – which was how the original Game Boy displayed colours. That I can remember vividly.
Otherwise, it was an interesting experience (god, I should really stop using that term). Meeting up with all these people and having a podcast that just fell into place (so to speak), was something awesome. With plans for Nintendo to potentially open up more of these stores in other EB’s in Victoria (and eventually other states), there really does seem to be no stopping Nintendo. It seems like the start of a beautiful friendship....
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