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Inside the New Nintendo New York Store

 & Jordan Minor Principal Writer, Software

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For the past month, Nintendo fans in New York have been cut off from their Mario Mecca as the flagship Nintendo World Store at Rockefeller Center closed down for renovations. But the wait is over and the store has finally reopened as the rebranded Nintendo New York.

PCMag was there to check it out at the ribbon-cutting ceremony complete with Nintendo executives and some famous Italian plumbers. Nintendo New York isn't too different from its previous incarnation. But on Friday, there was more fanfare than usual as devotees waited outside and Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario, took pictures with the press. But the store itself still feels pretty familiar. This isn't a bad thing. It remains a great place to play Nintendo games, buy Nintendo merchandise, and even take a peek at Nintendo's history. Just don't expect a radical overhaul if you make the trek yourself.

That said, the changes we did notice are definitely changes for the better. The new floor plan makes navigation much easier while still packing in as many, if not more, demo stations and toy piles. As we walked from the first to the second floor, and saw the giant flagpole statue spanning the height of the store, we were greeted with tables of Wii Us and New Nintendo 3DSs running the latest games like Xenoblade Chronicles X and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam.

The most prominent new addition, though, is the wall-sized video screen. It was showing footage of the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD. In the future, it will be used for community events like a Pokken Tournament competition.

Beyond trying to sell you new things, Nintendo New York wants to remind you of old things. The store features classic Nintendo consoles, even the maligned Virtual Boy, inside glass cases. The Game Boy that survived a bombing during the Gulf War is still on display as well. A new museum piece that should excite retro gaming aficionados is a collection graph paper drawings of Super Mario Bros. levels sketched during the development of the original game. Nintendo showed some of these doodles while promoting Super Mario Maker, but they are even cooler in person.

This is poised to be a big year for Nintendo. Miitomo, its first smartphone app, is coming soon, and brand-new NX hardware perhaps isn't too far behind. Whatever Nintendo's future looks like, you'll be able to see it at Nintendo New York. Check out our trip in the video above.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.

About Our Expert

Jordan Minor

Jordan Minor

Principal Writer, Software

My PCMag career began in 2013 as an intern. Now, I'm a senior writer, using the skills I acquired at Northwestern University to write about dating apps, meal kits, programming software, website builders, video streaming services, and video games. I was previously a senior editor at Geek.com and have written for The A.V. Club, Kotaku, and Paste Magazine. I'm the author of the gaming history book Video Game of the Year: A Year-by-Year Guide to the Best, Boldest, and Most Bizarre Games from Every Year Since 1977, and the reason everything you know about Street Sharks is a lie.

The Technology I Use

I use the newest Android and iOS smartphones for testing, but I currently use an iPhone 14 as my personal phone. I just hate that we gave up headphone jacks.

I've always favored gaming laptops over desktops. On that note, I have a 16-inch HP Envy with an Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. No matter what machine I’m working on, an alarming amount of my personal and professional life revolves around cloud-synced Google Drive files.

For food subscriptions, my household sticks with CookUnity and HelloFresh for meals. Video streaming is a bit more complicated. While there are too many services to list, we're subscribed to most of the major ones. These days, I find myself drawn to HBO Max's movies and shows, as well as Peacock's reality trash.

I've been a lifelong Nintendo fan, and I sincerely believe the Nintendo Switch will go down as one of the best gaming consoles of all time. It has an unbelievable library of new and old games from Nintendo and third-party companies. The handheld/console hybrid approach makes playing games so much more flexible, a legacy that continues with the Nintendo Switch 2 and Valve’s Steam Deck.

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