Super Nintendo World is going to be the newest attraction to be added to Universal Studios Theme Park… in Japan.
To be completed in 2020, the Nintendo themed park attraction will feature a lot of rides, retail and other things mostly based around Nintendo’s best cash cow, Mario. You can see the trailer for some of what is going to be in-store for this Universal Studios attraction in the trailer below.
“The immersive experiences will include major attractions at Universal’s theme parks and will feature Nintendo’s most famous characters and games,” an official release stated last year. It added that Universal theme parks will create “spectacular, dedicated experiences based on Nintendo’s wildly popular games, characters and worlds.”
One of the things that was confirmed was that Super Nintendo World will have a dedicated ride based around the extremely popular Mario Kart series. It’s not known if this will be a 3D ride, a static ride or a special changeable racetrack that people will be able to drive around in go-karts.
Ground was broken today for the forty billion yen (US$351 million) attraction which featured a very “interesting” pantomime of Mario running his way to the Universal Studios attraction. Afterwards Universal Studios Japan CEO J.L. Bonnier spoke about Super Nintendo World’s “complete immersive experience,” which is set to include rides, restaurants and retail opportunities. It’s important to mention that he gave his rehearsed speech about the attraction while wearing an oversized Mario hat and gloves — as did the rest of the gathered speakers (Mark Woodbury, vice chairman of Universal Parks and Resorts & Shigeru Miyamoto). The raw footage of the event, which includes some miscues during the Mario Pantomime can be viewed here.
Super Nintendo World is set to open in 2020 at Universal Studios Japan, which has housed other video game related attractions like Biohazard: The Real (Resident Evil to the West) and Monster Hunter. This is the first time that a dedicated portion of the theme park is going to house a long term video game based attraction… Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go sell body parts on the black market to attend this attraction in 2.5 years time.
