Nintendo’s Original Headquarters is Now a Sophisticated Hotel

A major piece of video game history got a makeover: Nintendo’s original Kyoto headquarters have become a new hotel.

The Marufukuro is housed in the same building in which Nintendo was founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi. According to Marufukuro’s official site, the hotel is “a nod to a nostalgic and timeless aesthetic of the original building” and “brings an old-time stately ambience and a modern approach together.”

Nintendo was initially known as Nintendo Koppai until 1933, when it changed its name to Yamauchi Nintendo and shifted production from hanafuda cards to western playing cards. As Nintendo expanded, it created its own distribution firm called Marufuku (the inspiration for the hotel’s name) to help sell their playing cards at a larger scale. In 1959, the company then moved to a larger building and changed its name yet again to Nintendo Playing Card Company.

Nintendo’s former headquarters sat empty since the building was vacated in 1959, until Plan See Do, a Japanese company which specializes in renovating old buildings, took on the task of giving it a new lease on life.

The renovation maintained many of the building’s original architectural details inside and out, including lighting, fireplaces, the original external facade, and iron window guards which feature the Marufuku logo and patterns seen on Nintendo’s early playing cards. The all-inclusive experience (dinner, breakfast, minibar, and drinks and light meals in the lounge) comes with a hefty price tag of around 100,000 yen (or $875.12). Despite the cost, many dates are already booked solid.

What do you think of the renovation and repurposing of Nintendo’s original headquarters? Would you book a stay here despite the price? Let us know below.

Source: SoraNews24