Universal Parks & Resorts has partnered with Nintendo in order to develop new theme park attractions based upon Nintendo’s most popular video game franchises.
While our dream of a Nintendo-based theme park has yet to be realized, this is as close as we’ve come in the West to a resort based upon the iconic gaming company. Universal made a statement regarding the new partnership in a press release, with it revealing that the company was looking to “create spectacular, dedicated experiences based on Nintendo’s wildly popular games, characters and worlds.”
With Universal having theme parks in California, Florida, Osaka and Singapore, it will mark the first time Nintendo-themed attractions have made their way to a US resort. Given the press statement, it’s looking likely that the attractions will be based upon Nintendo’s most popular franchises such as The Legend of Zelda and Mario, with Universal stating that they will be “major” additions to their existing theme parks.
Japan’s PokePark is the closest we’ve come so far to getting a Nintendo theme park.
So essentially it’ll be Nintendo Land but in real life, with it hopefully being more consistently entertaining than the Wii U minigame collection. Nintendo previously made clear its desire to develop a Nintendo theme park, with president Satoru Iwata saying back in 2010: “Countless times, the idea of a theme park has been debated and discussed, and there have been rumors in various forms.”
While the prospect of Nintendo-themed attractions is certainly an exciting one, hopefully this doesn’t mean that we won’t see a dedicated Nintendo theme park in the future. If the Nintendo attractions in the Universal resorts prove to be popular enough, maybe this will convince Iwata and the rest of the team at the gaming giant to finally create their own.
