Nintendo has announced plans to open a new official store in Fukuoka, Japan at the end of 2025.
Nintendo Fukuoka will be the company’s fourth official store in Japan, joining Nintendo Tokyo, Nintendo Osaka, and Nintendo Kyoto. However, unlike the other stores, Nintendo Fukuoka is the first not located on Honshu (Japan’s biggest main island). Instead, it is in Fukuoka City on Japan’s southernmost main island of Kyushu.
Japanese reactions to the news of Nintendo Fukuoka’s opening on X included many congratulatory messages as well as hopes that there will eventually be official Nintendo stores located throughout the country. Quite a few commenters added the opinion that Sapporo (the biggest city on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido) would be the next logical place in Japan for Nintendo to set up shop.
However, not everyone was happy. Many commenters were disappointed that Nintendo has seemingly skipped over Nagoya. Located in central Japan, Nagoya is the capital of Aichi prefecture and a major manufacturing hub. Despite being the fourth biggest city in Japan, it suffers from a rumor that it is “boring.” This perception was driven into the spotlight in 2016, in a survey of Japan’s eight biggest cities, in which residents were asked to rank the cities in order of how attractive they were to travellers. In a show of local patriotism, most citizens ranked their own city as the best, except for residents of Nagoya who placed it third after Tokyo and Kyoto. Amusingly, the survey was conducted by Nagoya’s government.
Nagoya also has the misfortune to be located between Tokyo and Osaka, meaning that many events and tours skip right over it. The clip from the anime Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikke below explains this trend in more detail.
So, “Nagoya skipping” is a phenomenon that Nagoya natives and residents seem to be quite conscious of, which likely explains the sheer amount of comments voicing concern about Nintendo not opening a store there. Incidentally, Nagoya has been in the news recently, as a new 17,000-person arena is set to open there in July. City officials and news broadcasts have been voicing hopes that this new attraction will prevent the “Nagoya skipping” trend (source: Chukyo TV).
As for Nintendo Fukuoka, the new store will be located in a shopping mall within Kyushu’s biggest major railway station, Hakata Station, which is connected by bullet train to Japan’s largest island of Honshu, and by plane to Fukuoka Airport. With Nintendo Fukuoka being located in such a transport hub, this will provide people living in the surrounding prefectures with a much easier way to get their Mario fix. Also, since pandemic restrictions lifted, the number of inbound tourists visiting Fukuoka has been on the increase (with visitors from nearby South Korea making up the majority), and is predicted to rise further (source: Fukuoka Prefectural Government).
Nintendo’s official stores not only sell Switch consoles, games, accessories and all manner of Nintendo merch, but they also host events and hands-on previews with new titles. It seems likely that Nintendo Fukuoka will play a role in promoting the upcoming Switch 2 and getting it into the hands of more customers.
In the U.S., last week Nintendo opened its first West Coast store, Nintendo San Francisco. IGN toured the store and even interviewed Nintendo of America boss Doug Bowser to find out more.
Photo by PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
