(SOUNDBITE OF KOJI KONDO'S "GROUND THEME (FROM SUPER MARIO BROS)")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
You know that tune? I bet you do. It's the Super Mario Bros. theme. A Japanese company released the game nearly 40 years ago. Since then, Nintendo has become one of the world's most successful entertainment companies. And tomorrow, Nintendo will open a museum in Kyoto. NPR's Anthony Kuhn got an early tour.
(SOUNDBITE OF KING KYLE KYMERA'S "PRELUDE")
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Super Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong and other Nintendo characters have a new home in a former Nintendo factory. Visitors play Nintendo games on the first floor. They look at decades' worth of Nintendo consoles and toys on the second. Before the museum opens to the public, Nintendo invited reporters and gaming influencers for a preview. Eduardo Benvenuti is from Brazil, living in Canada. He has a YouTube site about video games.
EDUARDO BENVENUTI: You can see early Nintendo games from the '80s that look brand-new, in box. That's really hard to see. I'm very impressed with the prototypes they have here.
KUHN: The museum triggers nostalgia for old Nintendo products among fan boys and girls, including Junna Faley (ph), who posts on Instagram under the name nintendo.grl. Nintendo flew her in from London.
JUNNA FALEY: Anyone who grew up playing any type of Nintendo game or console or anyone who had that in their childhood - they would definitely become emotional, having a look at everything here. It's just like - it just reminds me of good times.
KUHN: Nintendo got its start in 1889, making Japanese hanafuda playing cards. Their roots as a toymaker means their games focus less on cutting-edge hardware and more on gameplay and fun. But on another level, opening a museum is out of character for Nintendo. The company seldom explains itself, preferring instead to let its products speak for themselves. Nintendo did not allow any of its employees to speak on tape about the museum. Akihiro Saito, a professor at Asia University in Tokyo, says Nintendo's silence partly reflects the culture of Kyoto, Japan's cultural and former imperial capital.
AKIHIRO SAITO: (Through interpreter) The nobility of Kyoto thought that only educated people could understand their culture. It was not something that just anyone could grasp.
KUHN: He says Nintendo's tight lips are shared by Kyoto's master craftsmen, who focus on making things, not explaining them. He says both Nintendo's games and the museum also reflect omotenashi, Japan's ideal of hospitality and creating a perfect experience for the guest or customer in an understated way.
SAITO: (Through interpreter) This is the know-how of omotenashi - providing the right help and gently teaching without being pushy.
KUHN: Saito says people should see Nintendo's games and its museum as exhibitions of Japanese culture, in which words are simplified, as in haiku poetry, and movement is stylized, like noh drama. This culture, he argues, is at the heart of Nintendo games' global attraction.
SAITO: (Through interpreter) In the end, everyone mistakenly believes that they play Nintendo games because they want to. But the games themselves are designed to make people want to play.
KUHN: Saito knows Nintendo intimately. He helped direct Nintendo's Pokemon game. Pokemon is, by some estimates, the world's most lucrative media franchise. The Nintendo Museum is opening as the company prepares to transition to a new generation of leaders. It's preparing to announce a new gaming platform next year, and it's introducing its familiar game characters to new customers by expanding into movies, stores and theme parks.
(SOUNDBITE OF KOJI KONDO'S "GROUND THEME (FROM SUPER MARIO BROS)")
KUHN: Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Kyoto.
(SOUNDBITE OF LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA'S "SUPER MARIO BROS: THEME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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