Nintendo’s new museum has gigantic controllers & they actually work

Nintendo gave a sneak peek at the upcoming Nintendo Museum with its giant versions of iconic controllers that you can actually play with.

Nintendo changed things up a bit with a new type of Direct. Instead of revealing new games or the Switch successor, they dedicated an entire presentation to its upcoming Nintendo Museum.

There, giant replicas of their past controllers, from the Famicom to the Wii, are on display, and better yet — they can be used to play actual games.

The Direct, shared online on August 19, was hosted by Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto himself, who showed off the retro-gaming paradise.

In the Direct, Miyamoto plays a huge replica of a Famicom (Japanese NES) gamepad, with a museum staff member. With a display running a timer on the wall, Miyamoto covered the d-pad, while the staff member handled the huge A and B buttons.

Despite being monumentally larger than the real thing, Miyamoto was still able to blast through the first stage of Super Mario Bros with time to spare. Even using Mario’s dash to hit the top of the flag pole at the end.

“By talking to each other as you work together on the controls, you’ll have a completely different experience,” Miyamoto explains in the short video.

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As seen in the footage, the Famicom isn’t the only classic Nintendo console to get the giant controller treatment.

Behind Miyamoto, a whole display of giant playable controllers is on display — from a huge Nintendo 64 gamepad to a real-life working giant Wiimote.

Miyamoto states in the footage that at the Museum, you can play the Super Famicom (SNES), N64, and Wii games with “big controllers.”

The Nintendo Museum also has a ton of “interactive experiences” where you can get hands-on experience with past Nintendo tech.

One activity called the “Zapper & Scope SP” lets museum attendees use recreations of the classic NES Zapper and SuperScope accessories.

There, up to 13 people can shoot classic bad guys from the Super Mario series to rank up a high score, in a homage to The Laser Clay commercial shooting galleries Nintendo pioneered in bowling alleys in the 1970s.

If you want to check out the interactive displays, and giant controller tech for yourself, the Nintendo Museum opens on October 2, 2024, in Kyoto, Japan. You can currently reserve tickets on the official museum website.