Grand Opening Friday February 17 2023
Soft Opening / Technical Rehearsals started 13 January 2023
From the Universal Studios Hollywood website, 2022:
“Power up and immerse yourself with thrills the whole family can enjoy at SUPER NINTENDO WORLD™, opening early 2023. Let loose in this incredible, colorful land of play featuring the groundbreaking ride, Mario Kart™: Bowser’s Challenge, along with imaginative interactive areas, themed shopping and dining.”
Nintendo, 2016:
“You will enter an entire realm filled with iconic Nintendo excitement, gameplay, heroes and villains. All of the adventure, fun and whimsy you experience through a screen will now be all around you—in breathtakingly authentic ways.”
Super Nintendo World logo (Japan Park)
First announced in May 2015, this is huge news for Universal theme park fans. The first Nintendo theme park, Super Nintendo World, will open at Universal Studios Japan in time for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. The Hollywood and Orlando Universal parks will follow. Construction looks almost complete at Universal Studios Hollywood, and is underway at Universal Orlando.
The collaboration between Nintendo and Universal Parks and Resorts will be the next big thing in Universal Parks, and is expected to have a similar effect to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter openings in recent years. It is also designed to give visitors to California and Florida another reason to visit Universal, challenging Disney’s Star Wars Land openings.
Nintendo is a huge player in video games, and has been at the top of the game since 1972. Their first foray into video gaming was in a partnership with Magnavox, making light guns for their early consoles. As time went on, they produced their own home video console (Color TV Game 6 and Color TV Game 15 in 1977). In 1981, the hugely popular Donkey Kong was released to arcades, featuring a plumber called Mario, and the eponymous ape.
Read Press Releases about the attractions
Attractions
The entrance to the fully themed area is through a green ‘pipe’ tunnel
Mario Kart: Bowsers Challenge
Toadstool Cafe
Interactive Elements
Grand Opening Event – Friday February 17 2023
Pre-Opening Speculation
It’s thought part of the attraction could be an immersive jungle land, based on Donkey Kong. It could feature a mine-cart rollercoaster-type attraction with a ‘fake’ ride track which makes it seem as though the ride vehicle is leaping across broken track gaps.
Nintendo have confirmed that elements of the attractions will interact with currently available Nintendo portable gaming platforms.
The video below features some great details on the (speculations about) planned attractions:
In 2017, a video rendering of the Japan version was released:
Original Location Speculation (October 2018)
Originally subject to speculation, the location is now confirmed to be on the Lower Lot, in the area formerly occupied by The Phantom Stage 28 along with a row of 4 demolished soundstages (Stages 22, 23, 24 and 25), used for projects as diverse as To Catch A Thief, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Sting, Murder She Wrote, Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jarhead, Superstore (Stages 22 & 23), and the home of the original CSI series for many years.
It was previously thought that the site of the Revenge of the Mummy attraction would be used, along with adjacent underused soundstages.
As the area in in Lower Lot of the theme park is part of the film studio, it’s unlikely to include any exterior attractions. This will give the designers full control of lighting and audio and will enable a fully immersive set of attractions.
There will be a themed retail / food area, along with at least two attractions. Past experience suggests at least one of these will be a simulator-type ride, but it would be nice to see Universal Creative looking beyond this type of technology. It could be exploring new technological possibilities of virtual reality and/or augmented reality.
It’s also expected there will be some presence of Nintendo gaming systems or arcade games at the exit to the attractions.