I’ve just come back from a very enjoyable week visiting New York. It was my first trip to the Big Apple, and it was a pleasant surprise to come across the Nintendo World Store in Rockefeller Plaza, since I had never heard of it before now.

The store is on two floors, and feels spacious despite not actually being all that big. It also felt quite empty at first, but then I’m used to the tiny branch of Game here in my home town in the UK which is always packed solid at the weekend! The first thing that greets you upon entering the store is a glass display cabinet, which contained some DS and Gameboy Micro consoles the likes of which you wouldn’t normally see. The old Game ‘n’ Watch styled Gameboy Micro was fun, and there were several DS decorated with hundreds of coloured crystals in some very interesting patterns.

The rest of the ground floor housed a gaming bar of Gameboys, and a set of 8 DS which were set up for some wireless network play, and a wide selection of DS and Gameboy titles for sale. There was also a large contingent of Pokemon goods available, including figures and playing cards.

Upstairs you could find Gamecube games and demo pods, with futuristic egg shaped seats which enclosed the player and featured a good set of speakers. The consoles were connected up to some flat screen TVs which showed off the games to good effect. There was also a wide selection of Nintendo themed T-Shirts and other clothing for sale, including a rather nice NES pad wooly hat, many of which are exclusive items to the store.

There was also another set of glass display cabinets, housing a limited edition Zelda Gameboy SP signed by Mr. Miyamoto. Unfortunately the store had already sold out of these, so I’ve no idea how much they were going for. There was a display of various consoles released by Nintendo over the years, but by far the most interesting was the AVS. This was a prototype for the NES which was actually a full home computer. It was only ever shown once, at the Las Vegas CES show in 1985, and seemed amazingly ahead of it’s time with features such as a music keyboard and even wireless control pads!

Overall, I enjoyed my visit, but I was surprised at how devoid of customers it was, since I had the entire store pretty much to myself. OK, it was a Friday morning, but even so you would have expected it to be a bit more packed. Not that I’m complaining, since it allowed me to take my time exploring the shop. If you’re ever in the area, it’s worth a look, though I’d question whether it’s worth going out of your way to visit. If you want to find out more, check out the stores website.

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