Nintendo partnering with Universal to make attractions.

hopemax

hopemax

Well-Known Member
I'm going to have to learn the Pokemon characters besides Pikachu now, aren't I.

I never really did the whole video game thing, growing up. My parents bought me the Atari, and since I didn't play with it "enough" I wasn't allowed into the Nintendo world much. Mario at my cousin's house, and years after the fact, owned the original system to play Mario games, the TMNT game, and a few others. While dating, my husband would rent a SuperNintendo so we could play MarioKart (because he thought my childhood in this regard was lacking), and we had a N64 and a Wii, but not too many games, mostly Mario and the LEGO games for the Wii. I've never played Zelda, although I watched my Husband play a little of the original, and the one for the Wii.

But I recognize how huge of a win this is, in the greater landscape. And I'm feeling a little sad that I can't experience the "through the moon excitement," that others must be feeling. Especially, considering Universal's execution of recent projects. Anything you can imagine is possible, although, probably not probable, but the faith that whatever is built will be worth your time to experience.
 
S

Siren

Well-Known Member
All of the media outlets have pick up on this story, I just saw it on my local news today!

This is from USA Today.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/05/07/nintendo-universal-theme-parks/70934606/

As for the deal between Nintendo and Universal, more details on "the immersive experiences ... will be announced in the future," the companies said in a short news release. "Nintendo has created remarkable and imaginative worlds filled with captivating stories and beloved characters. Now, for the first time, those stories and characters will be brought to life in entirely new ways – only at Universal theme parks," it said.

Sorry, but this sounds like it's a lot more than a little kiddie section for just for kids -- this is really a big deal. I just looked at the numbers and Universal seriously needs to go big with this.

kcl8ax.jpg

TV personality Kristin Cavallari attends Nintendo's celebration of the launch of Super Mario 3D Land at Siren Studios on November 3, 2011 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images for Nintendo)

Harry Potter has sold over 450 million books. In contrast, Nintendo has sold over 684 million game consoles, not to mention, the number of games sold in the hundreds of millions, so this is way bigger than Harry Potter.

Overall, Nintendo is the number #1 game console manufacturer.

Total 'Home & Handheld' console sales:
  • Nintendo - 683.94 million
  • Sony - 443.69 million
  • Microsoft - 118 million
  • Sega - 87.5 million
  • Atari - 35.77 million
Nintendo has out sold Sony by over 240 million consoles! This is almost more than Sony, Microsoft, Sega and Atari combined!

The top twelve highest selling games of all times:
  1. Tetris - 2006 - Mobile - 100 million
  2. Wii Sports - 2006 - Wii - 82.54 million
  3. Grand Theft Auto V - 2013 - 45 million
  4. Super Mario Bros. - 1985 - Nintendo Entertainment System - 40.24 million
  5. Mario Kart Wii - 2008 - Wii -35.53 million
  6. Tetris - 1989 - Game Boy, Game Boy Color - 35 million
  7. Minecraft - 2009 - Windows, OS x, Linus, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Playstation 3, Playstation 4 - 34 million
  8. Wii Sports Resort - 2009 - Wii - 32.58 million
  9. New Super Mario Bros. - 2006 - Nintendo DS - 30.75 million
  10. Minecraft: Pocket Edition - 2011 - Mobile - 30 million
  11. Wii Play - 2006 - Wii - 28.82 million
  12. New Super Mario Bros. Wii - 2009 - Wii - 27.88 million
Eight of the top twelve selling video games of all time, belong to Nintendo -- which amounts to almost 70% of the list!

Nintendo Wii was revolutionary -- it redefined gaming. This game console is utilized in hospitals, retirement homes, schools, libraries, etc. Nintendo's brand and IP's are iconic.

This is such a huge honor for Universal, because Nintendo is super protective over their brand and IP. And, I totally forgot to give a shout out to Animal Crossing and Yoshi's Island!

As an aside, people totally love video games. I can't wait to see Pixels - when it comes out on home video.



The trailer is hilarious, I love the scenes with Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, lol.
 
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ssidiouss@mac.c

ssidiouss@mac.c

Well-Known Member
I would love:

1) Luigi Mansion ride that is set up like haunted mansion but also included some screens in the background where you could shoot boos while riding in toy story mania type vehicles. Exit to shop that has plush boo's.
2) Donkey Kong mine cart ride
3) Princess Peach Castle (meet and greets/character dinner)
4) Mario Kart racers ride
5) Pokemon interactive catch-them-all game throughout the land (similar to sorcerers of magic kingdom)
6) Mario Italian restaurant (character dinner)
7) Character meet and greets so everyone can hug Yoshi.. and Bowser

.. just to start
 
SosoDude

SosoDude

Well-Known Member
Man, I had hoped Disney would aquire the rights to Nintendo for years. Oh well. At least Universal will give us at minimum some decent attractions, if not something totaly amazing. And to top it all off, I bet we see Mario and Luigi at Uni months before we see anything Star Wars related in the World.
 
MerlinTheGoat

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
I'm sure only a small fraction of the IP's people have mentioned would make it (just Mario and Zelda for now), but there are a lot of ideas one can imagine regardless. Especially if the land is a big success and they choose to expand in the future.

- I'm guessing some sort of traditional Mario dark ride is planned. Maybe we'll ride on Yoshi's lol! I would assume that along with Zelda, this will probably be among the large and major rides. I wonder what games they're going to take ideas from.

- I agree with a Luigi's Mansion Haunted Mansion type ride. Perhaps a trackless ride, I don't think Disney has the sole rights to that sort of ride system.

- Kirby, haven't seen him mentioned in this topic (unless I missed it). This would fit a more young child friendly type of dark ride. There are a lot of cute colorful characters and whimsical environments. If they wanted an area dedicated to a younger crowd, you could also include Yoshi's Island in there as well.

- Star Fox could either be a simulator like Star Tours or some kind of roller coaster or Kuka Arm attraction of some sort. Something a bit more thrilling, though not TOO much so.

- Fzero would work well as a super fast paced launch type coaster through some futuristic city environments. This could be a more thrilling adult-centric ride. The N64 and Gamecube games were very fast paced and had inversions, good idea to base it off of those (GC version was particularly thrilling).

- Pikmin I think might make a better walk through type attraction than a ride, with some whimsical large scale environments given how small the characters are relative to their environments. Perhaps inspiration from the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground set. OR on the other end of the spectrum, you could do some kind of ride like Storybook Canal Boats and have miniature sets and characters.

- Metroid sad to say has seen better days, the last game was a critical bomb (rightfully so) and Nintendo doesn't seem eager to revisit it at the moment. It takes a lot of inspiration from the Alien franchise though. If they did make a ride about this, it wouldn't surprise me if they went with something similar to Men in Black.

- Zelda is a bit difficult to nail down what sort of ride system they should use. This one deserves something large scale and epic though like the classic Disney E tickets. There are quite a lot of different forms of transport used in the various games. Epona the horse is a commonly used one, though newer Zelda games have used giant birds and even a magical talking boat. There are also a number of different art styles used between the games as well. The more traditional style, the childlike chibi style used in Wind Waker, the darker and more adult style used in Twilight Princess and a hybrid cel shaded style used in Skyward Sword and the new upcoming Wii U title. There's a lot of ideas they could go with here. But I will say that I wouldn't want the ride to be 100% thrill ride. The series has a lot of slow, quiet and i'd even say spiritual moments that warrant some slower type scenes. So i'd want a ride that can go at a slower pace, but with moments where it could speed up in some situations.

- I am personally extremely familiar with Donkey Kong Country, so i'll go a little more in depth with what i'd expect from this franchise. The SNES, Wii and Wii U entries are some of my favorite games ever. Most people could probably guess what they'd likely do for a theme park attraction. The obvious choice here is a coaster based on the very memorable and popular mine cart levels. They're practically begging to be made into a ride, i'd say moreso than even other Nintendo games (it's impossible not to make the connection). There was a rumored Amber Mine cart coaster for a Jurassic Park expansion that didn't happen yet (supposedly with a thrill level comparable to Big Thunder) and this could provide a good supplement. Expanding upon the original mine cart levels from the SNES era, the newer DKC games on Wii and Wii U further expand the levels so that they weave in and out of different environments during the same level (so you might start in a mine but eventually end up outside in the jungle or on a beach or even sawmill). In the newest game on Wii U there's even a sawmill level that flips between being a mine cart ride AND a log flume (so they could even go with some sort of hybrid water coaster). Even my non-gamer mother is familiar enough with watching me play DKC to make the suggestion that the mine cart levels would make awesome rides.

It's too bad the Mother/Earthbound series didn't catch on to such an extent as the other IP's. It's really good (very silly and lighthearted), though it may not translate so well into ride form.
 
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LeRaposa

LeRaposa

Member
For Zelda I think the Wind Waker style might be best. Universal doesn't have any boat rides and I think going with the Wind Waker Hyrule would make for a nice change. Of course I just like boat rides and I like Wind Waker. Also, I totally had forgotten about Kirby. I hope King Dedede becomes a character because I would love have to my picture taken with him.
 
MerlinTheGoat

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
Yeah I brought up trackless because Seaworld used it and it must not be a Disney exclusive system. Trackless was just one suggestion, it's still a relatively unknown and intriguing ride system. Especially in the US. A regular dark ride could work of course. The trackless system has the potential for having unexpected turns, like if you see a ghost and the car suddenly turns to go in the other direction. Would fit Luigi's personality.

Are Disney the only ones allowed to use omnimovers by the way?
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
MerlinTheGoat said:
Yeah I brought up trackless because Seaworld used it and it must not be a Disney exclusive system. Trackless was just one suggestion, it's still a relatively unknown and intriguing ride system. Especially in the US. A regular dark ride could work of course. The trackless system has the potential for having unexpected turns, like if you see a ghost and the car suddenly turns to go in the other direction. Would fit Luigi's personality.

Are Disney the only ones allowed to use omnimovers by the way?
Click to expand...
Almost no ride system type in a general sense is exclusive to anyone. Patents are for specific means, not a general idea.
 
MerlinTheGoat

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
lazyboy97o said:
Almost no ride system type in a general sense is exclusive to anyone. Patents are for specific means, not a general idea.
Click to expand...
Yeah, i just can't think of any other non-Disney omnimover style rides off the top of my head. Maybe i'm drawing a blank and there really are some out there, but I don't know.
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
MerlinTheGoat said:
Yeah, i just can't think of any other non-Disney omnimover style rides off the top of my head. Maybe i'm drawing a blank and there really are some out there, but I don't know.
Click to expand...
They're not very popular in the U.S., but The Chocolate Tour at Hershey's Chocolate World would be one. I think Chime-Long Ocean Kingdom has one as well that is a bit of a Seas with Nemo and Friends mimic.
 

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