Company wants to power-up its in-house R&D.
There’s a plot of city-owned land in Kyoto that used to be the site of a factory and something called the Material and Disaster Prevention Center. Since neither one of those facilities is in operation anymore the city has been looking for someone to purchase the land, and the buyer that’s stepped up is none other than Nintendo.
The 10,028.55-square meter (107,946.41-square foot) parcel is located directly behind Nintendo’s corporate headquarters in Kyoto’s Minami Ward, adjacent to Hokodate Park and across the street from the company’s development headquarters building.
▼ It’s the area to the right of the Minotsu truck (note the Nintendo HQ, with the company logo at its top corner, in the background)
Since Nintendo is already building a museum elsewhere in Kyoto and has another part of its history preserved at the hotel that its former HQ has been converted into, this land purchase is a business investment, but one that gamers stand to benefit from too. Nintendo’s plan is to use the site as the location for a Headquarters Second Development Building in order to strengthen its in-house research and development projects for gaming hardware and software. The new building (shown in an artist’s rendering at the top of this article) will be 12 stories tall, which should provide a lot of space for new development teams to work their technological magic in.
▼ A map showing Nintendo’s corporate HQ (pink area at bottom right), current development HQ (pink area at top left), and the site for Headquarters Second Development Building (red area)
Barring some very unusual exceptions, real estate in Japan doesn’t come cheap, and Nintendo paid five billion yen (over US$40 million) for the land. An outlay that big means that they’re hoping for even bigger things from their teams that’ll be working there when the building is finished in late 2027.
Source: Nintendo via Denfami Gamer via Livedoor News via Otakomu
Images: Nintendo
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