Nintendo's Upcoming California Theme Park Has Augmented Reality 'Mario Kart' Races
"Starting next year, Nintendo fans can step through a life-size warp pipe and enter the Mushroom Kingdom," reports Bloomberg, "for the first time on American soil." Bloomberg shares its reaction after "an early preview tour of the land as it finalizes construction," noting that it has "a chirping soundtrack of cheerful instrumentals and distant coin clinks." Super Nintendo World, an interactive replica of Nintendo's dynamic lands and characters, will bring its colorful chaos to Universal Studios Hollywood when it opens on Feb. 17, 2023. The expansion provides an opportunity to race alongside Mario and Luigi before meeting them face to face, and it will bring video game-inspired dining, retail and merchandise to the California theme park inside an immersive, bowllike structure lined with spinning coins and turtle shells.... Whether Koopa Troopas in motion or a fake desert set against the actual skies, there's always something to look at — and somewhere intriguing to head first. Its marquee attraction, Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge, puts riders in augmented reality-enabled helmets to experience the Mario Kart racing game firsthand while the challenge plays out virtually in front of them.... Super Nintendo World was released at Universal Studios Japan in March 2021, but its arrival stateside marks Universal Studio Hollywood's largest opening since its Wizarding World of Harry Potter expansion in 2016, and it's the first of Nintendo's notable footprints on domestic soil. The Super Mario Bros. Movie, starring Chris Pratt, hits theaters in April, and a third iteration of Super Nintendo World will open with Epic Universe, the all-new theme park arriving at Universal Orlando Resort in 2025. In each iteration, the main draw is the Mario Kart experience. Here, riders in four-passenger vehicles will join Team Mario to compete across multiple courses for the Golden Cup — a familiar process to anyone who's played Nintendo's racing challenge back home. The article reminds readers that "all attendees can punch blocks (with more force than one may anticipate) and re-create other moments in the Mushroom Kingdom." But they ultimately describe the experience as a kind of "overwhelming immersion, transporting people to a location they've previously seen, but never before in real life."
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