Super Nintendo World (Universal Studios Japan expansion)
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Nintendo, and the Super Mario IP in particular, is one of the biggest pop culture franchises that until now didn't have a theme park presence. It is a dominant name in video games and is revered globally even after 35 years. I personally thinking adding more attractions aimed at families will help further round out the Universal parks as a whole too.

“Nintendo, based on our research, is the biggest potential driver in attendance you can have in terms of intellectual properties,” said Comcast executives during the call. “It’s up there with Harry Potter, and in some of our parks, HP drives incremental attendance of 2 million people.”

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Universal had a decision to make, build a land on movie franchises that may or may not be popular years from now, or a video game franchise that has stood the test of time, remained in the public consciousness for 35 years, and that you can can see eating up people. Plus there's still Epic Universe and plenty of years to use the acquired assets in the parks. Reboots probably will probably be made and reinvigorate interests in the property. So if that's that's what you want, don't lose hope.

Nintendo reached out to Universal and offered to pay for a chunk of the land.

I don't think the 20,000sq ft show building that Minions took up at USF was large enough to build a dark ride in, and besides that building was designed to he a theater anyway. If you're talking about USJ on the other hand, it would be a waste to take down the two dome theaters from back to the future just to make a minions themed dark ride. If they had space I'd love it if Universal built one though.

this may have some disagreement, but this is just my opinion

I think it's pretty low of Universal to choose Nintendo for their new lands. This is Universal Studios. They have countless movies, including the fact that they own Dreamworks and Illumination which opens up a whole extra little collection. Why can't they just use what they have? Is it not enough?

Okay for example, the whole Despicable Me franchise. They decided to make it a motion simulator. But imagine if they put some thought and effort into it and made it a decent dark ride. I can guarantee it would be a massive hit, even bigger than Harry Potter if they tried. Just saying.

Yeah they definitely did drop the ball at night, definitely not a Pandora. Another oddity are the paths, they just look off color in some spots.

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but based on pictures the lighting looks really harsh at night (almost like it’s being lit by work lights / flood lights).

Really? I think it looks great and accurate, but I can understanding why everyone might not like the plasticy look that some of the newer games have. The good thing for Nintendo is that a lot of people also think it looks good. But I think that you might end up liking the DK Land more since those games have always been detailed.

This land has terrible aesthetics. Worse than Shanghai Toy Story Land and DinoRama - one of the most visually jarring lands ever built by a Major. This is not how a $450 million themed land should look.

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