Super Nintendo World (Universal Studios Japan expansion)
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This is the latest official statement from Universal:

The opening timing of 'SUPER NINTENDO WORLD' will be announced at a later date. We look forward to making our next announcement.

Separately, here's some interesting insight from a Virtual Production Engineer who developed VR roller coaster simulations for Universal Creative regarding the inner workings of the Mario Kart ride being tested while in development (the full post can be found in the sources below):

In early 2018, the Mario Kart attraction design team for Super Nintendo World had a problem: there were hundreds of people working on different facets of the attraction at an off-site test facility, but there was physically only one test track. This meant that our game designers often had to wait minutes or even hours between laps in the test vehicle, as there were so many other construction and maintenance tasks that had to take place in the same space at the same time. The designers needed a faster way to test, or game design was going to fall behind.

An idea was born: what if the game designers could playtest in a simulation instead of using the physical test track? Design iteration time could improve dramatically! Universal formed a task force from across the company to build the unprecedented simulation, as the Mario Kart game design team didn't have the resources to do this alone.


The Design

The goal of the game design simulation was to create a version of Mario Kart which was configurable as thoroughly and quickly as possible, achieving maximum design iteration speed. The idea was that a game designer could ride the simulation on the motion base, pause the experience at any time, verbally request a change to us, and we could make the change immediately for review.

Our first game design scenario was around the spawn points of interactible items on the track. How many items should there be, and where on the track should they be placed? We needed to be able to reconfigure the entire map in seconds, not minutes, so manually moving GameObjects around the map was too slow.

One of our developers came up with the idea to load configuration data from an Excel sheet, which not only meant that we could quickly copy and paste rows to generate new maps, but also allowed the attraction designers to directly edit configuration files without needing to open Unity. We implemented the idea, and shortly afterward Universal invited Shigeru Miyamoto and the Nintendo executive team to take the simulation for a ride.


The Nintendo Meeting

The Nintendo executive team had a great time riding different test maps, and after a while they asked an insightful question that we weren't prepared for: could we manipulate the routes of other racers in a similar way to how our tool handled interactibles? My heart sunk for a beat. Racers had animation curves and other state that our system wasn't designed to handle, but we wouldn't let that stop us. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, was to implement the racer manipulation feature within 18 hours in time for a meeting the next day. Game on.

We needed a system for puppeting racers that was achievable within one day, and after 15 minutes of collaborative thinking, I proposed the solution that the team would choose to implement. I was inspired by the numpad of my keyboard:


^My proposed racer puppeting system was based on the layout of a numpad

Imagine a keyboard numpad overlaid on a top-down view of a race track. The player cart is always located at the '5' key, and moves in a forward direction of travel toward the '8' key. So in this coordinate space, '4' represents a position to the left of the player cart, '6' to the right, '2' behind, and so forth.

In my design, if a simulation operator presses the '4' key, the operator's selected racer would lerp to a position to the left of the player over a configurable amount of time. Pressing the '6' key would move the racer to the right of the player, and so forth. In this way, we created a simple set of keyboard commands for an animation manipulation system that we could all remember and operate with low cognitive load. We finished the implementation in 6 hours, and were able to proceed with our gameplay testing.

Sources: https://www.usj.co.jp/company/company_e/2020/o1tgd1000000103k-att/0903.pdf and http://andybiar.com/xr-coasters.html

So Donkey Kong is confirmed?

Future home of Donkey Kong



Source: https://twitter.com/yuuchubby/status/1294932136529559555

Shoutout to @ThomasPussyCat on Twitter for finding videos on Vimeo of Super Nintendo World's mini site





The Mario Kart ride, which according to this is potentially named "Mario Kart: Koopa's Challenge" is described as the following:

"A number of courses full of surprises, appear in front of you with the latest technology unique to the park!"

"Ride Time: ~5 minutes
Number of Riders: 4
Height Restrictions: 42" (106.7cm)"





The Yoshi ride, potentially named "Yoshi's Adventure" is described as the following:

"Get on Yoshi's back, follow Captain Kinopio and set off on a treasure hunt adventure, look at the mushroom kingdom from Mount Beanpole and have fun!"

The area's restaurant will potentially be named "Kinopio's Cafe"

The companion mobile phone app which might be named "Mobile Mario" is described as the following:

"Link your smartphone to see play history, coins, and digital stamps! Game data can also be accessed at special checkpoints."

"By linking in with your smartphone you can take your fun to the next level. Turn your journey to Super Nintendo World into a super game. Collect coins and stamps and check your ranking. Climb to the top of the table to be number one!”
Sources: https://vimeo.com/401175263 and https://vimeo.com/401219451 and https://vimeo.com/401522524 and https://vimeo.com/401523911 and https://vimeo.com/401526495 and https://vimeo.com/407823937 and https://vimeo.com/407824807 and https://vimeo.com/407827985 via https://twitter.com/thomaspussycat/status/1290847963061735424 and https://twitter.com/tvmaniaco_tvps2/status/1290890353168482304 and https://twitter.com/tvmaniaco_tvps2/status/1290890379198369798

A great quality video that mostly shows what has already been shared but is worth watching because there’s so much detail

Source: https://twitter.com/surf_coaster/status/1285757034546130944

Source: https://twitter.com/fs_red346/status/1285577095922413568 and https://twitter.com/surf_coaster/status/1285568703774392320

Looks like a couple of cranes have gone up at the Donkey Kong area unless they were already used for phase one and just being stored there...



Also this is random but an executive-type person was spotted at Universal Studios Japan today with a Super Nintendo World-specific bag - this shows of course the magnitude of the upcoming area similar to that of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter:



Sources: https://www.instagram.com/p/CCivGAnj2pW/ and https://www.instagram.com/p/CCiv9duDw6T/ and https://www.instagram.com/p/CCiwXn6Dhjy/ and
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCixIpvjoaw/ and https://twitter.com/gr_u_d/status/1282591890395684871

Source: https://twitter.com/etiacsxzdkkpdbs/status/1281190719248494593