Nintendo secretly opened a dedicated London store and didn’t tell anyone

That’s okay, we didn’t need to pay for hot water this month (LinkedIn)

A TikTok video by a fan has done more to promote the new London store than Nintendo itself has.

Last October, Nintendo opened one of its Nintendo Stores in London, which was the first of its kind in Europe, after being exclusively an American and Japanese thing.

Despite its small size, it was jam-packed with fun merchandise for fans to indulge in, but Nintendo only ever planned for it to stay open for less than a month, with its doors shutting on November 16.

As it turns out, though, Nintendo has opted to open a second London store… but for some reason didn’t bother to announce it.

Where is the Nintendo Store in London?

The Nintendo store, or Nintendo Experience Zone as it’s officially called, only opened over the weekend, but not in Shepherd’s Bush like last time.

Instead, this store is located at Tottenham Court Road, inside the local Argos. That’s only 20 to 30 minutes away from where the last one was, and a five minute or so walk from the Tottenham Court Road train station.

While Nintendo made no formal announcement about its opening, Argos senior buyer Peter Wray did make a LinkedIn post to celebrate the occasion on Saturday, April 18.

‘After seven months of planning, our Argos Nintendo Tottenham Court Road partnership is live bringing together hundreds of lines from across our gaming and license partners,’ he wrote.

However, most people weren’t made aware of it until a TikTok video by badxgurlcosplay began to make the rounds. Aside from offering Switch consoles and video games, the shelves are lined with all manner of toys, plushies, clothes, and stationary not usually available on Nintendo’s UK website.

The Super Mario franchise is obviously the main focus, but there appears to be a sizable offering of merch from Pokémon, The Legend Of Zelda, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Kirby, and even Metroid (we particularly like the look of those Samus action figures).

How long is the London Nintendo Store open for?

Without any official announcement from Nintendo, it’s unclear exactly how long the new store will be open for.

VGC reports that it won’t be as short lived as the last store and will remain open for the next few months but Nintendo itself has not confirmed anything. There’s not even so much as a post on X about it.

There’s also been no mention of needing to book tickets in advance just to get in, which is understandable if no one knows it’s there. That was the case with the previous store, though, at least for its first week, but this meant queue times for its remaining two weeks were horrendous.

At the time, YouTuber Caddicarus said, via Instagram, that queue times were an hour long. Hopefully, with this store open for longer, pressure to visit won’t be as high and you get in more easily. It certainly seems empty at the moment.

Hopefully there’s enough stock to keep the shelves filled until the store closes (LinkedIn)

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