Spread across three main buildings, Japan’s new Nintendo Museum takes visitors through the company’s 135-year history with an exhaustive exhibition that includes rare consoles and prototypes.
Museum visitors are given 10 digital coins they can use to play the games, but be warned: it’s not possible to buy additional ones, so players will need to strategize and choose wisely.
This is so idiotic, yet somehow still 100% on brand for Nintendo.
Pretty much all modern arcades just charge you for entry. No one pays for the individual games anymore because no one would do it in this day and age as it would be seen as overly expensive.
I'm assuming it's to make sure there's not long waits to try them. Giving a set number of tokens to visitors means they can roughly control the amount of time someone spends with those games. One person can't just buy 100 coins and spend all day on the same game.
Could have just done a ticketing system reserved in advance with fixed time blocks, though. But then your museum tour is on a schedule.