When did the last World of Nintendo Store close?

[y9784]

I remember seeing a dedicated World of Nintendo store in the Burlington Mall years ago (20 years?) in NJ. At the time, I remember seeing NES and Game Boy games. I specifically remember seeing Gargoyles Quest II.

My question is when did these stores disappear? Did they ever have SNES or N64 games?

Maybe some of you can list the location you saw your store and last date you saw it.

This is just a curiosity of mine and not important or as part of a project.

[Aussie2B]

I thought "World of Nintendo" was just a labeling for the Nintendo section within general retailers that sold Nintendo merchandise? Like what's talked about here: http://gamingafter40.blogspot.com/2010/06/get-disorganized-with-world-of-nintendo.html

I've never heard of a dedicated World of Nintendo store (there is, however, Nintendo World in NYC).

[Mayhem]

And even then, I believe, the Nintendo store in NYC was the old Pokemon Centre before it was refurbished.

[jperryss]

Not sure if this is what the OP is talking about, but the Dartmouth Mall (MA) had a store called Captron which was setup like a kiosk (a big one) and carried strictly Nintendo stuff. I don't remember if World of Nintendo was in the store name, I only went there once or twice.

I do remember they had an original Gameboy system hooked up to a small monitor (maybe 10-12") that you could play on, which I'd never seen before. They had Blaster Master Boy running on it the time I saw it.

[Tupin]

And even then, I believe, the Nintendo store in NYC was the old Pokemon Centre before it was refurbished.
When did that open? I know they refurbished it to be just general Nintendo in like 2005, but I'm guessing it was at least five years old at that point.

[SparTonberry]

I think I can remember seeing a Captron store (in a Minneapolis-area mall), maybe once, but I definitely remember a kiosk, then it seems they closed most stores and mostly sold by mail in magazines (I can remember ads that listed the remaining stores), maybe a year or so before completely disappearing.
Pretty sure they weren't Nintendo-exclusive.

[bb_hood]

I dont quite remember when I last saw it, but there was one in the Rhode Island Mall, in the Sears in the Kids clothing dept.
I think it was gone before Super Nintendo games were sold.

[Scott84]

I remember seeing a dedicated World of Nintendo store in the Burlington Mall years ago (20 years?) in NJ. At the time, I remember seeing NES and Game Boy games. I specifically remember seeing Gargoyles Quest II.

My question is when did these stores disappear? Did they ever have SNES or N64 games?

Maybe some of you can list the location you saw your store and last date you saw it.

This is just a curiosity of mine and not important or as part of a project.

There was one in Erin Mills Town Center in Mississauga, Ontario until Mid 1994. It was actually a World of Nintendo Store. It was not big. Half the size of the average GameStop

[wiggyx]

I dont quite remember when I last saw it, but there was one in the Rhode Island Mall, in the Sears in the Kids clothing dept.
I think it was gone before Super Nintendo games were sold.

It wasn't a "Nintendo Store", just a games section within Sears with big illuminated Nintendo signs. Many Sears stores had such.

[SparTonberry]

I know I saw those World of Nintendo (https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1179&bih=900&q=world+of+nintendo+sign&oq=world+of+nintendo+sign&gs_l=img.3..0j0i24l2.694.6276.0.6675.26.21.2.3.3.1 .406.2536.11j7j2j0j1.21.0....0...1ac.1.26.img..6.2 0.1168.6Mj5tLRW7r0#imgdii=_) signs above the game display cases in Target back in the early '90s.
Unless we're not talking about the same thing?

[StealthLurker]

I've often wondered about this myself...

Back in the 80s, I remember there were three dedicated World of Nintendo stores in my town. Two of them were like mentioned above, about half to two thirds the size of an average GameStop. However there was one in town that was fairly large and expansive. Lots of NES play kiosks, Nintendo branded shelving packed with hardware/software/books/mags and lots of cool signs. It was quite a site to behold back in the heyday of the NES.

Unfortunately I never knew of what became of these shops and when they started closing down. We moved overseas towards the very late 80s.

.

[bb_hood]

It wasn't a "Nintendo Store", just a games section within Sears with big illuminated Nintendo signs. Many Sears stores had such.

Im pretty sure they only sold Nintendo products

[y9784]

Not sure if this is what the OP is talking about, but the Dartmouth Mall (MA) had a store called Captron which was setup like a kiosk (a big one) and carried strictly Nintendo stuff.


I think you're right. The name Captron sounds familiar. I was really young (maybe 4 or 5?). I really can't remember my age. But I do remember they sold exclusively Nintendo stuff. So 1994 seems right from Scott84, unless someone on here knows they sold N64 stuff. I really wish I had the wherewithal back then to remember.

[Neo Heathen]

I was racking my brain while reading this thread. Captron?!?! It sounded so familiar.. then it dawned on me, there was one in Montgomery Mall next to the arcade in my hometown of Bethesda, Maryland. A quick google search also confirmed my hazy memories..

Taken from an ebay seller's post for a Super Metroid poster..

"Captron Software used to be Captron World Of Nintendo until Nintendo decided to sell off the chain to, of all companies, Capcom. So we were renamed Captron Software and started carrying not only Nintendo, but also Sega Genesis as well. And some marketing "genius" at the corporate office came up with the ridiculous idea to separate ourselves from Babbage's and Electronics Boutique by stating in gaming magazine ads that we were the "gaming experts." So this pinhead came up with the ad that said "Stumped on a game? Call the experts at Captron Software!" Ugh, so suddenly we were being inundated with calls from kids wanting us to walk them through their games. Never mind that we employees weren't walking encyclopedias of game cheats and were already too busy helping customers! Needless to say, it was a marketing disaster that backfired horribly. Meanwhile, Super Metroid had just come out and I, having imported the game from Japan over a month earlier, had already played through it about six times, so I knew the game backwads and forwards"

In the early 90s, In a mall where there were two other video game stores at the time (one being a Babbages).. Captron was a distant third option for me to be honest. It was small, cramped and the service was surly. However, I do remember buying Gunstar Heroes from them and it was the first place I recoiled with disgust from seeing Sewer Shark in action for the first time.

[SparTonberry]

I was racking my brain while reading this thread. Captron?!?! It sounded so familiar.. then it dawned on me, there was one in Montgomery Mall next to the arcade in my hometown of Bethesda, Maryland. A quick google search also confirmed my hazy memories..

Taken from an ebay seller's post for a Super Metroid poster..

"Captron Software used to be Captron World Of Nintendo until Nintendo decided to sell off the chain to, of all companies, Capcom. So we were renamed Captron Software and started carrying not only Nintendo, but also Sega Genesis as well. And some marketing "genius" at the corporate office came up with the ridiculous idea to separate ourselves from Babbage's and Electronics Boutique by stating in gaming magazine ads that we were the "gaming experts." So this pinhead came up with the ad that said "Stumped on a game? Call the experts at Captron Software!" Ugh, so suddenly we were being inundated with calls from kids wanting us to walk them through their games. Never mind that we employees weren't walking encyclopedias of game cheats and were already too busy helping customers! Needless to say, it was a marketing disaster that backfired horribly. Meanwhile, Super Metroid had just come out and I, having imported the game from Japan over a month earlier, had already played through it about six times, so I knew the game backwads and forwards"

In the early 90s, In a mall where there were two other video game stores at the time (one being a Babbages).. Captron was a distant third option for me to be honest. It was small, cramped and the service was surly. However, I do remember buying Gunstar Heroes from them and it was the first place I recoiled with disgust from seeing Sewer Shark in action for the first time.

That was pretty bad, considering Nintendo was already offering that service and DID have gaming encyclopedias (well, on all Nintendo-licensed games). :P

[skaar]

Neato.