28 years to the November since the original Ocarina of Time launched for the N64, I once again found myself roaming the streets of San Francisco with some serious Zelda fever. Only unlike the last time when I was completely unsuccessful in scoring that gold cartridge on day one (mine wouldn’t arrive until just after Thanksgiving), now there was only one place to go that would guarantee it was all gonna be ok. One place simply called Nintendo San Francisco. And pulling up to the sight of a fairly modest line about 20 or so people deep and mystically finding a parking spot right around the corner, it was clear that this was the right call.
Let’s get in there.
Arriving just about an hour before the doors would open at 10am, it was a bit surprising to see such a small turnout. There had been a midnight launch at the store the evening before but this still looked a bit too good to be true. Well, I really lucked out with the timing because within about 10 minutes of securing my place as probably customer #22 or so is when the wait list got real populated.
Before long, the line grew to snake all the way around the entire block and the staff came out and began shouting out what the stock situation looked like. They had a pretty fair amount of consoles, very limited number of pro controllers (which was the real draw for me) along with some extras like actual ocarinas, pin sets, attire and other various merch, etc. Oh and of course, there were plenty of copies of the game itself to ensure nobody would go home empty handed.
And just like that, those doors flung open and we were being herded in in groups of 10. I’ve been here plenty of times before but it never doesn’t hit pretty hard that you are in a straight up Nintendo Store. That’s a pretty special feeling. Trying to eyeball across the sales floor to scope out how quickly items were getting scooped up, I was beginning to get a little nervous as one after another, customers kept exiting past me with that pro controller poking out of their shopping bags.
But once my place in line moved up to the staircase leading down to the bottom floor, a employee pulled me aside and led me down to another kiosk where they were just opening up and displaying more systems and software.
Did they know who I was?
Even though it turns out that the staff was really just very efficient and running a well oiled system for customers to make their purchases, that’s the story I’m sticking with. And as an added bonus, it was quite the treat to feel like a real hot shot to have this huge Ocarina display set up down there all to myself while an employee nabbed some photos. After that, it was time to hit the road home and wait for the UPS guy to show up with the game that was pre-ordered a couple months back. But until that arrived it was also time to upon up this bag and see what we got!
Well wouldn’t you know it, our prize was already waiting for me at the front door. God Bless the UPS.
The less said about the fact that they didn’t have the controller that comes with a stand the better (that might be an online exclusive thing). But still, this little guy is much more impressive in person then I thought it’d be. Let the good times roll.
Whoops.
There were also a couple of fun little freebies given away after being handed your receipt. Below you can see a pretty nice commemorative 40th anniversary poster (coupled with a not seen here cardboard joke of a “frame”), a cute little trading card ready to be hung on the fridge, and some kind of banner that I doubt will ever feel oxygen. Oh and yeah, I pulled trigger on that real officially made by Nintendo ocarina itself.
When in the Nintendo store for the Ocarina of Time Remake launch as they say…
Not a bad haul, eh? It’s so fun when the anticipation and lead up to Nintendo’s games and systems are surpassed only by actually playing them and San Francisco is very lucky to be home to 1 of only 2 full on Nintendo brick and mortars in the US. If you ever happen to find find yourself near Union Square, I highly recommend popping in for a good old fashioned browse.
Oh, and tell ‘em Ray sent ya!
