Nintendo store opening in San Francisco

[storewanderer]

While that may be true, this is a destination-type store that people will travel for.

I do not think this is enough. They need to get into a situation where other video game companies cluster a few other similar themed destination stores in the immediate area to make this work.

But that's what Metreon basically was and that's now a Target with everything locked up.

On a larger scale, there have been countless urban malls with the legacy flagship store and a bunch of first-rate tenants and that still failed because it was just in a bad/inaccessible area that they were never able to overcome.

I was thinking how this concept would feel like a better fit closer to Metreon. Plus that is closer to larger facilities where you could have gamer conventions etc.

[Brian Lutz]

If they are going to start opening more Nintendo stores in the US I wouldn't be surprised to see Seattle next on the list. Nintendo of America is based in Redmond, Microsoft is only blocks away and Valve is just a few miles away in Downtown Bellevue. On top of all that PAX West is held every year on Labor Day weekend in Downtown Seattle, which attracts a large crowd of gamers to the area.

That said, I don't see much of a market for these beyond the existing New York store, San Francisco (and that one's iffy), Seattle and possibly Los Angeles. Maybe if they really stretch they could open some in tourist trap destinations like something on the Las Vegas Strip or Universal CityWalk in Orlando. They could also decide that the Super Nintendo Worlds in the Universal Hollywood and Epic Universe parks are sufficient and leave it at that.

[HCal]

This area has terrible parking. If you travel to the area you will definitely have to pay expensive parking fees or park in narrow parking spaces with meters.

Traveling there by train still requires a walk past crazed drug addicts and aggressive panhandlers. You will be lucky not to step in human waste.

I've done this walk many times and never seen any human waste. Perhaps a few homeless people who might be on drugs, but even that seems to have been reduced lately.

The tech people have fled the city. They are mostly now working from home or they have moved to the San Jose area.

The store would do better sales at one of the busy upper middle class malls in the San Jose area. That is where there are families, children, and rich people. Those malls have free ample parking and lots of foot traffic. There is security and low crime. In San Francisco, your car windows would be smashed by the time you get back from your shopping.

Even a store in affluent Pleasanton in the rich low crime suburbs would do more business.

This is a flagship store, they want to be in a high profile area that gets lots of tourists, not some nondescript suburban shopping mall. Their main target is tourists, not locals.

[storewanderer]

This area has terrible parking. If you travel to the area you will definitely have to pay expensive parking fees or park in narrow parking spaces with meters.

Traveling there by train still requires a walk past crazed drug addicts and aggressive panhandlers. You will be lucky not to step in human waste.

I've done this walk many times and never seen any human waste. Perhaps a few homeless people who might be on drugs, but even that seems to have been reduced lately.

The tech people have fled the city. They are mostly now working from home or they have moved to the San Jose area.

The store would do better sales at one of the busy upper middle class malls in the San Jose area. That is where there are families, children, and rich people. Those malls have free ample parking and lots of foot traffic. There is security and low crime. In San Francisco, your car windows would be smashed by the time you get back from your shopping.

Even a store in affluent Pleasanton in the rich low crime suburbs would do more business.

This is a flagship store, they want to be in a high profile area that gets lots of tourists, not some nondescript suburban shopping mall. Their main target is tourists, not locals.

The cleanliness of the area seems to vary depending on time of day and day of week. I've seen it both clean and a toilet in recent years.

This is a relatively low traffic block and doesn't get a lot of tourists... and the tourists this block does get are often older couples and not with kids or even teens. I think the concept may make sense in or near Union Square but this location does not make sense. Unless all of the surrounding tenants turn over and the Westin turns into a family oriented hotel like a Holiday Inn or something... this location may well doom the concept.

I do like the idea of this, and a few other similar stores run by other game brands, clustered together in Union Square. That is the type of reinvention that is needed to draw in new customers.

[HCal]

The cleanliness of the area seems to vary depending on time of day and day of week. I've seen it both clean and a toilet in recent years.

This is a relatively low traffic block and doesn't get a lot of tourists... and the tourists this block does get are often older couples and not with kids or even teens. I think the concept may make sense in or near Union Square but this location does not make sense. Unless all of the surrounding tenants turn over and the Westin turns into a family oriented hotel like a Holiday Inn or something... this location may well doom the concept.

I do like the idea of this, and a few other similar stores run by other game brands, clustered together in Union Square. That is the type of reinvention that is needed to draw in new customers.

This location is close enough to Union Square. This area is very pedestrian-friendly and families/kids who are in Union Square, or even surrounding areas like Chinatown, will easily be able to get there.

People will make it a point to go to the Nintendo store; they aren't relying on attracting random passersby. Therefore, the tradeoff of (I assume) lower rent in return for a lower-traffic location seems like a good deal to me.

[buckguy]

The cleanliness of the area seems to vary depending on time of day and day of week. I've seen it both clean and a toilet in recent years.

This is a relatively low traffic block and doesn't get a lot of tourists... and the tourists this block does get are often older couples and not with kids or even teens. I think the concept may make sense in or near Union Square but this location does not make sense. Unless all of the surrounding tenants turn over and the Westin turns into a family oriented hotel like a Holiday Inn or something... this location may well doom the concept.

I do like the idea of this, and a few other similar stores run by other game brands, clustered together in Union Square. That is the type of reinvention that is needed to draw in new customers.

This location is close enough to Union Square. This area is very pedestrian-friendly and families/kids who are in Union Square, or even surrounding areas like Chinatown, will easily be able to get there.

People will make it a point to go to the Nintendo store; they aren't relying on attracting random passersby. Therefore, the tradeoff of (I assume) lower rent in return for a lower-traffic location seems like a good deal to me.

The NYC store is at Rockefeller Center which suggests that they are expecting a lot of tourist trade to generate sales. Rockefeller Center includes a mix of fairly upscale and pretty middle of the road places and reaches a pretty much "mass tourism" audience. SF's tourist trade has mostly come back and the convention trade is getting more big meetings this year than in the past. The convention trade recovered earlier on the East Coast, as did International tourism (a big part of SF's trade), because European countries opened up long before Asian countries (where more of SF's tourism originates) after COVID. Destination stores, even if they are not huge, can quickly gain business from foreign tourists based on word of mouth/online chatter if they fill a particular niche--this has been true for a long time. If Nintendo thinks they'll have a built in market, they are likely to make this successful and they may have gotten a very favorable rental given that this store has been vacant since before COVID.

You guys tend to assume a destination city works like some burg where people come in from the suburbs once in awhile or live downtown. It doesn't. DC has many similarities with SF (size, density, role of the tourist sector, etc.), although SF has a bit more close-in residential and doesn't get as many families as tourists. Nintendo probably would locate in Georgetown or perhaps near the City Center complex if they opened a store here to reach a similar kind of trade.