Can you still get
Nintendo Museum
tickets?
There is no walk-up ticket and there never has been. Entry runs through a lottery you enter with a free Nintendo Account roughly three months ahead, with results published on the 1st of the following month. If you lose — and most people do — the real backdoor is cancellation tickets, released around two months out and gone within minutes. Tickets are ¥3,300 adult, ¥2,200 teen, ¥1,100 child, they carry your name and a QR code, and the museum is closed on Tuesdays. Win one and Uji turns from a half-day into a full day.
The lottery timeline, month by month
Work backwards from your travel dates. If you are inside two months and have no ticket, the cancellation window is your only remaining route — and it is a real one.
What to expect at the Nintendo Museum
Two floors: a chronological gallery of essentially everything Nintendo has made since 1889, and a hands-on floor where ten digital coins buy you a limited number of goes on giant-scale versions of the games.
The upper gallery is the archive — hanafuda playing cards from the 1889 origin, the Love Tester, the Ultra Hand, Game & Watch, the Famicom, the Virtual Boy, every console, and a great many things that never left Japan. It is presented with almost no explanatory text, which is either elegant or frustrating depending on how much you already know.
The ten coins are the thing to plan. On arrival you get ten digital coins on your ticket, and each experience on the interactive floor costs one or two. You cannot do everything. The giant controller games — two people operating one enormous Famicom pad together — are the ones that sell the museum, and they also have the longest waits. Decide before you go in which two or three you actually want.
There is a workshop where you assemble your own hanafuda deck, a café doing themed food, and a shop selling merchandise that is genuinely exclusive to the site — which is the other reason the tickets are hard to get.
Budget two to three hours inside. The building is the former Uji Ogura factory and it sits in an unremarkable residential suburb, so there is nothing to do in the immediate surroundings — which is exactly why you pair it with Uji proper.
It turned Uji from a half-day into a full day
The museum is in Ogura, a few minutes by train from central Uji, and that changes the arithmetic of the best short day trip from Kyoto.
Uji is 17 minutes and ¥240 from Kyoto Station on the JR Nara Line rapid — the shortest worthwhile day trip in the region. Byodo-in's Phoenix Hall is the building on the ¥10 coin: ¥600 for the grounds plus ¥300 to go inside the hall itself.
It is also the centre of Japanese matcha. The tea shops on the approach street roast in the doorway and the smell carries down the block. Be warned that the famous ones queue: Nakamura Tokichi Honten has documented waits of two to four hours in peak season. Buy tins in the morning — the 2025 tencha auction averaged a record ¥8,235 per kilo and the good stock genuinely does sell out.
With a museum slot in the morning and Byodo-in plus tea in the afternoon, Uji becomes a proper full day rather than the three-hour stop it used to be. Sleeping in Uji is also a legitimate move: it sits outside Kyoto city limits and therefore outside the lodging tax introduced in March 2026.
Full details on the Uji guide, and the head-to-head against the other short trip on Nara vs Uji.
Is the Nintendo Museum for you?
The practical bit
The museum, and the day around it
Lottery entry is free and happens on Nintendo's own site. A GetYourGuide admission listing does exist and is worth checking against the lottery — but never buy a Nintendo Museum ticket from an individual reseller, because named QR tickets simply do not transfer.
Nintendo Museum FAQ
How do I get Nintendo Museum tickets?
Through a lottery on the official site, entered with a free Nintendo Account roughly three months before your visit month, with results announced on the 1st of the following month. There is no walk-up ticket, no standby queue and no same-day allocation. If you lose the ballot, watch for cancellation tickets about two months out.
Can I still get tickets if I lost the lottery?
Often, yes. Unpaid and cancelled slots go back on sale roughly two months before the date, and this is how a large share of overseas visitors actually get in. Check the site daily and at odd hours, and be ready to book immediately — these do not sit there while you consult anyone.
Can I buy a Nintendo Museum ticket from a reseller?
No, and do not try. Tickets are issued in the buyer's name with a QR code that is checked against the Nintendo Account at the door. A scalped ticket will be refused entry and your money is gone. This is the clearest do-not-buy warning on this entire site.
How much does the Nintendo Museum cost?
¥3,300 for adults, ¥2,200 for secondary school students and ¥1,100 for primary school children — about $21, $14 and $7 at ¥158 to the dollar. Getting there from Kyoto Station costs roughly ¥240 each way on the JR Nara Line.
What are the ten coins at the Nintendo Museum?
Your ticket carries ten digital coins, and each hands-on experience on the interactive floor costs one or two of them. You cannot do everything, so decide in advance which two or three you care about. The giant controller games — two people operating one enormous Famicom pad — are the headline and the busiest.
Is the Nintendo Museum worth a whole day from Kyoto?
With children over six, yes, and it pairs naturally with Uji — Byodo-in, the tea street and a matcha grinding workshop. On a three-day first trip to Kyoto, no. The museum is 20 minutes out of the city in a residential suburb and it will cost you a temple day you cannot get back.
What days is the Nintendo Museum closed?
Tuesdays, plus the New Year period. Check the closure calendar on the official site before you enter the lottery — winning a slot is hard enough without applying for a date the building is shut.