This 20-Foot-Tall Donkey Kong Cabinet Is Actually Playable
The original "Donkey Kong" game is about to find itself a new home, one that'll be comically large but also playable. Nintendo "provided input" to The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, on its plan to build a 20-foot-tall "Donkey Kong" arcade cabinet. The museum has shared a render of what is presumably the final design on Twitter, including a stand-in human figure to serve as a frame of reference.
Based on that render, The Strong Museum's oversized arcade cabinet will feature the same old-school artwork found on the original arcade machines — art in which both Donkey Kong and Mario look quite a bit different than their modern incarnations. The cabinet will feature similarly huge controls, but visitors won't be climbing up to grab the joystick with both hands. Rather, the game machine will be controllable by normal human-sized buttons and joysticks on a panel mounted in front of the cabinet.
Museum visitors will be able to play the giant arcade machine
According to the museum, the finished product will be the largest arcade machine packing a playable version of "Donkey Kong." The museum plans to open an expansion of its facility in late June and explains that the cabinet will be "a prominent feature" in this new area. Though the cabinet itself will be massive (and have a similarly huge display), The Strong Museum says that its project will utilize a simple motherboard pulled from an original arcade cabinet, meaning you'll get the authentic, if not antiquated, "Donkey Kong" experience, just on a display that is considerably larger.
As part of our June 30 expansion, The Strong will create the world's largest, playable Donkey Kong arcade game. The game will stand nearly 20-feet tall and will be available for guests to play! Thank you @NintendoAmerica for providing input on the project.#DonkeyKong #Arcade pic.twitter.com/xQhsRVvCib
— The Strong Museum (@museumofplay) April 10, 2023
If you're eager to experience the game in this new form factor, the museum has good news: it won't take long to finish the cabinet, which it expects will be available to play on June 30 when the expansion opens to the public.
The original "Donkey Kong" is one of the many games that have been inducted into the museum's World Video Game Hall of Fame. It is joined by other notable contributions that helped shape the industry into what it is today, including the first "Civilization" title, "Ms. Pac-Man," "Dance Dance Revolution," "Tomb Raider," "StarCraft," and even Microsoft's "Solitaire" game that comes bundled with Windows.