Because in Japan, everything must be high-tech, or else. Last year, Nintendo's former president Hiroshi
Yamauchi, in conjunction with the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu Project Foundation, revealed their intentions to craft a museum
dedicated to classic Japanese poetry. Today more information was released concerning the museum, including that it
hopes to be open to the public by October, and that Nintendo engineers will comprise the bulk of the museum's design
team. Yamauchi, the current president of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu Project Foundation, will be funding the project with
$7.4 million of his own money. That's a 47,000-year subscription to World of Warcraft, people.
Now for the high-tech schtick. The floor of the museum's first-story exhibition hall will be paved with no less than
seventy 45-inch monitors, which will be used to display computer-generated visuals of ancient Kyoto. The museum will
also feature handheld devices which will wirelessly detect and display relevant information pertaining to the
attraction you're standing in front of. In addition, gaming machines in the museum will allow you to take quizzes and
play card games against cg renditions of the classical poets themselves. Sure, it's a far cry from Halo 2
co-op with Edgar Allan Poe, but it's a start.
