Bandai NamcoThe Japanese entertainment giant behind Pac-Man and Gundam, opens its first American store in Sunset Park this weekend.
The new Industry City store offers a wide selection of goods, including toys, collectibles, clothing and video games from the vast portfolio of popular franchises from the Japanese brand, such as Tekken, Dragon Ball and Tamagotchi.
“This is the only place in the country where you can see all the official Bandai Namco stores in one place,” said Marketing Namco’s marketing specialist at Brooklyn Paper Shaunda Brooks-Green, during an overview of the store press, which opens to the public on February 28.
“This is the first in the United States, so we are really excited about it. We needed sites of sites and trying to understand what corresponds to our demography, the number one, and it is important to keep it at its Japanese origins, so having visible it here at Industry City and the Japan Village is important for our brand, “said Brooks-Green.
Although the company has already sold goods online and thanks to partnerships with other retailers, the location of the industry is its first autonomous American outpost, nicknamed a department store for Bandai Namco products.
The location inside the Japanese village of the CITU aims to offer customers an immersive retail sales experience. It has dedicated areas for different interactive franchises and screens, including an arcade.
Brooks-Green stressed that the main objective of the store is to promote a sense of community among fans of New York.
“New York is the field of culture, in particular the intersection of multiple cultures. I think that because of that, New York was the ideal place and, more precisely, Brooklyn. The district has so many different culminations of cultures and flavors, in particular this Sunset Park district, “she said. “It is a safe space where people can come, shopping and simply enjoy being in a space where they can be themselves.”
Bandai Namco was trained in 2005 thanks to the merger of Bandai, known for his toys and goods of characters, and Namco, who was a video game developer and arcade operator. The opening of Brooklyn’s location reflects Bandai Namco’s strategy to strengthen its global presence, after opening its first location outside Japan in London, England.