Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH) Guides

Nintendo Game Consoles: How To Unlock & Play

Published on January 16, 2026 by Justin

Nintendo Game Consoles are special furniture items that you can interact with to play real emulated retro games inside of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

These items were introduced in the Version 3.0 Update paying tribute to the original Animal Crossing for GameCube‘s NES items.

How To Get Nintendo Game Consoles

Retro Nintendo systems are exclusively unlocked by progressing through the Resort Hotel found on your island’s pier and purchased using Hotel Tickets.

When you first begin at the Resort Hotel, the Souvenir Shop run by Grams only supplies a small selection of items. By progressing through the Resort Hotel’s content, the hotel’s reputation will gradually increase bringing more items to the shop.

To unlock the classic and modern Nintendo game consoles, you need to expand the Souvenir Shop’s selection three separate times:

Design 4 hotel rooms for the first expansion unlocking items like Kiddie furniture.
Design 8 hotel rooms for the second expansion unlocking items like Marble furniture.
Design your first VIP Room and complete many DIY requests at the drop box for the third expansion unlocking Nintendo game systems.

When you reach these milestones, speaking to Grams will unlock new dialogue talking the hotel’s new business or guests, confirming that you’re progressing.

Just How Many DIY Requests To Unlock?

To keep it simple, we just mentioned that you need to complete many DIY requests, but the true unlock requirement is far more complicated.

In short, Animal Crossing: New Horizons tracks a secret ‘points’ unlock system for the Nintendo consoles, separate from a specific rooms designed or DIY requests donated.

These secret points can be earned by designing rooms after the VIP Room is unlocked or completing DIY requests — different amounts are earned depending on the difficulty as follows:

3-6 points for completing a Low DIY Request (depending on quantity)
6-9 points for completing a Middle DIY Request (depending on quantity)
12 points for completing a High DIY Request
20 points for completing a Highest DIY Request
30 points for designing a room, once per day

Earn 400 of these secret hotel unlock points and the final set of Nintendo console items will be unlocked! Use our tracker tool below to help track your DIY Requests, see how many points a request will earn you, and estimate progress:

Native Fruit:

Add DIY Request

Current Requests (0/4)

No requests added yet

Unlock Progress

0 / 400 points (0%)

Classic Nintendo Game Consoles List

There are 11 different modern and classic Nintendo systems you can purchase at the Resort Hotel! Seven of these classic systems can each play a different pre-set retro Nintendo game released between 1984 and 1995 from the associated system, which are listed next to the item below.

Additionally, an active paid Nintendo Switch Online subscription is required for the console gameplay functionality to work. You can still unlock and buy all these systems as pure decoration without subscribing.