Nintendo Bringing Back the World Championship

Way back in 1990, Nintendo sponsored and promoted the Nintendo World Championship, tournament spanning twenty cities with hundreds of entrants. Loosely based off the movie The Wizard, competitors were asked to compete in three different games (Super Mario Brothers, Rad Racer, and Tetris) over a span of 6 minutes and 21 seconds. The player with the highest score in one of three categories, divided by age, won 250 bucks and a ticket for two to the finalists face-off at Universal Studios—where every finalist faced off and three victors were crowned, winning a 10,000 dollars and a whole lot of swag.

A pretty big event, to be sure, but it only happened once—for twenty-five long years the Nintendo World Championship was just a distant, dreamy memory… until now.



In the above (sometimes cringeworthy) video, Nintendo of America’s own Reggie announced the return of Nintendo's first and only venture into the world of eSports. Now, the video isn’t as revealing as we’d like about what exactly it will be like, where the event will be held, what games will be played, the prizes for the winners—you know, details like that—but it does also give us a bit of information about their upcoming E3 livestream.

But I think we can agree the big news will be the return of the World Championship. With Nintendo having one of the most renowned eSports games in its stable and an interest in promoting itself as a company for real gamers once again (Hence the NX), I can see this being a gala for the ages. Or, if the video is anything to go after, a gigantic, badly-acted joke.

I’m personally hoping for the former.