Sony And RTS Jointly Acquire Fighting Game Tournament EVO, Nintendo Responds

I'm not sure Nintendo and Smash Bros will be back, as Sony plans on instituting a strict new "personal hygiene policy" for all competitors.

Hopefully this will strengthen Sony and Nintendo's relationship and lead to a PS rep in Smash...

wishful thinking.

Congratulations Sony for buying the Prince Andrew of the Fighting Game Community.

Not much of a story here.

I hope smash comes back.

So will Sony replace Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale 2 at EVO now?

I never understood why Nintendo is so bad to there fans. It's like an abusive relationship were we just keep coming back for more. It reminds me so much of Capcom and Megaman Legends 3.

@nessisonett Oof

Those poor children...

@RupeeClock for real, i get nintendo's strict protection of their IPs and brands, but the hostile and controlling attitude towards fans isnt a good look either. they make good games and good money, everything else they do is just questionable to say the least

Why are people jumping on Nintendo about this? A rival purchased an event platform and it's not like Nintendo won't use a Sony owned event just because it's owned by Sony. That is like saying Nintendo won't use YouTube to advertise because it is owned by Google or Nintendo won't have a website because it will be hosted on Microsoft or Amazon servers. Like come on guys get your head screwed on straight.

If Sony starts using EVO as a way to promote exclusively Sony products and tries to push Nintendo out then yeah Nintendo will look at other avenues. For now just relax as I'm sure Nintendo is just evaluating how this will change EVO and if this works for Nintendo moving forward.

Sony dominates the fighting game scene ever since they purchased exclusive deal fo Street Fighter V. Every year there will be at least 1 or 2 exclusive fighting game on the system like GranBlue Fantasy Versus or Guilty Gear Xrd or Guilty Gear Strive.

@Wexter because Nintendo cancelled a Smash Melee tournament that used a mod to give it online compatibility due to the pandemic. The mod would be used on legally bought Smash Melee copies of the game. Nintendo shut it down.

Then people got so angry even the Splatoon 2 community joined in the backlash, using SaveSmash in their team names in an upcoming tornament. Nintendo shut that down too.

Tl:dr Nintendo shut down a Smash Melee and a Splatoon 2 tournament because of a harmless mod that had nothing to do with piracy and was necessary during the pandemic.

@Zimon yet it used illegal mods. You don't actually own the right to modify a game you bought. Might want to look at actual copyright laws

@Uzukage Fair enough. I stand corrected. I just meant the mod wasn't used for piracy. It enabled online play to a 20 year old game. But yeah, I can't say it's legal.

@Zimon I don't see how that has anything to do with Nintendo participating in EVO after a Sony purchase. Since 2014 Nintendo has been a partner with EVO and allowed both Melee and Smash 4/Ultimate tournaments. The recent controversies have nothing to do with Nintendo's participation with EVO hence my confusion.

@Wexter Well, you're right. It doesn't. But lack of relevance will not stop people from being angry at Nintendo after that incident.
You asked why people are angry at Nintendo and I think this is one of the reasons.

@Zimon I guess you're right... I really should not be surprised the Smash community takes any opportunity to complain about Nintendo (justified or not). :/

I just want to mention again that I don't like first party companies buying out things that were multi-platform before. Be them game studios or events. I'd rather players have more options and choices, not less.

I hope this doesn’t mean more fighters get locked to sony platforms. I pretty much bought a ps4 for sfv and yakuza.

Kinda sad to not see Sma5h on that list of games for this year’s tourney... I don’t get why Nintendo is so reserving about being a part of the e-Sports community.

Don't expect to see Smash at future Evo's, I guess. It's up to the Melee scene to continue to make their own tournaments.

What a bummer. Beyond the Smash rage memes, it stinks that the FG platform will always default to Playstation rather than which device has the best performance. Things had been trending this direction already due to the Sony'bucks surrounding SF5 but this obviously cements it.

Lmao you mean that time Nintendo tried to sue them for showing Melee footage?

Nintendo doesn't like competitive smash (which who can blame them), but its hilarious to even pretend they care. For nintendo, unless they can promote their current products how they want, they aren't interested.

And I assume Sony will run this into the ground.

How about they fund a new Power Stone, Project Justice/Rival Schools, Bloody Roar, Blank Vs. Blank game and Ehrgeiz... or maybe even a good console Dissidia and use this as a vehicle for mass promotion?

Sony/Nintendo/Capcom etc. ... get some deals done.

Well I can’t see Smash coming back to EVO now.

Give Sony credit, they constantly host fighting game tournaments on their official youtube channel and promote them so this just seems like the next logical step. If Nintendo actually cared about engaging with it's audience they would have done the same instead of what they usually do...

This possibly means Nintendo will have to stick only to their “Online Open” livestreams. Especially after relations soured with the Big House over how “Online-Modded Super Smash Bros. Melee on PC” sent entitled fans in a toxic #FreeMelee/#SaveSmash/#SaveSplatoon frenzy. All after getting their toxicity exposed inside and out in the same year.

Nintendo might probably still want to continue taking part at EVO with their Super Smash Bros. tournaments, but the real question here is what are Sony Playstation plans/intentions about that. Sony can easily choose to not want to allow Nintendo participate in the event just so they can avoid giving more exposure to a game & system that they have nothing to do with &/or no profit to gain from.

Sony should try to get EVO sponsored by Axe, Old Spice, and Degree deodorant.

Wouldn't make any sales, but the message would at least be clear.

Playstation All Stars time to shine baby lets go!

@RupeeClock Do not forget Sony cancelled Street Fighter 4 tournaments at the peak of the game popularity at the release of the vastly inferior Street Fighter 5. They only care about money and Smash tournament won't make them money.

I'm interested in seeing how this pans out. Evo definitely needed new leadership, hopefully good things come of this. I just hope Sony doesn't block Smash Bros. from any future events. Would be a very "Sony" thing to do, but you never know.

Dont think Smash will be allowed in, Pyra/Mythra goes against Sony Californias core values

As long as Sony remains open, I see no problem. However, I am very skeptical of Sony given their marketing has always seemed to promote competition in the industry.

I feel like more and more I'm reading a article about a company swallowing another company or something. Is this the future of the industry? Less about competing with good games and more about who owns what?

@Wexter EVO is online only this year, so it is relevant, since without the mod Melee won't be in. Ultimate isn't playable online either, so Smash is basically forced to be out.

@Muh-ario

Oh, yeah.

Anime titties in best party fighting game bad.

Mo-capped sex scene in highly disliked game good.

@Mew2Senshi priorities, dont forget to think about the children, they can handle people dismembering each other in MK11, but anime tiddies will warp their mind.

@Uzukage That's wrong, legal precedent in US courts states emulation is legal in the united states, modifying the behavior of an emulator to add extra features is also absolutely legal. Using your own physical copy of a game with that emulator is also completely legal. Broadcasting it may not be since nintendo legally can take down footage of it's games if it chooses to, but what you are saying about modding/emulation is 100% wrong on all accounts.

im just a casual but i prefer watching NWC than EVO anyway

No reason Sony doesn’t want Nintendo to participate in EVO and show ads to their fan base. This is all about poor netcode.

@Gahoole might actually look up Japanese law. Considering Nintendo is a Japanese company then that is the law you actually follow. Actually think before you reply

@TheLightSpirit How many Smash weeklies/tourneys/fests have you attended? Tell me about your experiences. I’ll console you for all the dastardly toxic things you’ve surely witnessed first hand.

Nintendo didn't come down on The Big House just because of the Slippi mod. It came down because money was involved, via entry fees and a pre-existing sponsorship deal with Nintendo (which would come with the usual Nintendo stipulations, such as using unmodded software with unmodded hardware). The other big Smash tournament at the time, Summit 10, was also using Slippi-enhanced Melee, but Nintendo made no moves against it and allowed it to proceed untouched. Why? Because it was a free invitational with its $10,000 prize pool funded entirely by donations.

Back on topic, there are other venues like CEO, Beyond the Summit, and Apex, as well as smaller-scale tournaments run by Smash scene luminaries like Samsora, Leffen, and Hungrybox. Neither Smash nor EVO will shrivel up and die without the other.

@Zorox88 What bad things has Nintendo in this specific event? Where in the article does it insinuate Nintendo is "bad to their fans"? If they were "bad to their fans" why are all their games made with their fans enjoyment in mind? It seems to me you're just looking at any reason to hate Nintendo. Especially when you accuse them of giving you an abusive relationship as if they have any bad impact in your life as much as an abusive partner. Cringe.

After shutting down fan-organized tournaments for stupid reasons, it's only karma that Nintendo get kicked out of official tournaments as well.

@LinkSword oh no, the best selling fighting game is really going to suffer because Nintendo doesnt support a 20 year old counterpart to it.

I think a lot of these comments are from people who have never seen EVO.

To work, EVO requires a ton of system support including custom low latency controllers, network and capture support, and for some of the most progressive and inspiring events, accessibility hardware so people with disabilities can play.

Right now, all of it ... like literally 100% ... comes from either Microsoft directly or is a product that only works because Microsoft made patches for PC and Xbox.

The shift to EVO being Sony hardware is ... just stupidly bad. Thankfully Razer isn't exclusively making Xbox stuff anymore, so some of the hardware can come from them, but EVO just went from a event that could pick ANYTHING to play on it's stage confident that Microsoft would make it work to something that can only pick games and events that are combatable with existing PS4 hardware, or games on PC that already have all driver and compatibility issues fixed.

@LinkSword Some karma. If anything, Miyamoto and Sakurai probably threw a party on the spot upon hearing the news.

@Narrator1 Is that your childish view of what a company is? Two dudes? Hilarious.

@LinkSword Perhaps my post was a bit heavy on the hyperbole, but it's a well-known fact that Smash's creators and publishers didn't want it to be at EVO (or, indeed, any competitive fighting game venue outside of their in-house invitationals) in the first place. They only capitulated to fans wanting Melee in EVO back in 2013 because those fans waved money in Nintendo's face during a time when its fortunes were less than ideal due to some costly purchases and the Wii U underperforming commercially.

@StarRoader

Lmao if Sony is just over-competitive, that makes Nintendo bloodthirsty.

@TheLightSpirit I hear hear you, and trust me, that kind of behavior is strange and... just gross to me. But I think this can be applied to gamers in general, not so much “the smash community.” In my experience the smash players are more chill and accepting than any other game community. I mean try playing StarCraft, one of my favorite games, and you’ll get like way more elitist than in a smash local.

Idk, you’re ok with your opinion, I can’t invalidate it or anything, I’m just a bit bewildered over the recent bandwagon effort to smear the smash scene. What’s being said doesn’t quite match up to what I’ve seen over the last 20 years. But I don’t pay attention to Ultimate, and I recently saw a YouTube doc about some of the creepy actors in that seen that I didn’t know about... so there’s that... but I mean there millions of people that play smash so... idk, hard to generalize.

K this was written quickly, but basically... I’ll accept what you have to say. Have a good day!