It's Official, Nintendo Has Withdrawn Super Smash Bros. From EVO 2022

The second SONY bought EVO you should have known this would be the outcome, anyone acting shocked wasn't paying attention. Nintendo knew this and prepared accordingly as they set up their league for both Ultimate and Melee with Panda Global.

Really throws doubt into Nintendo's whole, "We aren't competing with PlayStation and Xbox and instead exist in our own little bubble, so let's all just have fun and get along!" shtick. I couldn't care less about the competitive e-sports scene, but this seems like a dumb move. Unless Sony was asking something outrageous out of Nintendo, which is entirely possible, but that isn't the messaging this statement communicates. EVO sounds very remorseful to have lost Smash.

I don't know much about this sort of thing, but I'm assuming this is gonna be Nintendo's big PR controversy of the week that's gonna get a trending hashing on Twitter, right? Nintendo is fixing their N64 emulation, but we still have to meet our complaining quota!

Nintendo does not like their community 🤷‍♀️
That's the only explanation that makes sense lol

People are going to say Nintendo hates its fans and they are a terrible company. Conveniently ignoring the fact Sony owns EVO and would be making money off of smash bros.

@Not_Soos
Nintendo set up ultimate and melee tournaments with panda global. The only people who say Nintendo isn’t competing with Microsoft and Sony are fans. Even if they weren’t Nintendo would still not just hand Sony free money.

Following Nintendo teaming up with Panda to create a circuit I had hope for the future of their relationship with the competitive Smash Community, but now not so much. Based on past relationships Sony was probably fine with Smash being there, actually they probably reeealllyyy wanted it their, it being the modern best selling “fighting” game. Nintendo simply just didnt want a sony logo on the stream and PS5 ads between sets. This is a purely harmful move to the Smash community. EVO for the longest time has been the most important tourney (either it or Genesis), its absence harms the smash community’s late summer schedule and many west coast community members alot.

Wasn't Evo starting to die out anyways?

Makes sense. Why give your competition money when you don’t have to?

Makes sense, since Sony owns EVO now, why would Nintendo let the game on it? They've already set tournaments with another company, and there are always online competitions that Nintendo always promotes. The little complaining I see here makes no sense. Edit: And casually enough, Nintendo Life and the rest of "news" sites fail to mention the fact that Nintendo has settled tournaments with another company, they should mention that to fully reflect the whole picture of this choice.

From what I can tell from my slightly casual knowledge of the competitive scene, Smash really thrives on local tournaments anyway. This will be a crack in the competitive boat, but it won’t sink it.

Pretty inevitable after Sony bought Evo. At least Nintendo partnered with Panda Global with their own events.

That’s too bad actually. Honestly, EVO just hasn’t been the same after what happened in 2020. It definitely made the right call to close it that year. And last year’s EVO just felt meh IMO.

Well Nintendo had it's own tournament for Super Smash Bros. anyways where you could go compete and win prizes like a trophy, jacket, and backpack! Anything that are not money really.

https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/super-smash-bros-ultimate-nintendo-switch-fans-unhappy-new-tournament/

i agree with nintendo on this one. imagine being sakurai and having to ask Evo permission to have your game be played there. like, imagine being sephiroth and waiting outside of the club hoping the bouncer lets you in.

@blindsquarel It would kind of be a mutualistic relationship though, since Sony would also be promoting Smash. If Smash viewership were to break records and outperform all the fighting games exclusive to PlayStation or something, I imagine that would leave Sony with more egg on their face than Nintendo.

@Specter_of-the_OLED
So people were mad they wouldn’t get paid to win the tournament. Unless you had to pay to enter that makes no sense. You are playing a video game not going to work for the day.

@Not_Soos
Judging by the sales of ultimate, Nintendo does not need help from Sony enough to give them money in the form of smash.

@Not_Soos That's a silly take actually. This is their game, they can make all the revenue themselves instead of generating revenue for Sony. Why would they leave this money on the table? They can make their own competitive tournament instead. Yes, it's true that it would be mutually beneficial, but Nintendo CAN have the cake and eat it too in this case. Smash is absolutely massive at Evo, it can stand its own easily.

@Troll_Decimator
They did make their own smash tournament, but the article doesn’t do a good job of saying that.

The sad thing about this is the premise that Nintendo gets the say on whether the tourney can be run there, when history has demonstrated that even when they say "yes" they don't do anything to run it. I'm not going to get into the whole thing on Nintendo supporting tournaments...frankly they don't want to, so generally skilled organizers will go and do it themselves just fine. But the premise that those same organizers aren't allowed to do it without Nintendo's permission at EVO when they do it all the time otherwise is...odd.

I'm telling you if it was microsoft this wouldn't have happened, just saying.

@blindsquarel I believe they mad cause there's no cash prize involve. They been whining and complaining that a big corporation like Nintendo should also give cash prize. What they don't know is that they could easily sell those Nintendo prizes: trophy, jacket, and backpack on eBay for a lot of money which is like earning cash prize anyways.

Wait, why are people assuming it's because Sony acquired it when that acquisition took place last year and Nintendo's withdrawal was announced just recently? One would think if it was because Sony acquired it, Nintendo would have jumped ship ASAP.

@Discostew Seemed to me that their "evaluating" was more of a placeholder for their inevitable no.

Ever since they let themselves be bought by Sony, everything went down hill. Actually, the whole event was pretty worrying already even before the acquisitions. It was riddled with controversies from rewards to management.

They're not worried about legacy. They're worried about the money and views they could've gotten if Smash stayed. Like companies pulling themselves off from E3, people will get over it on this one.

I'm already imagining HungryBox complaining heavily on Twitter and YouTube.

Great another reason for the entitled anti-fans to complain because Nintendo are protecting their own IPs.

While this doesn't surprise me, I still think it's pretty dumb. Smash Bros. at this point is a celebration of gaming in general as much as it is Nintendo IP - the game has several characters far more closely associated with PlayStation than Nintendo.

Nintendo has shown time and time again they want to control everything surrounding how their games are viewed and consumed. This is their right, but it sucks for the community. Having Smash at EVO is good for EVO and good for Smash. It does nothing to ruin Nintendo's own tournament series. And having it at a Sony owned event isn't going to make people streaming Smash matches spontaneously trade in their Switches for PS5s.

Nintendo now have their own event in partnership with Panda Global so we can still get our Smash fill as long as everyone supports it. EVO has become a drag and an ad fest anyway but that’s esports I guess.

@RudeAnimat0r
Sony will profit from smash. It’s not like Nintendo has made their own smash tournaments....... oh wait they have.

Everyone could see this coming from miles away. They won't promote Sony, wich makes sense.

@UglyCasanova Considering their partnership with Panda was only within the last 4 months, I'd say their decision to jump ship was actually recent and not a year-long wait to say "so long".

@Troll_Decimator @blindsquarel So like I said, I admittedly don't follow EVO or competitive gaming in general very closely at all, so my thoughts about it may be very misguided. But hear me out: If Smash really performs that well in terms of viewership, is it possible Sony may actually feel pressured to pay NINTENDO to come back? Let's say this year's tournaments only get two-thirds the viewership of last year, and Sony is desperate to make up for all that lost revenue they could've had. Might such a thing be possible? EVO is also a known entity to even the uninitiated like myself, whereas I had never heard of Panda Global before. Can we expect Smash events to get the same turnout there as at EVO?

In the world of cross platform play. This is just embarrassing. Nintendo wants to do everything it can to keep negative press around its name lately what with the erasure of legacy eshops and now this. Nintendo’s doing its predictable pendulum swing towards being an anti-consumer gluttonous slob after 5 years of success with the Switch. After their next inevitable failure they’ll have to relearn to be a decent company that treats its customers with value. This happened in the late years of the Wii, then the Wii u was a huge bomb. They had to relearn how to get happy customers, just so they can become big headed again until their big headedness pushes away customers. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam. Sony’s in a similar spot after the success of the Ps4.

@Ultimapunch Smash Bros is not a multiplatform game, it's a major exclusive for Nintendo.

But let me ask this, let's assume Microsoft had a new Killer Instinct game and they withdrew from E3. Would they be slammed for not wanting their game and IP promoted at an event that is owned by their console rival who will be shoving Playstation ads every chance they get.

I know it's a popular narrative to paint Nintendo as evil with their decisions, especially when it involves Smash.

But they aren't doing anything wrong here. They don't want to feature a major exclusive at an event hosted by one of their major console rivals.

What is wrong with that?

I don't pay attention to any of this stuff but, as soon as I saw that Sony bought EVO, I knew that Nintendo wasn't going to stick around. Why would they willingly support their competition with a literal competition? It's foolish to even think for a second that they would. But of course it's Nintendo's fault that Sony bought EVO, right? Nintendo is being stingy and selfish for not directly supporting an industry rival, right? Where was that same energy when Sony abandoned E3, something that neither Nintendo nor Microsoft owns? I remember people lauding Sony for the decision because they can go it alone with their State of Play model. Well, guess what? Nintendo will be, and apparently has been, going it alone with SSB.

Would not be shocked if Sony stated to demand any game showcased in EVO was available on PlayStation.

Love EVO. I watch every year. Fighting is my kind of game. Ever.
Nintendo's decision is pro-company, not pro-fans. Could Nintendo not value its fans, with a prominent game in such an important event? I think we fans do more for nintendo in promoting it on the forums than nintendo does for us in practice.

@Ryu_Niiyama
Reminds me of the Wii U. Nintendo wanted to avoid paying licensing fees to the BDA (especially Sony) for Blu-ray discs, so they went proprietary with one company while using the same technology.

I wonder what Microsoft is gonna do?

@FixMadden22 @Rykdrew Oh hey, back to the "hahahahah Nintendo hates their fans" argument, aren't we? Not everything has to do with Nintendo not caring about their fans sweetie. Some things have to do with business, like how 99.9% of the comments mention how Sony owns part of EVO, and how Nintendo doesn't like giving their competition money.

And it's not like there's no more Smash tournaments, the article mentions that Nintendo partnered with Panda Global to make their OWN tournament events.

I swear, sometimes Nintendo fans complain about nothing, and that goes for me too.

Yeah. It’s because Evo is Sony owned now. Makes no sense for Nintendo to stick around so Sony profits from the 100k+ viewership Smash regularly gets at Evo prior.

Nintendo is already promoting other neutral ground event venues for Smash Ultimate.

Sony would be profiting off Nintendo's IP. If Nintendo weren't trying to enter this space, I'd see all the venom as at least understandable. However, they are trying to so this seems like an expected and good idea. People complaining are just the same tired old "Nintendo sucks and hates their fans but I am unable to stay away from their lovely games or articles" voices. They didn't say NO SMASH IN ANY TOURNAMENT!!!!! Instead, they're using their own IP to launch their own thing in a business where exclusives can make or break. This is just a wise move in general.

@Ultimapunch what are you even talking about? Nintendo is still supporting competitive Smash events. They are not supporting Evo anymore for obvious reasons due to change of ownership.

Makes sense, mhm mhm are you listening papa Nintendo? I agree so can I have a free game or maybe some recognition at the very least?

N-no?...W-Well I'll keep backing your every decision in the hopes you someday change your mind! Please don't take my video games away!!

@Arawn93: Wouldn't it make sense for Nintendo to let Sony profit off Smash views in exchange for Sony allowing MLB The Show games to actually run properly?

The idea that a developer publicized a tech test at a 15 frames per second framerate with garbage visuals in a game that demands quick reaction times in 2022 is pathetic.

Sometimes I think the folk claiming Nintendo hates it's fans aren't actually fans.

'Hello, SONY, yeah, we wish to pull out of EVO this year?'
'Oh, we are sorry to hear that, Nintendo. Any reason?'
'Yes...we hate our fans.'

Lol, it's so petty it's hilarious.

@SportyMarioSonicMix Having to bargain for someone to make sure their game runs well on a system is madness, mate.

@GrailUK: I agree, but releasing a 15 frames per second baseball game when Nintendo baseball fans NEVER got a proper MLB game in 20+ years is even worse.

@FixMadden22 @sleepinglion

Are you insane?

Nintendo has run 5 (fantastic) torments on their on for the community during the pandemic, but you're saying they are bad to the community because Sony bought EVO and is demanding a huge sum of money as well as unrestricted rights to used every IP in EVO promotions and they didn't agree? Or better yet, because when people break the law, the police arrest them, which is fine unless the law they were breaking involved Nintendo, in which case Nintendo are bad. Or because they protect the legal rights to their IPs.

Wow. Stop seeing yourself as the centre of the universe for half a second, you poor little snowflake.

Evo was ill for YEARS before the Sony buy in. Mr. Wizard is a creep and a bunch of pro Smash players wound up creeps as well. I'm sure the scandals played a role in Nintendo distancing itself. Cutting viewers for the Sony event is icing on the cake.

They likely wanted more control and to cultivate a scene that better reflects the target audience. Evo and comp. Smash is a bit of a mess.

Nintendo is such a weird company :/

@blindsquarel I'm curious about all of the comments like this. Evo is the biggest fg tournament, sure, but the idea that it's some biiiiig money maker seems kind of preposterous to me. We know nothing about its financials, and if it was a huge money maker they likely could have weathered the Mr. Wizard stuff on their own and probably wouldn't have sold themselves to Sony to begin with. Or Tencent or Saudi Arabia would have bought them!

@Caryslan Given Microsoft's current behavior I couldn't imagine them pulling a hypothetical game of theirs, ie. a new KI, from EVO. It would be hypocrisy of the highest order, considering Phil Spencer is always out there talking about cross play and wanting people to be able to play Xbox Game Studios titles whenever and wherever they want. They are going to spend $68b on Call of Duty and have said they intend to continue publishing it on PlayStation, which puts money in both theirs and Sony's pockets.

@Rika_Yoshitake Nintendo: "I'll start our own league with Blackjack and h**kers!"

Lol. Nintendo can't catch a break from it's so called fans even when they choose not to participate in a competitor owned event while making sure the same game is still available in a different tournament. Shrugs

To some, Nintendo will always be the big bad.

What's next? Blocking the Switch from working on Sony TVs? Surely this is not just a Sony thing.

Look on the bright side fellas. Evo's gonna smell a hell of a lot better this year.

"Sony cries out in pain while he stabs you in the back"

Boycott Sony. They will do everything they can to destroy the japanese industry.

I would think Nintendo is reviewing many of its digital services at the moment and may have plans to partner with another company. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo plans to have more online multiplayer events across more if its titles and is looking at the best way to achieve that.

This is probably due to them saying 'Fine, I'll do it myself' and just partnered with Panda Global for their own circuit. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Now the question becomes what kind of prize money are they willing to offer in their own tournament?

@SportyMarioSonicMix are you a big baseball fan?

@Not_Soos I do t think it’s bad- Smash was the most watched fighting game by far- why would Nintendo support Sony make more money. Nintendo should just make their own tournament. Evo needs Smash more than the other way around.

I want to join in EVO event if it has Dance Dance Revolution tournament.

@Enigk "What's next? Blocking the Switch from working on Sony TVs?"

That's one heck of a reach.....

@ryu_san 😏 they've already partnered with another company regarding Smash

I would personally never attend one of these events, but I'd have to imagine the place where it is being held will smell much better now

SF6 with it's new MMA / UFC style branding and Luke probably being pushed as the new main protagonist will probably be a PS exclusive too.

im pretty sure most ppl dont remember who the last 4 evo winners in sm4sh were
all 4 are banned, bc pedo or racist
i mean, sure on one hand its competition and owned by sony, but on the other hand kinda bad publicity for nintendo aint that good

@GrailUK: Yes, I am, why do you ask?

Makes sense if its because they want to host their own

The Smash community thinking its all about them and what they want... again... haha

@KillerBOB The next smash killer is a shower head.

@SportyMarioSonicMix Because we are talking about a baseball game. See, I'm not a fan myself. So obviously, I'm going to have to defer to how let down you feel about the game. However, I'm pretty sure that the burden of responsibility os on SONY not Nintendo to make it run properly. If SONY want to get a bad rep, that's on them.

@Troll_Decimator Nintendo can have their cake and eat it too but when have we actually seen them eat it? Like ever?

They pull music from youtube, then never release it.
They dripfeed small amounts of their HUGE backlog instead of releasing as much as possible to get all that money.
They make like 2 of every single amiibo to the point they sell out day 1 and they get sold by scalpers instead of just simply making more stock to meet demand.

Nintendo always has the cake, but they never eat it. Ever.

The fan boys and comments like “protecting their IP” it just makes me role my eyes.

Esports is not something Nintendo has ever taken seriously so I am not surprised.

To be honest I am somewhat surprised at this. Super Smash Brothers had been a staple of EVO since 2007 as indicated from the Tweet.
My guess is due to the controversies that has plagued EVO over the past few years Nintendo decided to cut their losses and host their own in house tournament series.

@jsty3105 Just saying that it has to be more of a reason than just Sony. Whether that reason is they can make more money doing it with Panda Global. Maybe Sony are blocking them from any form of advertising at the event.

@GrailUK: Since you are from the UK, I was going to be surprised if you were an MLB fan!

In general though, I feel like releasing ANY game at a 15 frames per second frame rate is pretty pathetic.

I thought Nintendo could use attending the Sony owned show and getting them lots of extra fans could be incentive for Sony to make the game run properly

Sony getting a bad rep by outputting a terrible game does nothing to get Nintendo baseball fans a competent MLB game on a Nintendo system.

@SportyMarioSonicMix Well, they did mention they were aiming for 30fps, So I'll cross my fingers for you

@Stocksy you mean the Sony fanboys? Because they (Sony) own EVO now.

I see Nintendo fanboys doing damage control here. Didn’t expect any less from one of the worst fanbase out there lol

@sleepinglion Did you know that the last New Super Mario Bros. released 10 years ago?

They decide what happends to their products.

Whether Sony profit from it or not, it hurts Nintendo's image as a whole to do this, especially on social media. It makes them look very petty and anti-fan. From an optics standpoint, it would have been better to just keep the games at Evo.

@yuwarite they have never pulled out of EVO in the past when their games would be there, so at some point, even the most rabid "Nintendo is terrible" kids need to ask themselves what could have possibly brought on this sudden change. Sony asking for a ***** ton of money, offering no platform them to advertise other games, not allowing them to sponsor, not getting any return from viewership monetization, and a million other financial and logistical decisions we will never be privy to leading them to pulling out is a far more believable scenario than anything else here.

Having been to EVO many times, which clearly most haven't, they have cultivated a pretty ***** atmosphere as well, from what they affectionately referred to one year as "thuggery" to side bets out the ass to recent controversy that isn't so easily erased from people's minds, it is not the most appealing event to want to be at despite its size.

Pretending it's Nintendo being "anti-fan" here when they've already announced their own tournaments for Ultimate and Melee too even and haven't pulled out of any other major tournaments is such a strange take, and is a bland, typical attitude you see thrown around because you want to feel victimized by everything a company does for...I dunno, internet clout or some *****. They are clearly attempting to do things right overall, and ignoring everything because they pulled out of one controversy infested, main competition owned tournament is real dumb.

@BTB20 Yes. But that didn't stop Nintendo from giving us several remixes of the same thing

@MrHonest yep. The so called fans criticising this decision are just mind boggling

How does EVO need Nintendo's permission in the first place? I'm fairly sure Nintendo never gave permission for Melee being fearures since Nintendo always hated the competitive aspect, yet it has been featured for countless of years.
So what's changed?

@sanderev “fans” don’t own anything. Except products. I own Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Xbox consoles and products and do not have loyalty to one - I buy things I like and don’t buy things I don’t. I own multiple Sony devices and I don’t own Evo. Games companies crossing over and working together is the future. They are in competition but it’s not life and death. It’s proven the three can survive and be profitable together. It’s not in any of their interests to stamp on each other.

@Enigk "...it has to be more of a reason than just Sony"

Possibly - the reasons have already been covered in the comments, notably, the recent controversies.

Also, why would Nintendo want Sony's logo on Smash videos? Only Microsoft and Nintendo are playing nice with each other in that way.

@Bakfug "Having been to EVO many times, which clearly most haven't, they have cultivated a pretty ***** atmosphere as well, from what they affectionately referred to one year as "thuggery" to side bets out the ass to recent controversy that isn't so easily erased from people's minds, it is not the most appealing event to want to be at despite its size."

Thanks for the additional insight! Makes even more sense for Nintendo to disassociate itself with EVO

@Rika_Yoshitake
Why would Sony acquire EVO for? Seems like all that creates is problems like this one.

@jsty3105 Why can't everyone just play together nicely?

@dBackLash
Because it is a (typically) large event in the competetive video game scene, and is run as a for-profit sport of making money off the games and IPs that are hosted there. It isn't just Nintendo who has a say if a game can be there, any company or publisher can choose whether they want to allow their game(s) to be hosted. They own the copyright to things in that type of situation.
I don't believe EVO needs to outright ask permission to host a game (this I'm not 100% certain on though), but if the publisher steps in and tells them not, they have to comply. Nintendo simply had no issues with them hosting Melee in the past.

I sure the older Evo fans are happy. They never considered Smash Bros. a real fighting game, and they seemed to dislike its fanbase as well.

Maybe it has more to do with Nintendo, whose primary demographic is kids & family, not wanting to be associated with the sex predator scene that festered in EVO Smash more than EVO being owned by Sony. Just a thought.

personally, i couldnt care less about competitive gaming. I guess i just missed the boat, age wise.

Id be down for some non competitive gaming events though. whatever form that would take.

lord almighty can we stop just throwing around "so-called fans", it both sounds pretentious and acts like you can't be a fan if you criticize what you like

i wonder if this will give way to some real oddball choices to plug up the roster at evo 2022, though

@Enigk "Why can't everyone just play together nicely?"

Sony hasn't demonstrated much willingness to do so. Of the three, only Microsoft has explicitly commented on their desire to play together (largely because that's their strategy now since they see no business difference between gaming on the phone, the PC or on the Xbox).

@somebread I deliberately worded it that way due to what I felt was over-the-top criticism over something which doesn't make any sense criticising. Of Nintendo's recent decisions, including the giant head-scratching ones like their poor subscription offers, this was the one that should have been the most understandable.

Why would you use your exclusive game to promote a competitor's event? Why would you want their logo to appear on your content stream? Why would Nintendo ever feature an EVO Smash video on their YouTube channel when Sony's logo and sound bite would be advertised?

Imagine a "Sony - For the players" ad sting on every EVO Smash video... doesn't seem like such a dumb Nintendo decision now...

Nintendo either has an exclusivity with Panda for Smash, or they really hate their FGC fans. But what worries me more is the amount of people who are celebrating that decision 🤦🏻‍♂️

@RudeAnimat0r Just cause they leave this year doesn't mean they won't come back next year or ever. The last sentence on that tweet already assure Nintendo won't be gone for good, if Ninty see interest again then it shall return someday.

I'm curious if Sony demanded money from Nintendo to have Smash featured at EVO...

As others have said this comes as no surprise and this isn't about competition with Sony. Sony knew exactly what they were doing and to expect Nintendo to no pull their and have TROLLs on here calling otherwise is just Dumb. They have a vested interest to promote their product not let another company hijack to promote theirs instead of Nintendo.

@HotGoomba But other times I see other companies trying harder than Nintendo. Whether it's offering free games that remain yours, even if you stop if you subscribe to the online service.....or, like Microsoft, letting Banjo appear in Nintendo's expansion pack (even nintendo profiting from this). I doubt, for example, that Microsoft would stop trying to put Killer Instinct on EVO. For example, a new Killer Instinct is in development. When it's ready, do you think it won't be in EVO? If it is, it will always show a favorable attitude towards the fans. Nintendo sometimes, don't get me wrong, seems kind of smug in relation to their fans. It gives the impression that we do much, MUCH more for nintendo than nintendo for us. As for Microsoft, I feel that we do a lot less for microsoft than microsoft does for us. I do not know why! They are just examples.

@Savage_Joe But what worries me more is the amount of people who are celebrating that decision
How about a Coporation buys your home and you start paying Rental to live there how would you feel.

@Specter_of-the_OLED The last sentence on that tweet already assure Nintendo won't be gone for good, if Ninty see interest again then it shall return someday.
The mere fact Sony bought them out isn't going to see the return of Nintendo. And if Nintendo Smash was the reason it survived and attracted gamers - will soon see a demise of the site. They have a right to protect their Name Brand so why would they want to be associated with a Censorship company.

@link3710 I'm curious if Sony demanded money from Nintendo to have Smash featured at EVO...
I suspect they floated the idea by Nintendo and Nintendo was go fly a kite.

I own both consoles and even i think its stupid to think nintendo would just let sony make money off of smash

@Not_Soos I just want to thank you for saying “couldn’t care less.” Refreshing.

@jsty3105 I know right. It’s mind boggling that people are over defensive over soulless corporations

The fact that sony bought evo should mean NOTHING. Many of the best smash moments were born in that tournament. It was the award above all for smash players and Evo absolutely supported its legacy 100%

@Ultrasmiles I own both consoles and even i think its stupid to think nintendo would just let sony make money off of smash
I own Switch and Gaming PC Rig and that should qualify me to think for Nintendo. You expect Sony to not hijack it for money is beyond delusional fanboy supporting Sony.

@Arisen The fact that sony bought evo should mean NOTHING.
Souless thinking comes to mind. You really think Sony would just let it go without BloodMoney-not by a shred of hair.

@HotGoomba @HeadPirate I just saw this and wow, I guess you can't make jokes on this site anymore. I even put "lol" at the end of the comment.

@SwitchForce the only soulless thing here is taking smash away from evo it's like taking away a part of smash itself. If you don't know the smash scene don't act like you do. This news is only disappointing to the players and I don't care how corporations may benefit or not from this exclusion. Don't forget EVO is the biggest fighting game stage.

@MrHonest more mind boggling that people would treat those offering reasonable explanations as corporate suckers.

Some haters gotta hate no matter what I guess.

@Arisen then perhaps you should direct your ire at Sony for buying Evo and Evo itself for all the previous controversies that make family friendly brands shy away

@Madao

Off all the complete off base, stupid and ridiculous things being said in this tread, this is the worst by far.

Nintendo ran 5 Smash torments online to make sure the sport kept alive in the pandemic, which is better then Riot or Valve did for their esports titles. They have been doing the same with Splatoon.

As someone who has gone to "The International", the DOTA 2 finials that sees the biggest priced pools in esports and has better viewership then the Baseball World Series TWICE, I can tell that you a Nintendo run events production values, hype, and attention to what the fans want is second to none. The live parts of the Splatoon "worlds" event in Japan I went to was off the hook. Literally. "Off the hook" showed up and did a concert.

Nintendo also publishes official licenced programs to follow your favourite team and players (linked below). They do the same for Smash.

Hey maybe you're just a bad fan of this Japanese company and its Japanese esports because you don't speak Japanese or follow the events in Japan? It's not like association football is "bad to it's fans" because it doesn't run events in the US. You're just a bad fan for thinking they have to come to you for it to matter.

Nintendo dropped out of EVO because Sony asked them for an insane amount of money as well as full, transferable, unrestricted control of all Nintendo IPs to use in EVO and Sony related marketing, and exclusive rights to Smash as an esport (no 3rd party events). Good on them, any company that would have said yes to that deal is stupid and has no respect for their fans.

https://www.play-asia.com/splatoon-koshien-2019-official-fan-book/13/70cj0f.

@jsty3105 🤦‍♂️

@Arisen

To be clear, you are saying that the "true" Smash scene would have rather Nintendo forced BTS to stop doing the Summit, forced DreamHack to drop smash from all events, shut down GENISIS, stopped doing the SS Worlds, and allowed Sony to sue and shut down any and all 3rd party events just so they could stay in EVO?

Because you know that's what Sony demanded right?

@Arisen double facepalm

I'm shocked. SHOCKED.

@HeadPirate Apparently not blindly worshipping a company is a "bad fan" according to your definition.

I am sure all those DOTA2 players completing for millions of dollars are begging Valve to reach Nintendo's levels of competitive scene support and replace that prize with the equivalent of 10000 gold points.

It is people like you worshipping companies that are holding them back.

@Savage_Joe Imagine a "Sony - For the players" ad sting on every EVO Smash video... doesn't seem like such a dumb Nintendo decision now...

@jsty3105 it would be the same if every other company than sony acquired EVO. My opinion hasn't changed

@Madao there are more positions between than "blind worshipping" and "hating". Not everyone who provides more context is a "blind worshipper" and it's terribly unhelpful to throw terms like that around

@Savage_Joe Perhaps Nintendo might not have removed Smash if any company other than Sony purchased it. Or, they might still have due to the previous numerous controversies that's tainted the event

@Madao

I mean, have you been to both events? I have. Nintendo's event was better, period. Don't get me wrong, TI6 (the best I've been to) was insane and a ton of fun, but nothing compared to any Nintendo event I've been to.

As for prize pools, Valve only contributes 1.2 million to each TI. Always been that way. The reason the prize pool of TI 10 was 40 million is because FANS added 70 million, Valve pocketed 30 million for literally no reason other then they like money, and the rest went into the prize pool.

I'm sure if Nintendo demanded it's fans pay for all the Smash prize pools AND stole 25% of all the donated money, you would completely support that action?

The only "blind" devotion here is your blind devotion to hating Nintendo while completely ignorant of any of the facts. That's why the grass is always greener for you, and you literally just called out Nintendo for NOT directly stealing millions of dollars a year from fans and players. (also the prizes in Japan are great, generally millions of yen worth of one of a kind merch and some awesome one of a kind perks, yet another fact you are completely ignorant of while forming your opinion)

You just assumed Valve as "better" then the completely inaccurate take on Nintendo you've made in your mind, and you refuse to change based on any additional evidence. Everything they do is bad, and everything everyone else does is awesome ... before you even have the slightest clue what that other person is doing.

Like how Nintendo is "bad" because they refused to stop every single 3rd party Smash tournament AND stop running the Smash World Tour AND gave up all the IP rights for Smash to Sony so they could use them in whatever EVO or Sony ads they wanted ... instead of maybe Sony being the bad guys for demanding that?

@jsty3105 it's all about whether Nintendo can control the event or not. They were very stubborn on not putting Smash on EVO since forever because they had to adhere to EVO's rules and not theirs. If it wasn't for the fan backlash, Smash would've never been to EVO in the first place.

Now, they took advantage of their controversies and Sony taking over to justify their original stance on third party events.

Meh. Nintendo had their own tournaments and they do much better. They don't need them.

@HeadPirate Well said!

since I’m not a passionate Smash player like people in the competitive scene, news likes this doesn’t phase me…

but if MK8D ever had a competitive scene, I would be the first one supporting it!!!

@FixMadden22 oops didn't realize you were joking sorry

@jsty3105 Agreed

@HotGoomba It's fine lol. It was a pretty bad joke tbh 😅

@Not_Soos I'm sure they'll do their own tournament. When that's revealed, it will make more sense.

@twztid13 https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/11/nintendo-announces-first-ever-officially-licensed-smash-bros-championship-circuit-for-north-america

Not a surprise. EVO and the FGC in general practically destroyed themselves with 2020's disaster, which forced Sony to come in and clean up the mess. Nintendo probably felt it was better off distancing itself from an event that has become a shell of its former self.

@Not_Soos You sure seem to care an awful lot for someone who professes to not care about this. But as others have said, Smash is enormous and the time is clearly right for Nintendo to build their own tournament, as plenty of other publishers have done with their competitive games.

EVO is not the be-all and end-all of fighting game esports. It’s entirely possible for a game as big as Smash to stand on its own without Nintendo having to directly share its revenue with their biggest rival in the entire industry.

@Stocksy What!!!!! on this Nintendo website, well that was unexpected.

why does Nintendo actively hate its own community so much? So many actions they take are just middle fingers to fans

@Mando44646 why do some fans act like everything Nintendo does is to spite them?

This decision should've been the most obvious normal decision to avoid silly stuff like Nintendo advertising PlayStation on Nintendo's YouTube channel and yet I see fans claim that this is an anti-fan move. Smh

@BlubberWhale Lol, thanks. I'm an English major, so I'm quite the stickler when it comes to grammar.

@BAN Sounds a bit rude, but okay. I don't care about e-sports, but as someone who has really been enjoying the Microsoft/Nintendo collabs lately, I am interested in the prospect of competing companies working together. Besides, why gatekeep someone from the conversation just because they aren't a die-hard fan of something? They can still bring up valid opinions. Lots of people don't care about politics, for example, but that doesn't mean they don't understand the importance of human rights and can't bring anything worthwhile to the conversation. Maybe you misinterpreted my "couldn't care less" comment as me throwing shade or something, but it wasn't meant to be a snide remark. People are entitled to like what they like, and I understand the appeal of competitive Smash, but it just isn't for me.

@Not_Soos Cool. I'm literally just pointing out that you say you don't care at all but you act as though you care a lot. Not much to that part of my comment. As for the rest of it, I think it explains itself. You seemed to not understand why they would leave, and I told you why they would leave. The end.

@BAN It just kinda sounded like you were criticizing/judging me for it, but if that's not how you meant it, then I apologize.

As a street fighter fan I couldn't be happier. I love smash but I hate watching it and sitting and waiting for match after match of fox v fox final destination just for a pretty okay top 8 were hungry box just wins again anyway is boring AF. At least now I can watch the SF finals at a normal time instead of staying up till 3am on a Sunday night.

@HeadPirate "Sony bought EVO and is demanding a huge sum of money as well as unrestricted rights", Could you share your source?

@Not_Soos Haha, well at least you have that excuse. 😉 What am I supposed to tell people when/if I correct them? I’m just a pretentious jerk-face? (Lol jk, I don’t obsessively correct people.)

(Although technically I went back to a school for a year as an English major for a year at 30 yrs old… but yeah, I was “like this” before and after that ha.)

@Hero-of-WiiU Money, plus they want to make all fighting games in that event to be played on playstation consoles for promotion. Nothing more