Furukawa on esports and Nintendo tournaments
Nintendo and esports tend to come up quite often. Although the company hosts tournaments from time to time, it hasn’t fully embraced the competitive scene.
During Nintendo’s Annual General Meeting of Shareholders last week, president Shuntaro Furukawa was asked about Nintendo’s plans for esports moving forward. He did acknowledge that competition can help to “share the gameplay experience with a broader audience” while also continuing to generate interest for games/characters. More tournaments will be held in the future, but there’s currently no word on specifics.
Furukawa said:
We believe that formats like e-sports where players compete against each other in front of many people are a way to share the gameplay experience with a broader audience. Nintendo has a history of holding game tournaments, and while this was before the pandemic, we held the final stage of the national elementary school Smash Bros. tournament and the Splatoon Koshien 2020 Kinki Regional Tournament during the Nintendo Live 2019 event in Kyoto in October 2019. We felt those tournaments were well-received, not only by the audiences onsite, but also those watching online.
Game tournaments can motivate people who own the game to keep playing and they can generate interest in Nintendo games and characters in people who do not own the game. We will continue to hold game tournaments and other such events going forward by carefully monitoring the situation surrounding the pandemic.
