Nintendo on Nintendo World Championships 2017 and competitive play
Ahead of the Nintendo World Championships this weekend, ESPN spoke with a three important folks at Nintendo: Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo Treehouse’s JC Rodrigo, and Bill Trinen.
Aside from the Nintendo World Championships, there was talk about competitive play in general and how Nintendo is approaching the scene going forward. Read what Reggie, Rodrigo, and Trinen had to say below.
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime
“It creates surprise for the player, it creates surprise for the viewer and we think that creates magic. You don’t know what you’re going to play next, you don’t know how the challenges are going to play out, and for us, that means you really have to be an All-Star in a range of Nintendo properties.”
“There’s experimentation happening here in the U.S. — obviously, we executed a Splatoon 2 tournament that was featuring team from across the world. We executed activity with ARMS, and in fact the champion from ARMS at E3 will be participating in the Nintendo World Championships. There’s experimentation happening in Japan; there’s online play with ARMS, in particular, that is lathering up to some competitive play opportunities.”
“Nintendo is going to continue experimenting in this space. We believe we have a platform in Nintendo Switch which works well in the space. We have games that we believe work well in the space. And you’ll see us continuing to push forward. We’re going to do it differently than leagues and big money purses and all these things that you see typically today. We’re going to approach this space in a variety of different ways because we think for the mass consumer, the opportunity to participate, the opportunity to see themselves winning a tournament, we think that is something that is a uniquely Nintendo type of proposition and something that we’re trying to foster.”
Nintendo Treehouse’s JC Rodrigo
“We’ve been in this space for a while. We’re just are trying to wade back in because we think we can offer something that no other company can offer.”
“You can see a little bit of a shift within us; I know that it feels that way, that we are thinking about the competitive scene a little bit more. Having a hardware system and game that really accentuates playing together with other people as well as going into this space at the same time, I think it can be a really powerful combination.”
Nintendo Treehouse’s Bill Trinen
“What we don’t really want to do is step in and make the community feel like we’re forcing our way into something that they’ve built, and that’s part of the reason why we’ve been a bit more behind the scenes in our support. But we’re continuing to look at the scene and continue to support it and ensure that both of those communities continue to grow.”
