Nintendo president Furukawa on Nintendo’s lack of financial support for Smash Ultimate tournaments
While Nintendo have hosted several tournaments for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and provided support for the community in other ways, they generally don’t provide prize money for the tournament winners, making it tough for competitive players to build a career around it. In a recent interview with Nikkei, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa was asked about this issue and said the following (credit goes to Kotaku for the translation):
“Esports, in which players compete on stage for prize money as an audience watches, demonstrates one of the wonderful charms of video games. It’s not that we’re opposed to it. So that our games can be widely enjoyed by anyone regardless of experience, gender, or age, we want to be able to participate in a wide range of different events. Our strength, what differentiates us from other companies, is this different worldview, not an amount of prize money.”
