Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
The house of Mario kicked off E3 in a big way, hosting the finals of its first Nintendo World Championships in 25 years, and announcing a handful of new games during the course of the event. The event was held Sunday night in Los Angeles, California.
Sixteen semi-finalists (eight who had been selected by Nintendo and eight others who qualified during regional competitions held on May 30) battled it out in such titles as Super Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Splatoon, Mario Kart 8, and Super Smash Bros for Wii U. They also went head-to-head in Blast Ball, a new 3DS game unveiled during the tournament.
In the end, Queens, New York native John “John Numbers” Goldberg defeated Cosmo Wright in the final round, which saw both players compete in stages made with the soon-to-be-released Wii U title Super Mario Maker. Goldberg received a large, gold-plated Mario trophy for his efforts, but he and Wright also took home New 3DS handhelds signed by Mario-creator Shigeru Miyamoto.
New games announced, other events planned
The Nintendo World Championships wasn’t all about fun and games, however. As mentioned above, the company used the tournament as a creative way to announce Blast Ball, a six-player Nintendo 3D game that the company dubbed a “sci-fi sports experience” and which IGN.com referred to as a “Metroid-esque multiplayer shooter.”
In addition, during a live segment aired before the tournament, Nintendo announced that it would be releasing a localized version of the NES game EarthBound Beginnings in the Wii U Nintendo eShop for $6.99. The game is the first title in the ‘Mother’ series and the prequel to the Super NES game released in the US as EarthBound.
Also during the event, Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime took on a well-known gamer by the name of Hungrybox in Super Smash Bros. in what Polygon said was “a funny, lively competitive match.” Of course, Fils-Aime was “absolutely destroyed in a way that made it look like he’s never even touched one of his company’s most popular games,” the website added, but that just helped make the event feel like “a celebration of the culture around Nintendo.”
Nintendo’s presence at E3 continues Tuesday at 9am Pacific Time, when the company will run a live event featuring game demos and special guests from the show floor. They also revealed that gamers in the US and Canada who aren’t fortunate enough to be at E3 this week can head to their local Best Buy stores on June 17 and 20 to try out Super Mario Maker for themselves.
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