Nintendo has shared a lengthy statement in response to recent claims it told organisers of the unofficial Smash World Tour that the popular fan competition, including this month’s concluding Smash World Tour Championships, could “no longer operate”.
The Smash World Tour, an “international tournament circuit in which competitors for both Ultimate and Melee can qualify for the Smash World Tour Championships”, is described by organisers as the “the largest esports tour in history, for any game title”. This year’s event, which ran between March and November, incorporated 6,400 live events around the world, attracting 325,000 in-person entrants.
With the tour now concluded, this year’s Smash World Tour Championships was due to beheld between 9th-11th December, but organisers announced on Tuesday (as reported by Kotaku) they had “received notice the night before Thanksgiving from Nintendo that we could no longer operate”. As such, December’s Championships and the entirety of next year’s Smash World Tour have been cancelled.
At the time of its announcement, organisers said Nintendo’s actions meant it would be “losing hundreds of thousands of dollars”. It added the move was also something of a surprise, given that Nintendo had last year reached out “to see if [it was] interested in working with them and pursuing a license as well”.