• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Nintendo to host "Smash Bros. Invitational" at E3

What worries me is that if they invite these big names and then have some timed/items/any-stage business going on, it's going to basically be an unintentionally mockery of not only those players, but the competitive scene as a whole. I'm hoping that today's gesture show's that Nintendo "gets it" on some level, but it's just soooo hard to trust that they'll respect the scene, what with this also being a relatively huge marketing ploy for the new game, and them no doubt wanting to "show it off" in as many ways as possible.
 

MAtgS

Member
DQronfb.jpg
If I may take this too seriously, isn't column 2 impossible with 2 different winners?
 

emb

Member
If I may take this too seriously, isn't column 2 impossible with 2 different winners?
Column 2 is a secret extra square implying it will be a teams based event. Sakurai knows how to win; by choosing the correct team mate.
 

Vandole

Member
It is sad that the gaming press are so busy saying Nintendoom because of no Press Conference instead of seeing this Smash Invitational as a positive step by Nintendo

It's almost upsetting that there's so little press regarding this. This is like the biggest gesture Nintendo has made to the core gaming community in a decade.
 

Nyoro SF

Member
I'm sure the invited can explain how it should go down to Nintendo.

Even for some companies in the past where setups like this should be obvious, you'd be surprised.

Personally I just see a huge trainwreck coming. Like looking too hard at it as a "promotion" and not bothering about legitimacy.

One example being a time where a certain unnamed company went ahead and bought extraordinarily laggy TVs to play an official tournament on. Then half the roster wasn't unlocked. Pure chaos.
 

Darryl

Banned
It's almost upsetting that there's so little press regarding this. This is like the biggest gesture Nintendo has made to the core gaming community in a decade.

They should've announced it during their smash direct when everyone was looking at the game instead of tucked into 3 other less related announcements
 

Riki

Member
It's almost upsetting that there's so little press regarding this. This is like the biggest gesture Nintendo has made to the core gaming community in a decade.

Because it wouldn't get game journalists hits on their site. Which means less money for them.

The Nintendo doom train gets them hits.
 

Tripon

Member
It's almost upsetting that there's so little press regarding this. This is like the biggest gesture Nintendo has made to the core gaming community in a decade.

They should've announced it during their smash direct when everyone was looking at the game instead of tucked into 3 other less related announcements

Because it wouldn't get game journalists hits on their site. Which means less money for them.

The Nintendo doom train gets them hits.


Well maybe if Nintendo put the smash tournament in a press conference, the media would report it. </sarcasm>
 

Revven

Member
I bet the reason they aren't reporting on it is because it's not a tournament for them, just like Nintendo's Digital Event isn't catered to them.

Also negative/controversial news gets more hits
 

Speedwagon

Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. Yabuki turned off voice chat in Mario Kart races. True artists of their time.
I really hope Sakurai actually participates. Seeing him versus a top player would be stupendous.
 

Anth0ny

Member
It's almost upsetting that there's so little press regarding this. This is like the biggest gesture Nintendo has made to the core gaming community in a decade.

lets be honest, the gaming press barely gives a fuck about competitive video games in general (even stuff like the big DOTA/LOL tournaments don't get much press, or Evo), let alone a 16 man Smash 4 tournament at E3.

There's "more important" things to talk about, like how bad Nintendo fucked up by not having a press conference. Personally, this tournament and the Smash 4 demo being at Best Buy are the biggest news stories of the year for me, alongside the announcement of Melee at MLG and Evo.

This is a big deal. Whether the press reports it or Nintendo fucks it up or not (lets be honest, they'll find a way) is irrelevant... the fact that it's happening at all is huge.
 

Mariolee

Member
Is it really that impossible to believe Nintendo has already contacted the players they're interested in far beforehand?
 

Revven

Member
Is it really that impossible to believe Nintendo has already contacted the players they're interested in far beforehand?

In the interest of keeping something like this secret, I do not think Nintendo has sent out invites to any of the players before this was announced today. I fully expect them to start doing that in May, though.
 

Nickle

Cool Facts: Game of War has been a hit since July 2013
It's almost upsetting that there's so little press regarding this. This is like the biggest gesture Nintendo has made to the core gaming community in a decade.
Can sometime explain to me how letting us watch others play a game is such a big gift to the core community? I would think that Twilight Princess was a much bigger gift to Nintendo fans.
 

Riki

Member
Can sometime explain to me how letting us watch others play a game is such a big gift to the core community? I would think that Twilight Princess was a much bigger gift to Nintendo fans.

A few reasons:

1. Nintendo has never really treated Smash as a high level competitive game. The fact that they are now hosting their own tournament is HUGE.

2. Smash tournaments always get giant ratings at events. AGDQ and EVO all see large spikes in viewship because of Melee fights. People like seeing these.

3. They are basically letting Smash's best test out their newest game. For the first time ever. This is the first real preview of the game we'll get. And it will be by the people that love the series the most.
 
A few reasons:

1. Nintendo has never really treated Smash as a high level competitive game. The fact that they are now hosting their own tournament is HUGE.

2. Smash tournaments always get giant ratings at events. AGDQ and EVO all see large spikes in viewship because of Melee fights. People like seeing these.

3. They are basically letting Smash's best test out their newest game. For the first time ever. This is the first real preview of the game we'll get. And it will be by the people that love the series the most.

I just hope it's not a stealth way to get them to test the game so they can remove out any features that the developers deem 'unintended' like they've done with demos before release in the past (OOT3D's removal of a lot of glitches in the original build comes to mind).
 

Revven

Member
I just hope it's not a stealth way to get them to test the game so they can remove out any features that the developers deem 'unintended' like they've done with demos before release in the past (OOT3D's removal of a lot of glitches in the original build comes to mind).

Don't forget the original E 4 All demo for Brawl that some high level players (such as Gimpyfish) were able to get their hands and feet wet with and the whole "fastfalling L-canceled your aerials" and such. I forget what else they found that was later taken out but that was one of them that I remember a lot.
 

Darryl

Banned
Can sometime explain to me how letting us watch others play a game is such a big gift to the core community? I would think that Twilight Princess was a much bigger gift to Nintendo fans.

There's gonna be 16 fans in the spotlight having their low-income, high-skill hobby legitimized as something substantial. It could be a beautiful thing as a fan to watch, assuming they do it right.
 

foxuzamaki

Doesn't read OPs, especially not his own
And who is running that tournament?

I actually tried the 1 stock thing the other day. Me and my friend agreed the game is still slow, but it is much more fun as the matches are faster. For the record, we have never ever touched melee.
eh? If you never touched melee than how you feel it's too slow? brawl is slow compared to melee its not really slow in general.
 

Anteo

Member
......compared to what?

edit: and I'd assume he's played Project M and made the comparison to that

64 and Brawl+.
We played a bit of proejct m 2.0(?) a long time ago but the lack of characters made us stop after an hour (it was that version with a really small roster).

Played Project M 3.0 later that day too (the day we did that 1 stock thing, in fact we only did the 1 stock games cause we were waiting for project m to download, slow internet here) game is fast, but the think that stood out to us was that is so fucking hard to get down from a platform to the ground without being punished.
 

IntelliHeath

As in "Heathcliff"
Since I claimed the Super Smash Bros Invitation Tournament and Smash-Fest Impression thread for E3; I planned to add schedule; link to stream (if there is one); list of 16 players (if they announced them); and any tidbits. Also I would post the information about Smash-Fest such as Link to the locations, schedule, links to youtube, etc.

Since it would be my first time to make a thread for tournament and impression thread, so do anyone have any suggestion for me to add to the content in OP?
 

Revven

Member
Since I claimed the Super Smash Bros Invitation Tournament and Smash-Fest Impression thread for E3; I planned to add schedule; link to stream (if there is one); list of 16 players (if they announced them); and any tidbits. Also I would post the information about Smash-Fest such as Link to the locations, schedule, links to youtube, etc.

Since it would be my first time to make a thread for tournament and impression thread, so do anyone have any suggestion for me to add to the content in OP?

I might when it gets closer to the time to post it. Just PM me when you think you're planning to post it (like give me a heads up lol). I'd like to mostly be able to write everything myself in terms of what I'm thinking atm and I won't have time to do that this week.
 

IntelliHeath

As in "Heathcliff"
I might when it gets closer to the time to post it. Just PM me when you think you're planning to post it (like give me a heads up lol). I'd like to mostly be able to write everything myself in terms of what I'm thinking atm and I won't have time to do that this week.

Alright, I will do.
 

Anteo

Member
No offense but it seems bizarre that someone who's a fan of the games hasn't played Melee to me.

It's not like I didnt want to, I just never could before brawl. And after brawl I just moved to Brawl+ and never bothered checking Melee.
Pretty sure a couple of my friends managed to play an hour or two of Melee at most.
 

georly

Member
Since I claimed the Super Smash Bros Invitation Tournament and Smash-Fest Impression thread for E3; I planned to add schedule; link to stream (if there is one); list of 16 players (if they announced them); and any tidbits. Also I would post the information about Smash-Fest such as Link to the locations, schedule, links to youtube, etc.

Since it would be my first time to make a thread for tournament and impression thread, so do anyone have any suggestion for me to add to the content in OP?

They said they're announcing the invitees pretty soon. Will you make the OP once that's announced and let it... live... for 6-ish weeks? Or will you make it a couple days before E3?
 

IntelliHeath

As in "Heathcliff"
They said they're announcing the invitees pretty soon. Will you make the OP once that's announced and let it... live... for 6-ish weeks? Or will you make it a couple days before E3?

Anyone can make the thread for that, but I'm going to make a thread like a day before E3 start in advance before the NeoGAF crash.
 

Vandole

Member
Can sometime explain to me how letting us watch others play a game is such a big gift to the core community? I would think that Twilight Princess was a much bigger gift to Nintendo fans.

Just for the record, the word I used was "gesture" not "gift." And in this case, gesture as in an acknowledgement. Which is exactly what this is. This is an acknowledgement that there's an audience out there that Nintendo hasn't really recognized. I can't recall when Nintendo has gone out of their way to do anything to cater to the competitive community. If anything it's almost a reversal for them. How many times have they had an opportunity to use something as simple as a scoreboard to foster competition, and stayed away from it? And now they're not only acknowledging it, but they're embracing it to some extent by showcasing it.
 
Or they could run it for exactly the same amount of time with the goal of entertaining the audience instead of determining who's definitively the best at a game they've all barely played before.
Yes, and since items on would likely be a gigantic camping fest since these people will both be playing seriously and know what they're doing, items should be turned off.

Like, if your opponent gets a good item then the best tactic is to run away until the item's gone. Similarly, stalling for a good item drop is often the most optimal play if you're backed into a corner, especially if your character both has a good final smash and is good at getting them.

And these players certainly know those things, so since they're trying to win a tournament they would naturally play like that.
 

Vandole

Member
lets be honest, the gaming press barely gives a fuck about competitive video games in general (even stuff like the big DOTA/LOL tournaments don't get much press, or Evo), let alone a 16 man Smash 4 tournament at E3.

There's "more important" things to talk about, like how bad Nintendo fucked up by not having a press conference. Personally, this tournament and the Smash 4 demo being at Best Buy are the biggest news stories of the year for me, alongside the announcement of Melee at MLG and Evo.

This is a big deal. Whether the press reports it or Nintendo fucks it up or not (lets be honest, they'll find a way) is irrelevant... the fact that it's happening at all is huge.

You know this actually is starting to frustrate me even more. It was only a few weeks ago that there was a story being floated around by a bunch of media outlets about how eSports were watched by more people than the NBA. Now those stats were pretty slanted in order to make the point, but the data behind it still showed that competitive gaming is really getting popular.

And now here we have a legitimate follow-up story to that. A group of top Super Smash competitive gamers are being brought to E3 to show off the new game in a tournament. And what do we hear? Not nearly as much as the typical doom articles.
 
What worries me is that if they invite these big names and then have some timed/items/any-stage business going on, it's going to basically be an unintentionally mockery of not only those players, but the competitive scene as a whole. I'm hoping that today's gesture show's that Nintendo "gets it" on some level, but it's just soooo hard to trust that they'll respect the scene, what with this also being a relatively huge marketing ploy for the new game, and them no doubt wanting to "show it off" in as many ways as possible.

It wont be played at nearly a high enough level that stages/items would matter. Character balance will probably be fucked too; its not released yet.
 

J@hranimo

Banned
Since the Nintendo and the MLG guys kinda got their thing going from the Smash Brothers Documentary, I think it's safe to say that almost everyone from the doc will be invited (Idk about Isai :/)
 

Clefargle

Member
Will there be any level of 1v1 competition at the Best Buy Smash Fest or will I be playing
4v4/CPUs? I hope there will be bracketing of some sort but I am probably wishing for too much.
 

HawthorneKitty

Sgt. 2nd Class in the Creep Battalion, Waifu Wars
Will there be any level of 1v1 competition at the Best Buy Smash Fest or will I be playing
4v4/CPUs? I hope there will be bracketing of some sort but I am probably wishing for too much.
Yeah, you're setting yourself up for disappointment with these hopes.
 

Cuburt

Member
The more I think about this announcement, the more I realize how big of a deal this move is for Nintendo. Embracing the core audience/competitive Smash scene in this way and making the game and this tournament the star of their E3 is huge. The Best Buy demos on top of that really show the amazing potential their approach last year had but they are really able to capitalize on it this year in a way they didn't last year.
 
Can sometime explain to me how letting us watch others play a game is such a big gift to the core community? I would think that Twilight Princess was a much bigger gift to Nintendo fans.

Let's say Twilight Princess was a bigger gift to core fans. That was ten years ago!

This is a big deal because Nintendo had previously shot down Smash tournaments or at least made it hard to broadcast. Sakurai purposefully made Brawl with elements like tripping that randomize skill-based play. Nintendo's previous E3's have put myopic focus on the games they thought would get casual press like Wii Music or Nintendo Land. I would even argue that some of Nintendo's big games, like 3D World, have been hindered by their desire to appeal to casual, easy, local multiplayer gameplay.

Even if this is just for one title, a Smash tournament shows a reversal of those trends. It's a guarantee that a large portion of their E3 won't just be about a fighting game, but a competitive tournament, likely featuring players that study hardcore elements like frame data.

This move and even the flawed "For Glory" mode are an acknowledgment that Nintendo does see the hardcore fan as important to their bottom line, rather than the audience that they just assumed would always be there, prior to the Wii U. A sign like this shows that Nintendo understands it must make concessions to the core fan because the sales of Wii U show that core fans will go elsewhere. And the more concessions they make to the core, the better for most of us here on GAF.

Even without reading this as Nintendo's admission of the failures of Nintendo Land/Game&Wario/Wii Fit/etc., it's at least a sign that the hardcore community can share the stage with that crap. Not only that, but maybe they'll even ask for feedback from the Smash community after the players get a chance to get their hands on the game. And it's not just a good sign, but it'll be a fun, gamer-focused event at an E3, where they might spend a lot of time spewing info on a Kindle for yoga moms.
 
Top Bottom