Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Melee are getting their first officially licensed tournaments, in a partnership between Nintendo and Panda Global.
Panda Global announced the news through its official Twitter account, with Nintendo confirming the partnership in a quote tweet. The tournaments will be held in 2022 in North America. More details are coming later, but Panda Global also confirmed there will be cash prizes to win at the events.
This could very well be the most surprising Smash Bros news of the year. Yes, even more so than Sora coming to Smash. If you aren’t particularly tuned into the competitive Smash scene, that might not make much sense. But for all the efforts of countless fans, Nintendo has been incredibly hesitant to endorse any Melee tournaments. Just last year, Nintendo sent a cease & desist to the fan held tournament The Big House. This was because the event was being held remotely, using Slippi.
Slippi is a piece of software that adds rollback netcode to Super Smash Bros Melee. But because it requires playing a downloaded ROM of the game to use Slippi, the event was cancelled. So to see Nintendo officially sponsor a tournament involving Melee, after all these years, comes as a huge surprise.
Prolific Melee player hungrybox responded to the announcement saying Panda Global were, “doing God’s work,” and that he could, “never imagine the day,” that this might happen. However the Smash Bros tournaments take shape, they’re sure to be exciting. Particularly now that Ultimate has its full roster.
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