This article was originally written for TheNintendoVillage.com, a website I founded and ran from 2018 to 2021.

With the success of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it seems much more of a spotlight is being put on Nintendo and their relative lack of support for the competitive scene surrounding their wildly popular fighting franchise.

The latest person to draw attention to that fact is HungryBox, one of the foremost competitive Smash players in the world. Following his success at the recent Smash Summit 9 event, the player called on Nintendo to support the competitive community, stating that the response if they were to do so would be “unlike anything you have received.”

Here’s the speech in full, with a transcript of the relevant section below:

“I know this is probably a shot in the dark, but I'm going to try anyway because there's a lot of people watching. I really do wish, if anyone from Nintendo corporate is watching this right now, if anyone is seeing the amount of excitement these sets can get, and everything that goes with it: just give Melee a chance. Even if it's just Ultimate, support the Ultimate scene, support the Smash scene in general.
You have people, day in and day out, streaming content, competing, going to tournaments, and we do all it all grass-roots. We have this Summit because they raised money, and that's great, but Nintendo, I need to say, I love you guys, but you are the only one not putting in resources into the scene. Look at Capcom; look at that celebration. Look at every other game, look at Fortnite.
This is the step that you're missing, and if you did that, the culture, the appreciation that you guys would receive would be, bar none, unlike anything you have received. So, hope you're listening, it's probably a shot in the dark, but please, support Smash Tournaments.”

There was some movement from Nintendo recently, when they partnered with the Genesis event last month which featured three different Smash tournaments, as well as events for Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. HungryBox actually came second in the Melee event at that tournament, missing out on the top prize to Zain. We don’t know to what extent Nintendo were involved though, and it doesn’t appear as though they contributed any prize money.

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa spoke recently about why Nintendo don’t stump up some cash for competitive tournaments featuring their games (unlike the likes of Capcom and Epic) saying it didn’t tie into how Nintendo position themselves - namely, as a company that makes games for everyone.

We think Nintendo could and should do a lot more to support their grassroots competitive communities, and agree with Hungrybox that they’re missing a bit of a trick in not doing so. Check out this video for more:

Do you think Nintendo should do more in the Esports space? Let us know below.

Source: YouTube