According to a new official post, Nintendo has announced that 2024 World Championships for Splatoon 3 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe are returning in April.
The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Online Challenge Final Stage event is also coming. The exact schedule and rules for the events will be announced “at a later date”.
The tournaments will be held in Japan on Saturday, April 13th through April 14th. The championships “will be held without spectators on both days, but the matches will be streamed live”.
Fans can watch the action on YouTube Live and Niconico Live Broadcasting. Nintendo users can also watch player perspectives via Viewpoint Distribution.
The decision to stream these events may disappoint some Nintendo fans, who hoped to watch everything live. The tournaments were originally planned for Nintendo Live Tokyo 2024.
However, they were postponed in December, following a series of threats. Nintendo officially stated that “persistently receiving threats targeting our employees”.
Further, Nintendo reported that the threats “spread to spectators, staff, etc.” surrounding the Splatoon Koshien 2023 National Finals.
Today’s announcement did not give a specific update on these threats. However, it is clear that Nintendo is prioritizing safety in its decision to stream the World Championships.
Fans have proven supportive, understanding, and simply thankful that the events were not cancelled outright.
Hopefully, staff and fans alike will remain safe, and live Nintendo events can return sometime soon.
Financial reports surfaced this week that the Nintendo Switch has now sold over 139 million units. Nintendo was also confident enough to increase their sales forecast.
In the meantime, fans await news of a Nintendo Direct this month, and a potential Nintendo Switch 2 announcement.
For more of the latest gaming news, you can read about the new 2K layoffs reported earlier today, which affected Visual Concepts Austin.
