The Nintendo World Championships (NWC) are a national video game competition series organized by Nintendo of America. These events do not occur at regular intervals.
The first Nintendo World Championships took place in 1990. They visited 29 cities in the United States, with Los Angeles, California hosting the event twice. Steve Grossman and Jay Coleman, who were leaders at EMCI (Nintendo’s marketing agency), created the NWC. Greggory Vasquez-Vasquez was the first champion, defeating 48 other players and winning the NES championship. The event received many marketing awards and was supported by Pepsi, Reebok, and Nabisco. It used a special Nintendo Entertainment System Game Pak, which later became one of the rarest and most valuable NES cartridges. The NWC is considered one of the earliest esports events.
In 2014, Nintendo released a game called NES Remix 2, which included a version of the Nintendo World Championships called Nintendo World Championships Remix. This version used copies of old games and online score lists for global competition. On June 15, 2015, the second Nintendo World Championships took place to celebrate the event’s 25th anniversary as part of Nintendo’s E3 2015 event. The third Nintendo World Championships happened on October 7, 2017.
A video game based on the event, titled Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, was released for the Nintendo Switch on July 18, 2024.
1990
Before the Nintendo World Championships, the Nintendo Challenge Championship (NCC) was held in Canada in 1989 and 1990. This event happened at the same time as Nintendo's 100th anniversary. It was Nintendo's first nationwide video game competition series. Nintendo took over the distribution and marketing from its partners and changed the name of its competitions to the Nintendo World Championships.
The Nintendo World Championships started on March 8–11, 1990, in the Automobile Building at Fair Park in Dallas, Texas. The event traveled to 29 cities across the United States. Players in three age groups (11 and younger, 12–17, and 18 and older) competed over three days. The top two scorers in each city became the City Champions. Winners received a trophy, $250, and a trip for two to the World Finals at Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles, California. Runners-up received a Power Pad and a Game Boy.
The World Finals took place from December 7–9, 1990, at Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles, California, in the Star Trek Theater (now the DreamWorks Theatre). Contestants played a special Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
The cartridge included three customized minigames based on popular games: Super Mario Bros. (1985), Rad Racer (1987), and Tetris (1989). The goal was to achieve a high score using a custom scoring system across all games within a total time limit of 6 minutes and 21 seconds.
Three World Champion titles were awarded in 1990. Jeff Hansen won in the under-11 category, Thor Aackerlund won in the 12–17 category, and Robert Whiteman won in the 18+ category. There was no official round to determine an overall winner. However, after the competition, the three winners had an informal face-off. Aackerlund placed first, Hansen placed second, and Whiteman placed third. Each age group winner received a $10,000 U.S. savings bond, a 1990 Geo Metro Convertible, a 40-inch rear-projection television, and a golden Mario trophy. Runners-up in each age group received a $1,000 U.S. savings bond and a silver Mario trophy.
After winning the NWC, Aackerlund became Nintendo's official video game spokesperson for Camerica Corporation, a competitor to Nintendo. Hansen later became the U.S. representative to Japan, where he won the World Championships title in Tokyo and again in Las Vegas in a rematch with Japanese champion Yuichi Suyama.
Nintendo held similar competitions, including the Nintendo Campus Challenge in 1991 and 1992, Nintendo PowerFest '94, and revived the Nintendo World Championships in 2015.
The competition used the NES cartridge titled Nintendo World Championships 1990. It is unknown how many gray cartridges were made, and the highest numbered one as of September 2020 was #353. Ninety finalists received copies of the gray cartridge after the championships ended. Twenty-six gold copies, similar to the gold design of The Legend of Zelda cartridge, were given as prizes in a separate contest by Nintendo Power magazine. Both versions had exposed DIP switches to set the time limit for completing the games, which could be shorter or longer than the 6 minutes and 21 seconds used in the competition.
The Nintendo World Championships 1990 Game Pak is considered the most valuable NES cartridge ever released and one of the rarest. Collectors have paid six-digit prices for a single copy.
2015
On May 13, 2015, Nintendo said they would bring back Nintendo World Championships to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original event. This was part of Nintendo’s activities during E3 2015. Preliminary contests started on May 30, 2015, in eight Best Buy stores across the United States. At each store, players competed to earn the highest score in a special version of Ultimate NES Remix. The winners from each store, along with eight players invited by Nintendo (six speedrunners and two celebrity players), qualified for the live event.
The competition used an elimination tournament format with a second-chance round called the Underground. This round included games from many Nintendo titles. The final event was broadcast online from Los Angeles on June 14, 2015. Commentators included Audrey Drake from Nintendo Treehouse and Justin Flynn, a commentator for competitive Pokémon. Later that year, an edited one-hour television special aired on Disney XD. It included interviews with past contestants and a summary of the competition. Some well-known players who did not reach the final round included Trihex, Arin Hanson, and The Mexican Runner.
The final contest used custom levels from the unreleased Super Mario Maker for Wii U. The two finalists were John Numbers, a professional Super Smash Bros. player from New York City, and Narcissa Wright, a professional speedrunner. In the first two levels, players took turns being blindfolded while the other played. The player who finished faster received a 5-second advantage in the final level. During the final level, both players raced to the end at the same time. John Numbers won the championship. Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto appeared unexpectedly to give the winner a trophy and an autographed New Nintendo 3DS XL system to each finalist.
2017
On August 8, 2017, Nintendo of America announced the return of the Nintendo World Championships. Qualifying rounds occurred from August 19 to September 10, 2017, at specific Best Buy stores in eight U.S. cities. John Numbers, the 2015 champion, was among the 13-and-older players who qualified. Eight invited competitors, including Bayley and Asa Butterfield, were scheduled to face the sixteen qualifiers.
The main event took place on October 7, 2017, at the Manhattan Center’s Grand Ballroom. It was broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch and shown at the same time on Disney XD’s “D|XP” block. The competition used an elimination format, similar to 2015, which included a second-chance round called the Underground repechage bracket. This format featured gameplay from both recent and older games.
The overall winner was Thomas Gonda (Thomas G.), who defeated the 2015 champion, John Numbers, in the then-unreleased game Super Mario Odyssey.
Reception
In 2015, Gamesradar described the Super Mario Maker levels as very difficult, challenging, and unusual, but noted that the climax of the game ended Nintendo's championships in a way that perfectly honored old-style games. A contestant named Joshua Ovenshire from Smosh Games said the Nintendo World Championships should be a regular event at every E3, stating that participating in the championships was a meaningful part of Nintendo's history and where the magic happens.
In 2017, the Underground competition was generally less challenging than it was in 2015, as many contestants had the chance to move forward in the competition.