EPT
Nintendo World Championships
The greatest video in ESPORTS history
The greatest video in ESPORTS history
Wiki claims the event was based on the end sequence in the movie. I've never run across anything confirming, but it came out in late 1989 and the competitions were held in spring of 1990 so its probably not necessary. The entire thing was set as a weekend long convention to showcase Nintendo products that drew kids in with a multi-game tournament. Basically a miniature, traveling E3.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/am00X.gif)
To compete, there was a special cartridge made that is now worth quite a bit. It had Super Mario Brothers, Rad Racer, and Tetris with the goal being to get the highest score, the Wiki page details nicely how it all worked.
Contestants played a specialized game cartridge designed specifically for the contest. Officially, a player has 6 minutes and 21 seconds to play, which is divided up into three minigames. The first minigame of the competition is to collect 50 coins in Super Mario Brothers. The next minigame is a version of Rad Racer where players must complete a specialized Nintendo World Championship course. The final minigame is Tetris, and this lasts until time expires. Once time does expire, a player's score is totaled using the following formula:
(Super Mario Bros.) + (Rad Racer x 10) + (Tetris x 25) = final score
Some players focused their tactic on getting a high score in Tetris while others tried to exploit a trick in Super Mario Brothers where a part of the game may be played repeatedly using warp pipes.
There were two methods to obtaining fifty coins in Super Mario Bros. The first method involved going down the first pipe, collecting 20 coins, finishing the board, and getting the remainder of the coins in World 1-2. The second method had the player dying twice on World 1-1.
Strangely, the second method proved much faster and Thor Aackerlund used it during the tour to get the World Record score of over 4,000,000 points.
(Super Mario Bros.) + (Rad Racer x 10) + (Tetris x 25) = final score
Some players focused their tactic on getting a high score in Tetris while others tried to exploit a trick in Super Mario Brothers where a part of the game may be played repeatedly using warp pipes.
There were two methods to obtaining fifty coins in Super Mario Bros. The first method involved going down the first pipe, collecting 20 coins, finishing the board, and getting the remainder of the coins in World 1-2. The second method had the player dying twice on World 1-1.
Strangely, the second method proved much faster and Thor Aackerlund used it during the tour to get the World Record score of over 4,000,000 points.
The last part is my favorite and best fitting for TL. Someone figured out the fastest way to finish the first game way to die twice, abusing the fact that you can't lose there. Serious ESPORTS.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HJCxR.jpg)
The format involved playing in two pools, and advancing if you scored above certain thresholds (175k and 200k). "Winning" those qualified you to play on sunday, where you would do the same over and they selected the top 7 to play on stage, with the top 2 scorers winning a trip to the world finals. I have no idea why it was called the "World Championships" when it was obviously United States centered, although something similar was held in Tokyo at one point.
Its not clear to me how the finals worked, some pictures exist of the event exist that suggest it was the same as before, though I've read things talking about Super Mario Brothers 3 being part of what was played in Universal Studios.
Also the dude who won the middle age category is named Thor, which is badass. He went on to represent Camerica, a company only known for releasing bad and unlicensed NES games.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/a1ubH.jpg)
Nintendo hosted 2 more similar events, Campus Challenge and PowerFest '94, which were more of the same with different games and a slightly modified tournament structure. These must have been much less popular, as they recieved considerably less press and are more difficult to find any information on.
Blockbuster ran 2 competitions as well, of which the Donkey Kong Country Championship Edition and NBA Jam/Judge Dredd (lol) Genesis Cart are also high prized.
I have a few friends who attended these, and they have extremely positive memories. Going to a video game tournament at 10 years old is probably the greatest moment of your life, though I can't imagine making events that annoy parents is a great business model.
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