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Before ESPORTS: Nintendo World Championship

Blogs > heyoka
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1 2 3 Next All
Heyoka
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Katowice25012 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-15 07:34:32
March 02 2011 18:22 GMT
#1
Remember The Wizard, where Fred Savage escorts his endearingly quirky (autistic?) brother to a video game tournament while also finding love? Remember how seriously kick-ass that tournament was? He played Mario 3! That shit was rad. How about the real life event?

Nintendo World Championships


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]


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.


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]


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]


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.

****
@RealHeyoka | ESL / DreamHack StarCraft Lead
gryffindor
Profile Joined November 2009
United States524 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-02 18:28:20
March 02 2011 18:27 GMT
#2
that's pretty cool
I really loved that movie, thanks for reminding me of that. I wonder what Fred Savage is doing right now...


edit: it's cool to see how far E-Sports has come!
i got blisters on me fingers
AirbladeOrange
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States2573 Posts
March 02 2011 18:51 GMT
#3
Good blog. The Wizard was a terrible movie but if I had seen it when it was released I know I would have shit myself with joy during the end competition scenes.

I don't get why they sent the kid who won the 11 and under to represent America against the Japanese person. Was it a kids only tounry? And what came of THAT competition? I couldn't find anything about it after googling for about 20 seconds.
NrG.NeverExpo
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Canada2114 Posts
March 02 2011 19:01 GMT
#4
lol geez that announcer would have made me really pissed off if he was screaming at me from 2 feet away when i was trying to micro mah tetris blocks O_O
TwitteR: @NeverExpo follow me, i'll follow back :)
Xxio
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
Canada5565 Posts
March 02 2011 19:44 GMT
#5
heyoka is so cool that mere mortals freeze in his presence.
KTY
prodiG
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
Canada2016 Posts
March 02 2011 19:44 GMT
#6
You really can commentate anything...
ESV Mapmaking Team || http://twitter.com/prodiGsc || Real talk, I don't have time to sugar-coat it for you sir
Heyoka
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Katowice25012 Posts
March 02 2011 21:45 GMT
#7
On March 03 2011 03:51 AirbladeOrange wrote:
Good blog. The Wizard was a terrible movie but if I had seen it when it was released I know I would have shit myself with joy during the end competition scenes.

I don't get why they sent the kid who won the 11 and under to represent America against the Japanese person. Was it a kids only tounry? And what came of THAT competition? I couldn't find anything about it after googling for about 20 seconds.


I have no idea either, I couldn't find anything all morning about the japan competition but I might try again when I home tonight. Its especially weird because Thor is considerably more famous and stuff about him is everywhere.
@RealHeyoka | ESL / DreamHack StarCraft Lead
Bosu
Profile Blog Joined June 2008
United States3247 Posts
March 02 2011 21:47 GMT
#8
Looks like Thor started up a blog last month about retro gaming. Neat.
#1 Kwanro Fan
JamesSwift
Profile Joined May 2010
United States71 Posts
March 02 2011 23:07 GMT
#9
Yeah I remember participating in preliminaries for a blockbuster video game tournament in the early 90s. Basically, it was over the course of like 4 weeks and I can't remember exactly but either you needed to be top x % to move on to the next week or it was cumalitive score after the games to determine who went on to the live tournament.

I just remember that the games included Clayfighters and NBA Jam (on Super NES).
你好
Manifesto7
Profile Blog Joined November 2002
Osaka27139 Posts
March 02 2011 23:35 GMT
#10
Great thread. Spotlighted.
ModeratorGodfather
Gonff
Profile Joined May 2010
United States686 Posts
March 02 2011 23:59 GMT
#11
Awesome. It's nostalgia day on TL and I'm loving every second of it.
Contagious
Profile Blog Joined December 2005
United States1319 Posts
March 03 2011 00:17 GMT
#12
love these throw back videos.. this one is so cheesy though haha :D
No_Roo
Profile Joined February 2010
United States905 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-03 00:37:57
March 03 2011 00:35 GMT
#13
I remember my older brother competing in the blockbuster one (or one of them) for the genesis, and making it to the state finals. The games were sonic 3, nba jam, and virtua racer.

My parents did not allow me to compete for some unknown reason, despite the fact I was significantly superior to him.

Any way, nba jam is dumb, if I wanted to watch a ball bounce around all day long I would be out in the street not playing video games kthx.

I must have been 11 or 12 years old at the time.
(US) NoRoo.fighting
deL
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
Australia5540 Posts
March 03 2011 00:43 GMT
#14
Haha awesome. I love the music and the host - let's bring it back for SC2.
Gaming videos for fun ~ http://www.youtube.com/user/WijLopenLos
Trebis
Profile Joined March 2010
United States182 Posts
March 03 2011 00:50 GMT
#15
I love the Tetris commentary. Deep.
Are your friends all noobs? Send them to SC2 Noob School! www.youtube.com/sc2noobschool
FILM
Profile Joined September 2010
United States663 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-03 00:53:09
March 03 2011 00:52 GMT
#16
Oh man, I had no idea about this. This was almost as cool as Swordquest.

The contest prize was a "Philosopher's Stone," which in this case was a large chunk of white jade in a 18K gold box encrusted with diamonds, emeralds, citrines, and rubies, valued at $25,000. The four winners of all four game contests were also supposed to compete for the "Sword of Ultimate Sorcery", a sword with a gold handle encrusted with jewels, and a gleaming pure silver blade which was valued at $50,000.
Artosis:  "It's like Detroit in there."   Tasteless:  "Lots of shootings and damaged buildings."
Graham
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
Canada1259 Posts
March 03 2011 00:58 GMT
#17
Awesome blog and amazing read. Nice being able to read and get some insight into what game tournaments ages ago were like, not to mention the awesome commentary (why don't we have a tetris man in the SC community? ).

p.s. for anyone who was wondering about the prizes (as I was), from wikipedia:
"The top winner in each age category took home a $10,000 U.S. savings bond, a new 1990 Geo Metro Convertible, a 40" rear-projection TV, and a gold painted Mario trophy. Runners up in each age category received a silver Mario trophy.
The remainder of the top seven of each age category received a thousand dollar savings bond."
[Proton]
Profile Joined February 2010
Panama17 Posts
March 03 2011 00:59 GMT
#18
That video made my day!
Yergidy
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2107 Posts
March 03 2011 01:10 GMT
#19
That is so bad ass!
One bright day in the middle of the night, Two dead boys got up to fight; Back to back they faced each other, Drew their swords and shot each other.
Neoattitude
Profile Joined April 2010
Guam172 Posts
March 03 2011 01:55 GMT
#20
nice find good sir!
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