Nintendo Will Host A Smash Bros Tournament at E3

Well, this is an interesting turn of events. Nintendo announced via Twitter that it will be hosting its first-ever Super Smash Bros. invitational fighting game tournament during E3 this year.

What is unique about Nintendo hosting the Super Smash Bros. tournament is that, for some reason, the company once temporarily blocked streams of the game as used in EVO. (EVO is the video game scene’s most prolific and respected event for fighting game tournaments.) It’s pretty cool to see the company embrace its fans with this even. The tournament will be held at the Nokia Theatre at L.A. Live.

The newest iteration of the Super Smash Bros. series will see two different versions. A portable version for the Nintendo 3DS will release sometime this summer and will feature stages and trophies based on handheld games. The home console version for the Nintendo Wii U will release sometime in the winter and will have exclusive stages and trophies that highlight the company’s many home console games.

If you can’t make it out to E3 to watch or to participate in this monumental event, but still want to partake in some new Super Smash Bros. action beyond merely watching some excellent videos (and really, why wouldn’t you?), national electronics retailer Best Buy will have playable demos in its stores across the country during the week of E3. This is a pretty sweet way for Nintendo to drum up interest and keep the hype up for one its already most highly-anticipated games.

Recently, Nintendo has been shunning the video game industry’s biggest trade show’s traditional methods. Considered one of the “Big 3,” Nintendo decided that, instead of relying on the media to filter out whatever news the company would dole out during the annual press conferences, it would rely on methods focused on digital delivery.

Last year’s E3, for example, featured Sony and Microsoft battling it out in live events as their new consoles, the PS4 and Xbox One, were being officially unveiled. Nintendo wisely avoided all of that hubbub by instead releasing a special E3 video under its “Nintendo Direct” service, which allowed the company to speak directly to its fans.

This year, Nintendo will again be eschewing an in-person press conference in favor of a Nintendo Direct video stream. Additionally, to further its independence from traditional press coverage, the company will directly livestream several demos for its upcoming games.

According to the official press release, this Nintendo Digital Event is being called a “new kind of video program that will reveal and provide further detail about the gaming experiences on the way for Nintendo platforms in 2014 and beyond.” It will air at 9:00 a.m. PT / 12:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, June 10.

Check out the official announcement video for Nintendo’s E3 events here:

This year’s premiere video game trade show, E3, or the Electronic Entertainment Expo, will take place June 10^th through June 12^th in Los Angeles, California.