Despite the fact that Nintendo has some incredible competitive games in their catalogue, it’s rare for the company to get actively involved in esports. Even so, when they do, they do it big. Nintendo has recently revealed 2019 plans for two North American Tournaments in the form of the Super Smash Bros Ultimate North America Open 2019 and Splatoon 2 North America Inkling Open 2019.

Nintendo Announced these tournaments across official channels including Twitter on January 22, 2019. The Smash Bros North American Open will begin officially on February 2 while the Splatoon 2 Inkling Open will kick off on February 10. Both will feature online qualifiers starting on these dates that will lead up to regional qualifiers and ultimately finals that will take place for both at PAX East. The full details of scheduling can be found on the Nintendo website and a video of the announcement was also released which can be seen below.

Both the Splatoon 2 and Smash Bros Ultimate tournaments seem to be more enthusiastic and involved outings than Nintendo’s previous events with both games. Last year, both games appeared at E3 2018 for competitive events. They saw a good share of viewership and praise, but Nintendo offered little more after the fact in 2018, and up until now. Hopefully the two new North American Opens for Splatoon 2 and Smash Bros coming early mean we can expect more involvement and support from Nintendo in the already strong competitive scenes of their games.

Do you want to see more Nintendo tournaments and esports involvement? Want to see anything outside Splatoon 2 and Smash Bros Ultimate? Let us know!