Nintendo’s bringing its big fan event to the US for the first time

Nintendo’s bringing its big fan event to the US for the first time

Time Stamp: April 11, 2023 10:56 AM

Nintendo Live is coming stateside for the first time, Nintendo announced today. This September, the annual fan festival will take place in Seattle. Nintendo did not provide a specific date.

Having taken place in Japan for the past few years, Nintendo Live is a several-day event comprising musical performances and other live performances. Nintendo Live usually runs for two days, and is set in a fairground-type area strewn with folks dressed up as popular Nintendo characters. You can also test out Switch games. The whole thing is basically Mariopalooza.

Nintendo Live also stages tournaments for popular Nintendo games like Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (the irony of which is not lost, considering Nintendo’s long history of shuttering fan tournaments for Super Smash Bros.).

This year’s Nintendo Live is set in the back half of a banner year for Nintendo. The utterly risk-free Super Marios Bros. Movie is already on track to become one of the biggest movies of the year, raking in nearly $400 million in its opening weekend at the global box office. The Super Nintendo World theme park opened in Hollywood earlier this year. (It’s startlingly faithful to source material.) Meanwhile, in the realm of Things Nintendo Became Famous For, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is poised to become one of the biggest games of the year, if not the decade.

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