Government agency calls out Nintendo’s ‘restrictive’ Smash Bros tournament rules

Nintendo’s controversial new tournament rules for Super Smash Bros Ultimate tournaments are facing the wrath of a government agency that’s clashed with the big N before.

In October, Nintendo unveiled a series of controversial new rules for Smash tournaments that limit the size of events to just 200 people, prohibit the use of custom controllers, and more.

The guidelines were widely panned by the community, but Nintendo stood by them despite the widespread backlash. However, Nintendo may have awakened an old foe with these new policies.

The Norwegian Consumer Council has already beaten Nintendo in court twice before, making it so the company had to let users cancel their pre-orders on Switch and fix controllers suffering from Joycon drift. Now, they’ve taken aim at the Smash tournament rules.

Nintendo’s new Smash rules blasted by government agency

Speaking with PressFire, Thomas Iversen, a senior legal advisor at the Consumer Council argued that Nintendo shouldn’t be able to make new rules because they weren’t presented when players first bought Smash Ultimate.

He presented other issues with the terms as well, such as Nintendo not allowing any modifications to games.

Iversen pointed to the court case between Nintendo and Galoob over the Game Genie – a cheat device that let users customize their gaming experience through extra lives, level skips, and more.

Nintendo notably lost the case and it set a new precedent for game modification. “One would think that this issue was resolved then, as long as the use does not conflict with copyright,” Iversen said.

Finally, the legal advisor blasted Nintendo’s rules banning custom controllers from Smash Ultimate competitions, saying that he has “no respect for such a restriction.”

Iversen says the rules prevent people with physical challenges from playing and hurts competition at the same time.

With all these factors in mind, the Consumer Council intends to take its complaints further and discuss with other European consumer bodies about how to proceed.

Could Nintendo be forced to change its policies on esports tournaments? We’ll have to wait and see.