Matt Wales is a writer and gambolling summer child who won't even pretend to live a busily impressive life of dynamic go-getting for the purposes of this bio. He is the sole and founding member of the Birdo for President of Everything Society.
Nintendo has released strict new guidelines for the smaller-scale competitive tournament scene, outlining exactly what it will permit - with caps on everything from competitor numbers to ticket prices - before organisers must apply for an official license from the company.
More specifically, these strictly limited events - which Nintendo is terming"community tournaments" - may not have more than 200 participants a day when held in-person, increasing to 300 daily participants for online tournaments.
Reams of additional stipulations are outlined in the accompanying FAQ, none of which are likely to fill tournament organisers with much confidence in Nintendo. The company has, of course, had an increasingly fractious relationship with the competitive tournament scene in recent times, encapsulated in a messy, high-profile fallout with the organisers of the hugely popular Smash World Tour last year.
Last December, Smash World Tour organisers announced they were pulling the plug on the 2022 competition's concluding Championships after claiming to have"received notice the night before Thanksgiving from Nintendo that we could no longer operate".