This morning, Nintendo of America announced an official partnership with PlayVS, the premier provider for high school and college students in the growing world of eSports. High school eSports players will now be able to look forward to Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Splatoon 2 being officially recognized varsity athletics in certain schools this fall, with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe joining in next Spring.
As PlayVS states on their website's announcement, this partnership will give hundreds of select qualifying schools a Nintendo Switch if they participate in the Nintendo title league this school year. Also, 3,000 select schools across the United States and Canada will also get either Smash Ultimate or Splatoon 2 along with a 12-month Nintendo Switch Online membership. But if fighting or spraying ink isn't your budding eSports player's thing, they'll be pleased to know that the press release also reveals that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will also be joining the PlayVS eSports roster for the Spring 2022 High School season.
Nintendo of America and PlayVS both spoke up about their new partnership. Bill Trinen, Nintendo of America's Senior Director of Product Marketing, said that working with PlayVS "is an important next step as Nintendo expands our support for competitive play and helps more players explore gaming in a competitive space." Meanwhile, PlayVS founder and CEO Delane Parnell says that partnering with Nintendo was something he wanted to do since starting PlayVS and takes great pride in offering Nintendo's games to their eSports community. "This partnership ensures that high school students now have an official path to competitive play for these immensely popular games."
The next season of PlayVS' competitive high school games will start September 20th. You can join the waitlist and learn more about this partnership at PlayVS' official announcement.
