Gamers of all ages will have the opportunity to compete for a place in Nintendo history in October when the Nintendo World Championships 2017 take place. Four weekends’ worth of qualifying events will be taking place at select Best Buy stores across the country before the finals kick off in New York City at the Manhattan Center’s Grand Ballroom on October 7, 2017.
The qualifying rounds will all focus on Mario Kart 7’s time trial mode. These events will be taking place in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Dallas, Seattle, and Miami; a full schedule of when the qualifiers will happen can be found online.
Two age brackets are available – 12 years old and under, and 13 years old and up. One winner from each age bracket at each qualifying event will receive an invite to the finals. Those who attend the qualifiers will also have the chance to get their hands on big upcoming Nintendo titles such as Super Mario Odyssey and Metroid: Samus Returns.
The Nintendo World Championships were first held in 1990 across 29 different cities in the U.S. and featured a custom game cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System; that NES cartridge is considered one of the rarest and most valuable carts ever made. The Championships made a return in 2015 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original event and were included as part of Nintendo’s E3 show.