Nintendo's NX is the grand prize for ESL's upcoming 'Splatoon' tournament

The grand prize is a system that doesn't even exist yet.
 By 
Kellen Beck
 on 
Nintendo's NX is the grand prize for ESL's upcoming 'Splatoon' tournament
A gamer plays the video game "Splatoon" developed by Nintendo on a Nintendo WiiU at Paris Games Week, a trade fair for video games on October 29, 2015. Credit: Chesnot/Getty Images

If you think you have the paint-spraying skills to be one of the best Splatoon players in Europe, you could find yourself in possession of Nintendo's next gaming platform, code-named NX.

ESL's first Go4Splatoon tournament begins for European players Sunday and the four winners will all receive a Nintendo NX, a platform that we know absolutely no details about -- including if it's a console, a handheld system or both. The tournament is roughly six months long, so the winners won't be able to test out their NXs until next year. Nintendo has given the NX a tentative March 2017 release date.

Before you say ESL shouldn't offer prizes that don't even exist yet, it officially partnered with Nintendo for the tournament. The publisher is also promoting the event on its own Twitter.


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ESL's Go4 tournaments pit teams against each other in weekly matches where winning teams earn points. At the end of each month, the teams with the most points compete in monthly finals. Monthly winners earn a spot in the grand finals at the end of the six-month season in 2017.

Go4Splatoon is a 4v4 tournament where teams will compete in best-of-three matches with game modes always played in this order: Splat Zones, Tower Control and Rainmaker. The team with the highest ranking chooses the first map, and then the other team chooses the next two maps.

Splatoon doesn't typically make headlines in the esports scene and has mostly only been seen in regional tournaments since launching in 2015. ESL hosted a Splatoon Showdown tournament in 2016 that culminated at Gamescom.

Topics Nintendo

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Kellen Beck

Kellen is a science reporter at Mashable, covering space, environmentalism, sustainability, and future tech. Previously, Kellen has covered entertainment, gaming, esports, and consumer tech at Mashable. Follow him on Twitter @Kellenbeck

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