Nintendo sponsors online Mario Kart tournament

by Ross Miller { Nov 14th 2005 at 4:30PM }

N-Sider is collaborating with Nintendo of America to run a 32-player tournament for Mario Kart DS. Simply go to the contest page and register (must have your MarioKart Friend ID with you) between now and early December. The 32 entrants will be chosen randomly (with 8 slots solely for N-Sider's Forum posters), and on December 10th the races will be conducted. The prizes being given out are pretty nice, ranging from a Mario Kart DS Stylus (for everyone playing) all the way to a GameBoy Micro for 1st place.

Nintendo's Wi-Fi service is not very accommodating for setting up specific player vs. player matches, much less a tournament, but N-Sider is doing its best to make this work.

Here are the noteworthy specifics from the contest rules:

�Friend codes will have to be distributed and, if necessary, friends will have to be deleted to ensure proper matching.�
�Coordination of the groups will be handled in a locked, specific channel on an IRC server, with a staff �circuit coordinator�, who will make sure that everythings runs as expected.�
�Race results and point totals will work on the honour system, but all results will have to be delivered by each player, to ensure honesty. Any disputes that arise will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Anyone that disconnects will automatically be disqualified.�

We applaud N-Sider for setting a precedent, and we hope this works out. And if not (or even if it does), we hope Nintendo will one day upgrade its online service to improve matchmaking.

[Thanks, Crushed]