Dear Reader:

You are viewing a story from GN Version 5.0. Time may not have been kind to formatting, integrity of links, images, information, etc.

Russian winners of the Smash Bros. Ultimate Smash Ball Team Cup 2019 qualifiers unable to attend finals due to visa issue, team blames Nintendo Russia

Nintendo Russia causing trouble again?
by rawmeatcowboy
19 April 2019
GN Version 5.0

Back on March 30th, 2019, Nintendo Russia ran a Smash Bros. Ultimate championship to find the winning team that would head to the upcoming European Smash Ball Team Cup 2019 Finals. The winning team ended up being 'Ye Olde Guard,' and they believed they'd be heading to the finals in early May. Unfortunately that will not be the case, as an issue with travel visas has come up.

Nintendo Russia shared a statement saying that the process of obtaining visas was taking longer than usual, and due to various circumstances with getting approval, there wouldn't be enough time to get credentials squared away. Ye Olde Guard will not be appearing at the finals, but Nintendo Russia is preparing consolation prizes for them.

This message from Nintendo Russia was almost instantly disputed by Tinkino, a member of Ye Old Guard. In an interview with GameMag, Tinkino put the blame solely on Nintendo Russia for dragging their feet.

“We aren’t going nowhere - Nintendo [of] Russia are incompetent people, that have failed with visa application. They have taken the application on themselves, and, as a result, they have decided to hand it in at the very last moment. Before that, we have been sending them all necessary documents and visa form. As a result, it’s not possible now to get in the embassy, and the nearest registration in the visa center is on April, 26, that don’t suite in terms.

So, we didn’t get anything for winning in Championship. Thanks for attention. Honestly, it would be better to loose in finale and get a SSB controller and Piranha Amiibo for the second place than all this negative because of people’s irresponsibility.”

While this is a situation of he said, she said, there have been multiple reports in the past of Nintendo Russia's incompetence. We saw some of that recently with the whole Level Up Days live-stream fiasco. It's not hard to believe that Nintendo Russia is the one who caused the trouble this time around as well.

[Link]