The Electronic Sports League (ESL), the largest independent eSports league in world, made a rather curious announcement today. Splatoon will be the focus of its latest Go4 cup series in Europe, and six months from now, tournament winners can look forward to a very special prize. “Nintendo’s colorful shooter is getting set for weekly 4on4 tournaments, starting this weekend on September 11th,” according to the official announcement . “A fascinating prize is waiting at the end of the six-month season, as all players of the winning team will get their hands on Nintendo’s next video game system, code-named NX!”
This is pretty surprising considering we still have no idea what the NX is. It seems strange that Nintendo gave the okay (or even suggested) for the NX to be offered up as the prize for an imminent eSports tournament before the system is given a proper reveal. This does prove, however, that Nintendo is confident that the NX will indeed be ready for its originally projected March 2017 launch, so that’s good news. Eurogamer mentioned in its massive NX leak that a September announcement seemed likely, so maybe we’re not too far off now.