> With Ultimate, Nintendo seems to have finally started thinking of Smash as primarily a competitive game. I don't think Nintendo was ever against its competit

> With Ultimate, Nintendo seems to have finally started thinking of Smash as primarily a competitive game. I don't think Nintendo was ever against its competitiveness. They probably understand that if they focus on keeping the game fun, the rest will follow, regardless of whether the competitive scene accepts it or not. For an example of getting this backwards, of trying to make a game competitive first and worrying about the fun afterwards, look at the painful example of StarCraft II. Blizzard succeeded in making that game competitive, ok. But they failed at making it fun, and as a result its energy as an eSport, i.e. its playerbase and therefore viewerbase of casual and casual-competitive players, fell out from under it. I do agree the things Nintendo is offering the competitive scene with Ultimate is awesome. I'm buying a Switch before the holiday season starts because it's probably going to get hard to get.