Nintendo Live Tokyo 2024 cancelled due to “threats”, Splatoon Koshien 2023 finals and other tournaments postponed

The latest Nintendo Live event (Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo) was supposed to take place this January at the Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo. Unfortunately, Nintendo has just announced that this event has been cancelled, and that the Splatoon Koshien 2023 finals and other tournaments that were supposed to take place at Nintendo Live, have been postponed.

That cancellation is not due to any Covid emergency or restriction, but to “persistent threats” targeting Nintendo employees, event staff, and the audience.

In its press release, the company explains that it has been receiving “persistent threats” targeting its employees ahead of the Splatoon Koshien 2023 finals (which were scheduled for December 16th and December 17th in Tokyo). Those threats have since spread to the staff and audience that were supposed to work at/attend the event, and so Nintendo chose to postpone it in order to ensure the safety of all participants.

What does this mean for the Splatoon 3 World Championships 2024? Since the winning team of the Splatoon Koshien 2023 finals was supposed to compete and represent Japan on the world stage, Nintendo had no other choice but to also postpone the Splatoon 3 World Championships 2024 to an unspecified date.

Also, due to those same threats, Nintendo chose to cancel the Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo event outright, as the company determined that it would be unable to ensure the safety of all participants.

The event, which was supposed to take place on January 20th and January 21st at Tokyo Big Sight, is where some other tournaments (such as the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Online Challenge Final Stage and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe World Championships 2024) were supposed to take place, and naturally, they have all been postponed to an unspecified date.

Further details about the postponed events will be shared in the future via social media and the official Nintendo website.

Source: Nintendo