The tour's logo

TheNintendo Super Tour '92 (also simply known as theNintendo Super Tour) was a tour in France and north Spain that ran from 1992 to early 1993. It was organized byNintendo France, and the second part was sponsored byPlayer One,Nintendo Player, andNRJ. The goal of the tour was to promote the release of theSuper Nintendo Entertainment System and to show its capabilities for families and children without being overwhelmed by advertising.^[1] This event is mostly inspired from the United States model^[2] and was in direct competition withSega, who organized the Sega Euro Challenge 92.^[3]

During the event, there was an open competition calledOpen Nintendo, with the first-place award being a two-week trip in Las Vegas.^[4][5]

This was the largest video game championship in Europe in 1992, with over 800,000 attendees.^[6][3]

Organization[edit]

The Nintendo Super Tour was divided into two parts. The first took place from winter to spring in several cities, and the second was in summer by coastlines. In total, the tour had 107 stops.^[6]

A truck being driven (top) and an unfolded truck (bottom)

Artwork of the Nintendo Super Tour complex when set up

The tour was run in trucks that unfolded to reveal gaming stations and used 65 metric tons of material.^[6] The trucks were chosen, organized, and driven by Gilles Barthélémy and Stephan Brissaud, who chose the trucks as they allowed them to cross several cities in a short time.^[3]

Trucks featured stations equipped with the then-recent consoles: the SNES andGame Boy. There were 80 stations during the first part of the event^[6] and 72 during the second, with a 15-minute rotation per person.^[7] At these stations, players could play titles likeSuper Mario Bros. 3 orThe Legend of Zelda, and demos of 15 new titles were presented during this event.

The inauguration of the Nintendo Super Tour took place inChamp de Mars^[3] before spreading out from March to June and from July to August.

For Open Nintendo, registration could be done on-site, but places could be reserved using a cut-out coupon from aClub Nintendo issue. For the tournament itself, it took place on a special stand in groups of 10:

• The first one wasNintendo Campus Challenge for NES which featured three games with three different goals in seven minutes (when a goal was completed, the programmed cartridge automatically moved on to the next game):Super Mario Bros. 3, where players must collect 50 coins,Pin Bot, where they must obtain 250,000 points, andDr. Mario, where they must earn the highest score before time runs out.^[5]
• The summer tournament was focused onF-Zero: Players needed to get the best time in Mute City in the Knight League with the Fire Stingray.

The finals of the tournament took place in Villepinte in the Paris suburbs during the international Toy Fair of Paris^[8][9] on January 31, 1993^[3][10] with a total of 60 qualifiers.

Every participant of the championship won at least a T-shirt and a pin; other prizes included a frisbee, cap, and battery-operated radio.^[3] The winner of the stop won a SNES and a place for the finals. In the finals, the participant in first place won a SNES with a dozen games, a balloon offered by theParis Saint-Germain FC's 1993 team, a gold medal, a cup of the tour, a cap, a TV, and a trip to Las Vegas for two people.^[5] The participants in second and third place won the same prizes except for the trip,^[11] and the rest of the entrants received gifts.^[4] The gold medal was also given to organizers.^[3]

Stops[edit]

Gallery[edit]

• 

  Mario's artwork on a truck

• 

  The two trucks and van

• 

  The main truck when the tour is set up

• 

  Finals of Open Nintendo

• 

  Winners of Open Nintendo

• 

  Gold medal (front)

• 

  Gold medal (back)

• 

  Pin

Footnotes[edit]

^a -Parly II is a urban developer with a mall in Le Chesnay-Rocquencourt.
^b -Foire de Paris is an annual major retail event in Paris.

References[edit]

• Game competitions
• Special events