Who here took part in the Nintendo World Championships in 1990? It was one of the most exciting experiences of my childhood. I was reading through some of my old Nintendo Power magazines and I saw the ad. I felt all tingly inside when I saw it. :lol:
I didn't make it that far in the competition, but I did get to play on the main stage (not in the throne, however). All of the kiosks were cool, too, with the soon to be released games.

Aww man your so lucky i wish i could of competed but seeing i was 2 in 1990 i would have done horabley and probably would have cried.... so ya did you get any thing for participating and where was it held in universal studios like in the wizard?

I remember competing in some type of Super Mario 3 thing at Six Flags...could that possibly be it?? I barely remember it, but there was a stage with screens where you had to see who could get farther or something.

Getting to the regional quarter finals: A gold sticker (which I treasured since it was the furthest that I got)
Getting to the regional semi-finals: A hat or t-shirt
I don't know what else came beyond this level.

It was a travelling event, so it was held in several major cities:
Dallas, TX
Cleveland, OH
Pittsburgh, PA
Detroit, MI
Philadelphia, PA
Indianapolis, IN
Boston, MA

These were the ones listed in the ad, but there were many more. I was especially excited because I won two entry tickets from a local sweepstakes so my best friend and I competed. He didn't go as far as I did...

The competition consisted of a specially designed combination of games:

Super Mario Bros. (You had to collect 50 coins)
Rad Racer (You had to finish one race)
Tetris (You had to get as many points until the time ran out)

The whole competition lasted 5 minutes.

The game cartridges are actually the most highly collectable cart for the NES. There were only a few made. Some were given away in a Nintendo Power drawing. Others were given to finalists.

Here's a good site about the competition:
http://www.planetnintendo.com/thewarpzone/champ.html

I have to be the only guy from the nintendo generation that never beat any of the Super Mario Bros. games. Pathetic. I did beat Mega Man 3 though!

Holy Crap! I was there at the Oakland Coliseum event, I remember it. My sister was the big Nintendo fan, I think our mom took us. In fact, my sister had one of those championships hats with the pink logo, not sure if she still has it but did for quite a few years afterward. At the event I remember playing some game on the power pad where you had to run on it, something track and field, I must have only been 6 or 7 at the time. I don't think we competed, we just kinda went. I had this toy from the event that was a Super Mario Bros. toy: it had a red plastic castle backdrop with a large vinyl Mario with a star and a goomba behind him. I wish I still had it, or parts of it anyway hehe.

I was 8 when it happened (born in late '81, so wasn't 9 yet), and lived out in the boonies. Didn't even hear about it until after it was over. :(

I remember it well but never entered. I was going too but as much as I enjoy playing video games, I'll be the first to admit that I suck at them. I remember we would sit around and talk about what we would do if we went and won and the prizes we would get.

Wow, I remember them. I never went but man I sure wanted to. I remember watching Wizard and I was like wow! I remember one part of that movie where the guy is hooking up the system and I waas like wow, I never seen a guy pull a system out of a bookbag and hook it up that fast. Of course now i see why it was so easy.

There was some contest I entered in many years ago. A big Nintendo transport came to the local shopping mall and the contest was to play the original Super Mario Bros. for 3 minutes to set the highest score.

Some kid got like 99999999 points in 3 minutes. I don't know how the fuhk he did that, but to this day, I still say it was rigged. There are ways to get that amount of points very quickly, but certainly not in 3 minutes. No way

Wow, I went to this at the David L. Lawerence convention center in Pittsburgh PA. I didn't compete in the championships, but I did run around all day playing old, new, and unreleased nintendo games for free.

The line to play Super Mario Brothers 3 (unreleased at the time i belive) was like 3 hours long, and once you got there you had like 10 mins to play. I didnt bother, i was WAY to happy to finally be playing Tecmo World Wrestling.

I remember the nobody was in the Gameboy section.

I wish I still had the tshirt.

I, sadly, was only 5 when this happened
so I wasn't able to experience it for myself.

I remember going to Powerfest '94 and getting to play all the games and getting a free t-shirt. Man I wish I still had that t-shirt. It was all spraypainted orange with the Nintendo logo on it. Totally old school.

That's where I was for the competition. :) My favorite kiosks were P.O.W and Super Spike V'Ball

OOoo Super Spike!
kaBOOOOOOOM!

I tried to find an image of the actual spike in progress, but no luck :(
you're gonna have to settle for onomatopoeia, hehe.

Sorry about the back to back posts, but I found some decent info on the Nintendo Powerfest.
link has some decent pics too.

Linky

Edit
Pittsburgh's Winners Bruce(18+) and Mike(11-) Troggdon!

I checked out that link. I didn't know that part of the competition included Super Mario 3... :?

I competed at the 1990 Nintendo World Championships at the Pittsburgh location. Let me start off by saying that it was a dream come true for a 13 year old kid. I was so close to winning the age group 12 to 17. I remember doing the semi final match on that Sunday and they were only taking the top 7 highest scores for the next semi final round. I remember flying through Super Mario Bros and Rad Racer quite well. As for Tetris, I remember getting into this zone where I hit tetris after tetris. Once the screen said the time ran out, I closed my eyes for a few seconds and low and behold, I scored a little over 1,000,000 points. I was the only kid at the Pittsburgh location that reached 1 million points. I had Nintendo game counselors coming to me, asking me how I did it. All I told them that I was getting tetrises haha. My parents were so proud of me for that accomplishment and I was ranked the #1 highest score in that top 7 best. That next round took the top 2 winners and they would have gone face to face to win a trip to the Finals. Unfortunately I ended up making 6th place in the top 7 semi final round but I got to sit in that king's throne chair on the stage. I must say it felt so good when they announced your name with your score, the crowd cheered you on, and you get to sit there. Out of it, I won Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Spike V Ball as a prize. I still have my semi final shirt, VIP patches, and the trucker hate, but unfortunately no photos nor video from the Pittsburgh location. If anyone out there would know how to get footage or photos of the Pittsburgh competition, please let me know. For me, it would be like getting a present on Christmas day as a kid if anyone had video and/or photos from then. Besides the competition, I got try Ninja Gaiden 2 before it released to stores. Once again, it was a kid's dream being there and I will take those memories to the grave. If anyone else has memories to share of the 1990 NWC, please share.
Thank you for reading my post and have a good game!

VIMikey

This is an old thread, but I hope someone is still browsing it!

I was at the pittsburgh competition, and if my memory is right I believe I placed 3rd in the 11 and under category. I was turning 12 that summer. I definitely made the final 7 on stage and I recall getting a cart of Mario 3 and Super Spike Volleyball as a prize.

Through googling I've been able to find the winners of each city, each division.

Does anyone know where to find a list of the finalists in each city? The top 7?

I'm trying to prove to my wife that I was on that final stage, lol!