Watch Nintendo developers destroy fighting game champions at E3

In what’s now becoming a bit of a tradition, Nintendo held a couple of invitational tournaments during E3 this year. Eight gamers competed for the title in Pokken Tournament DX, a Pokemon fighting game with Tekken mechanics. Another eight faced off in Arms, Nintendo’s wacky new fighting game where opponents box with spring-loaded limbs.

What nobody knew was that after the champions were crowned, they would have to face off against the ultimate Final Boss: the game developers themselves.

It did not go well.

The Pokken tournament saw the eight players, most of them with some high level competitive experience, face off in teams of two. At the end of it remained MatPat, known for his Game Theory YouTube channel, and Allister Singh, an actual Pokken professional with a sponsor and all.

Then Nintendo surprised everyone by announcing they would have to face off against the director and co-producers of the game, Haruki Suzaki and Masaaki Hoshino, respectively. Though there were a couple of close rounds, the developers scored a decisive victory. You can watch the match, starting from the surprise final boss announcement here (starts at 31:23):

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But then there was ARMs a couple of hours later. Nintendo invited four fighting game veterans, while the other players had to work their way up through pool battles among the E3 crowd. Ultimately a player by the alias of Zerk won through a series of decisive victories.

Then he was pitted against Arms Producer Kosuke Yabuki, and poor guy didn’t even stand a chance. You can watch the whole thing here (starts at 22:05):

Or just watch this clutch combo from Mr. Yabuki to seal game 1.

I’m pretty sure Mr. Yabuki sold a bunch of ARMs copies with that performance. Who’d have thought developers could actually be good at their own games?