On Oct. 1st, the world watched in shock as the impossible just happen that Steve/Alex from Minecraft officially joins the roster of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Personal opinion wise is that it wasn’t many people’s first choice but after the trailer hit on Thurs. morning it not only shut people up but it also crashed and made Twitter shut down for a solid 20 minutes.
The only time that happened was when Michael Jackson passed away years ago.
Though the fact that someone as Steve/Alex was able to make it begs the question “Who else has a chance to make it in the second season pass?” As now any game character who has a history with Nintendo has a fair chance of participating.
But, the biggest question is what does mean to both Microsoft and Nintendo?
Minecraft was created by Mojang back in 2009, with Microsoft acquiring the company in 2014 for $2.5 Billion. Which makes Steve/Alex the second Microsoft representative in Smash Ultimate with the first being Banjo & Kazooie.
Even then, both companies have been in talks about including Steve/Alex for years before Smash Ultimate was even a thing. With many developers and employees of Mojang celebrating and congratulating themselves.
With Mojangs Chief Creative Officer Jens ‘Jeb’ Bergensten saying “Bringing Minecraft to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the result of an amazing collaboration with Nintendo” said Jeb. “As fans of the series and avid players at our studios, we couldn’t be more excited to see Minecraft joins Smash’s already legendary Lineup of characters.”
Steve’s/Alex’s inclusion means that the relationship with both Microsoft and Nintendo has grown stronger than ever before as before they considered game competitors seeing who gets to sell the most consoles.
But from 2017 to now Microsoft has been in the initiative to bring its content to as many platforms as they could having not only their games appear on Nintendo Switch like “Minecraft”, “Minecraft Dungeons” “Ori 1+2” and “Cuphead” but going as far as being able to let people who own Minecraft on Xbox One and Switch play together.
This shows that Microsoft is not only not caring about the rivalry or competition of console sales as before, but showing that they want to be more consumer-friendly to many of its customers and sharing their games to PC and mobile devices thanks to Game pass and selling the games they other platforms like Switch.
What this could mean is the even more games may appear on Nintendo Platforms like “Halo” or any other Rare property games like “Banjo & Kazooie” or any other rare game from the NES to the Gamecube. But also it can open the door to any character who seemed impossible to add in, with Steve joining there’s no telling who else would make it in.
But even then Smash Bros. Ultimate is not only a celebration of Nintendo but a celebration of gaming as a whole and with Steve’s/Alex’s inclusion in it then it deserves the honor of being one of the great icons of gaming to fight alongside other icons like Mario, Cloud, Sonic, and Pac- Man.
