Since the show's original inception back in the early 2000's, the Video Game Awards has continued to evolve over the years ranging from sometimes disappointing to the celebrated event that it has now blossomed into. While the focus was originally to have an Academy Awards style experience for the video game industry, most fans look to The Game Awards as a source of new announcements and reveals. The 2019 Video Game Awards certainly delivered on that aspect, though there was one game in particular that many fans expected to see, only for it to not show up at all. Thanks to a back and forth on Twitter, fans now have a bit more insight into why Super Smash Bros Ultimate was a no show at this year's event.
The latest tidbit comes from Geoff Keighley himself, someone with a ton of insight into the inner workings of Thew Game Awards considering that he's the show's producer and creator. When asked why there was no information shared about the fifth Super Smash Bros Ultimate DLC character, Keighley weighed in. Unfortunately, the answer isn't as detailed as many fans would like as the decision was with Nintendo which opted to not contact the show about it.
In this exchange, Keighley also revealed that the schedule and the announcements are not dictated by him at all. Companies and studios contact the show with what they want to do or reveal, so Keighley and his staff are not responsible for those sorts of things even though it may seem that way to fans who are watching.
Along with all of the rumors, timing of the fifth character reveal, and the fact that Reggie fils-Aime was in attendance at the awards show, many fans were expecting Nintendo to show off a new trailer to bring everything back full circle since Joker from Persona 5 was originally revealed a year ago. Even with all eyes on the awards, it seems Nintendo has rather opted to handle things through a Direct, likely in January, followed by a Sakurai deep dive like they did for Terry Bogard and Banjo-Kazooie.
While Smash Bros may have missed out, fans certainly got plenty of other surprises and reveals such as a new trailer and orchestral performance for Ghost of Tsushima, the wonderfully bizarre trailer for No More Heroes 3, and next-gen game reveals Godfall and Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2. In fact, the biggest reveal of the night may have been Microsoft's next generation console reveal for the newly named Xbox Series X. Formerly known as Project Scarlett, Microsoft showed a new trailer and finally revealed the system to fans. The fact that this shocking reveal didn't leak beforehand as many other announcements did, is incredibly surprising.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is out now on Nintendo Switch.