Nintendo Campus Challenge

Nintendo Campus Challenge was a video game competition sponsored by Nintendo and held at nearly 60 college campuses throughout the United States. There were two Campus Challenge events, one in 1991 and another in 1992.

Games

Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991 Cartridge

Like Nintendo World Championships 1990, the official event gave player 6 minutes and 21 seconds to play in the contest, but there are three different minigames. The first minigame of the competition is to collect 25 coins in Super Mario Bros. 3. The next minigame is a version of Pin*Bot where players must get 100,000 points. The final minigame is Dr. Mario and this lasts until time expires. Once time does expire, a player's score is totaled using the following formula:

• Super Mario Bros. score times 10
• + PinBot score
• + Dr. Mario score times 100

Cartridge

See also: Video game collecting

There is only one known original copy of the 1991 Campus Challenge cartridge in existence. The game was found by a video game collector, Rob Walters, at a garage sale in New York ^[1] in 2006.The game sold for $14,000 in July 2009^[2] After 3 months, the game was resold on ebay for $20,100.^[3]

Reproduction

The original was replicated by Retrousb.com and released to the general public in March, 2008. It is exactly the same as the original and has its own set of dip switches.

1991 Event Structure

The 1991 Campus Challenge was held at 58 college campuses and spring break locations. The event consisted of three stages. The main stage had the competition on 12 different game stations. The second stage was Nintendo Entertainment System systems with various games while the third stage had Game Boy systems. Attendees at the events could play as many times as they wanted and the highest score at the end of the day was announced the winner.

The winner from each location was flown to Disney World in Orlando over New Year's weekend in January 1992^[4]. All the competitors played in the first round followed by a second round with the six highest scoring players only. The final round was a head-to-head match between Steven Lucas and Matt Sekelsky. Steven Lucas won with a score of 2,394,130 ^[5].

Date	College	City
11/29/1990	Louisiana St	Baton Rouge
12/3/1990	Texas A&M	College Station
12/6/1990	Oklahoma University	Norman
1/10/1991	Consumer Electronics Show	Las Vegas
1/15/1991	Cal Poly	San Luis Obispo
1/17/1991	UC Santa Barbara	Santa Barbara
1/21/1991	UCLA	Los Angeles
1/24/1991	USC	Los Angeles
1/28/1991	Cal State Long Beach	Long Beach
1/31/1991	UC Irvine	Irvine
2/4/1991	Cal State Fullerton	Fullerton
2/7/1991	San Diego State Univ.	San Diego
2/11/1991	UNLV	Las Vegas
2/14/1991	ASU	Tempe
2/18/1991	Univ. of Arizona	Tucson
2/21/1991	Univ. of New Mexico	Albuquerque
2/25/1991	Texas Tech	Lubbock
2/28/1991	Univ. of Texas	Arlington
3/4/1991	Univ. of Texas	Austin
3/7/1991	Univ. of Houston	Houston
3/11/1991	Spring Break	South Padre Island
3/19/1991	Spring Break	Daytona Beach
3/25/1991	Spring Break	Daytona Beach
4/4/1991	Univ. of Georgia	Athens
4/8/1991	Georgia Inst. of Technology	Atlanta
4/11/1991	Auburn Univ.	Auburn
4/15/1991	Univ. of Alabama	Tuscaloosa
4/18/1991	Univ. of Tennessee	Knoxville
4/22/1991	Ohio St Univ.	Columbus
4/24/1991	Chevy Open House	GM Tech Center
4/25/1991	Univ. of Michigan	Ann Arbor
4/29/1991	Indiana Univ.	Bloomington
5/2/1991	Univ. of Wisconsin	Madison
5/6/1991	Univ. of Minnesota	Minneapolis
5/9/1991	Northwestern Univ.	Evanston
8/2/1991	Ohio State Fair	Columbus
8/15/1991	Illinois State Fair	Springfield
8/22/1991-9/20/1991	Canada Tour	Canada
9/23/1991	State Univ. of New York	Albany
9/26/1991	Univ. of Massachusetts	Amherst
9/30/1991	Boston Univ.	Boston
10/3/1991	Univ. of Rhode Island	Kingston
10/7/1991	New York Univ.	New York
10/10/1991	Rutgers Univ.	New Brunswick
10/14/1991	Univ. of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia
10/17/1991	Univ. of Maryland	College Park
10/21/1991	George Washington Univ.	Washington DC
10/24/1991	Univ. of North Carolina	Chapel Hill
10/28/1991	Clemson Univ.	Clemson
11/11/1991	Univ. of Washington	Seattle
11/13/1991	Nintendo Open House	Seattle
11/18/1991	Univ. of Oregon	Eugene
11/27/1991	CSU Sacramento	Sacramento
12/2/1991	Univ. of California Berkeley	Berkeley
12/5/1991	Stanford Univ.	Stanford
12/9/1991	San Jose State Univ.	San Jose
1/4/1992	Walt Disney World	Orlando

1992 Games & Cartridge

Nintendo Campus Challenge 1992 Cartridge

The rules are the same as the 1991 version except with three SNES minigames. The first minigame of the competition is Super Mario World, where players must collect 50 coins ( very similar to Nintendo World Championships 1990's first minigame, Super Mario Bros. ). The second game is a version of F-Zero where players must complete two laps. The final minigame is Pilotwings where players must land on two targets successfully. Once time does expire, a player's score is totaled using the following formula ^{[6][verification needed]}:

• Super Mario World score
• + F-Zero' score times 100
• + Pilot Wings score times 10,000

There is one known '1992 Campus Challenge" cartridge. It was found at the same New York garage sale by Rob Walters as the 1991 cartridge. The cartridge is owned by a video game collector named Rick Bruns ^[7]. The 1992 cartridge has also been reproduced and is selling copies on retrousb.com. ^[8]

1992 Event Structure

The 1992 "Nintendo Campus Challenge" competition was held at 35 college campuses throughout the US^[9]. The winner at each location won a Super Nintendo system with Super Mario World, F-Zero, and Pilot Wings. Consolation prizes of $100, $75, and $50 were awarded to second, third, and fourth place contestants. The winner of the whole US competition won $10,000.

Similar competitions were held in Europe and Japan in 1992. The winner of the US competition, Jeff Hanson wins against the winner of the Japanese competition, Yuichi Suyama and become the World Champion at the 1993 Consumer Electronics Show.

Other Nintendo Competition Events

Nintendo held two other major video game competitions, 1990 Nintendo World Championship and 1994 Nintendo PowerFest '94.

References

1. ^ "Greatest Video Game Garage Sale". VGPC.com. http://blog.videogamepricecharts.com/2009/07/greatest-video-game-garage-sale-ever.html. Retrieved 2009-08-09. 
2. ^ "Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991 Price History". VGPC.com. http://www.videogamepricecharts.com/game/nes/nintendo-campus-challenge-1991. Retrieved 2009-08-09. 
3. ^ "Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991 Ebay". ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/Nintendo-Campus-Challenge-1991-NES-World-Championships_W0QQitemZ370266968824QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5635a192f8. Retrieved 2009-10-08. ^{[dead link]}
4. ^ "Campus Challenge Video". VidLife.com. http://www.vidilife.com/video_play_698724_Nintendo_Campus_Challenge.htm. Retrieved 2009-07-13. 
5. ^ "Campus Challenge Winner Video". VidLife.com. http://www.vidiLife.com/video_play_698704_Nintendo_Campus_Challenge.htm. Retrieved 2009-07-13. 
6. ^ "Nintendo Campus Challenge". MarioWiki.com. http://www.mariowiki.com/Nintendo_Campus_Challenge. Retrieved 2009-07-13. 
7. ^ "Nintendo 1992 Campus Challenge". SNESMaps.com. http://snesmaps.com/maps/1992Challenge/1992Challenge.html. Retrieved 2009-08-10. 
8. ^ http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=29&products_id=91
9. ^ "Nintendo Campus Challenge". SNESCentral.com. http://www.snescentral.com/article.php?id=0790. Retrieved 2009-08-10.