Countdown to Smashpoint

Countdown to Smashpoint, known as Countdown to Final Wars (カウントダウン・トゥ・ファイナル・ウォーズ Kauntodaun Tu Fainaru Wōzu) in Japan, is a series of games headed by Nintendo with a collaboration of Japan's top gaming publishers such as Capcom, Sega, Square-Enix, Konami and Bandai-Namco and designed for the Japanese game industry as a whole to compete with Western gaming and revitalize the declining popularity of console gaming into the world market. The series is composed of twenty-four games released from 2019 to 2022. As the name states, the games within the series are buildup prequels to Super Smash Bros. Smashpoint.
With extensive marketing and advertising, the series was an extensive success, with all the games receiving critical acclaim and selling a grand total of $2.1 billion worldwide.
==Development==
On May 30, 2018, Tatsumi Kimishima, the CEO of Nintendo, said in an interview that he felt that "the Western gaming industry is becoming more popular worldwide than Japanese gaming". He also expressed his concerns on the "decline of console gaming" in favor of the ever-growing popularity of mobile gaming and the "losings of the Japanese game market to American sources: a major turnaround since the 1983 video game crash". Also, surveys showed that as of the start of summer 2018, Western companies like Rockstar, NetherRealms, Bethesda and Ubisoft were making better and higher-quality games than Japanese-made games.
On December 21, 2018, the creator of the Super Smash Bros. series, Masahiro Sakurai, announced a plan to create a crossover series of games that would tie in and "counting down" to a new Super Smash Bros. game which started development by the end of Q1 2020, months after the release of Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo Switch, and is scheduled for a worldwide release in late 2022 to "celebrate the 50 years of the video game industry that began in 1972". In February 2019, the plan was officially entitled in Japan as Countdown to Final Wars, confirming that "Final Wars" will be the title of the new Super Smash Bros. entry. Nintendo of America changed the title to Smashpoint for a Western release.
In an effort to compete with the Western game industry as a whole and bring back the popularity of console gaming, the company signed a multi-partnership deal with various Japanese gaming companies such as Capcom, Square-Enix, Sega and Bandai-Namco to create twenty-four new games together with twelve of them to be made by Nintendo and the other half distributed by other companies; all of which are to be released apart of each other for a month at most in the span of two years leading up to Super Smash Bros. Smashpoint. Sakurai stated that all the entries will be canon to their respective series and in-continuity with each other and the upcoming Super Smash Bros. game.
On Q2 2021, an announcement in a game conference in New York was made in public that shortly after the release of Smashpoint, Nintendo will reboot all of its franchises in a massive relaunch event in the following year.
== Games ==
Countdown to Smashpoint is composed of 24 titles, all of which are released in Nintendo consoles. Entries developed only by Nintendo, as well as Switch/3DS versions of multi-platform games, have exclusive cover layouts and a special title: "Countdown to Smashpoint".
No.	Title 	Release Date(s) 	Console(s) 	Developer(s) 	Publisher(s)
24 	Mario Party 11 	March 15, 2019 	Switch 	Nintendo 	Nintendo
23 	Metroid: Identity Crisis 	May 13, 2019 	Switch 	Nintendo 	Nintendo
22 	Kirby's Paradise Island 	July 12, 2019 	3DS 	Nintendo 	Nintendo
22 	Resident Evil: Downfall 	September 17, 2019	PS4, XB1, Switch 	Capcom 	Capcom
20 	The Legend of Zelda: New Light 	October 30, 2019 	Switch 	Nintendo 	Nintendo
19 	Sonic: Dark Masters 	December 25, 2019 	PS4, XB1, PC, Switch 	Sega 	Sega
18 	Kid Icarus: Tower of Babel 	February 7, 2020 	Switch 	Nintendo
Nintendo 	Nintendo
17 	Fire Emblem: Ultimatum 	April 12, 2020 	Switch 	Nintendo 	Nintendo
16 	Nintendo & Sega at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games 	June 15, 2020 	Switch, 3DS 	Nintendo, Sega 	Nintendo
15 	Super Mario: Mushroom Kingdom Origins 	September 30, 2020	Switch 	Nintendo 	Nintendo
14 	Tekken x Street Fighter 	October 20, 2020 	PS4, Switch 	Bandai-Namco, Capcom 	Bandai-Namco
13 	Capcom vs. SNK 3: The End of a Millenium 	December 12, 2020 	PS4, PSV, XB1, PC, Switch	Capcom, SNK 	Capcom
12 	Mega Man Legends 3 	January 7, 2021 	Switch, 3DS 	Capcom 	Capcom
11 	The Past, Present and Future: A Kingdom Hearts Story	February 29, 2021 	PS4, Switch 	Square-Enix 	Square-Enix
10 	Star Fox: Collision Course 	April 29, 2021 	Switch, 3DS 	Nintendo 	Nintendo
09 	Darkstalkers: Rain of Blood 	July 8, 2021 	PS4, PSV, XB1, PC, Switch	Capcom 	Capcom
08 	Pokémon: Arena Battle 	September 28, 2021	Switch 	Nintendo 	Nintendo
07 	Sega vs. Capcom 	November 12, 2021 	PS4, PSV, XB1, PC, Switch	Capcom, Sega 	Capcom
06 	Mario Kart/F-Zero 	January 12, 2022 	Switch, 3DS 	Nintendo 	Nintendo
05 	Final Fantasy Versus 	March 27, 2022 	PS4, PSV, XB1, PC, Switch	Square-Enix 	Square-Enix
04 	Bayonetta 3 	May 5, 2022 	PS4, XB1, Switch 	Sega, Nintendo 	Nintendo
03 	Super Mario Galaxy 3 	June 30, 2022 	Switch 	Nintendo 	Nintendo
02 	Metal Gear Solid VI: Insurrection 	July 25, 2022 	PS4, XB1, PC, Switch 	Konami 	Konami
01 	Smashpoint Prologue: Earth-Prime 	August 30, 2022 	Switch, 3DS 	Bandai-Namco, Nintendo	Nintendo
== Gallery ==
NOTE: This gallery is incomplete.
Countdown 18.png|No. 18: Kid Icarus: Tower of Babel
Countdown 15.png|No. 15: Super Mario: Mushroom Kingdom Origins
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