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If you weren't watching this event on Sunday -- and you should have! -- here are the results of the 11th Beat Tribe cup tournament. There were 145 teams at this 5 on 5 event, making it one of the biggest fighting game events of the entire year. Thanks to Arcadia Magazine for hosting the video stream!

1st Place - Itabashi Newton[/size]
Itabashi Zangief (Shun)
Kamaage (Akira)
Kissa (Shun)
Zettoman (Lei-fei)
Bubbles (Lau)

2nd Place - Kanchigai Club[/size]
Penkiyasan (Lau)
Kanzen Nitaku (Wolf)
Yogo Kage (Kage)
Ryu-chan (Jacky)
Toru (Akira)

Videos
» Final - Itabashi Newton vs Kanchigai Club - Part 1
» Final - Itabashi Newton vs Kanchigai Club - Part 2
* The above are nicovideo links, if you have trouble watching, then copy/paste the link into http://mmcafe.com/nico.html
» Semi Final - Buruha Circle vs Itabashi Newton - Part 1
» Semi Final - Buruha Circle vs Itabashi Newton - Part 2
» Semi Final - Buruha Circle vs Itabashi Newton - Part 3
» Quarter Final - Kagoshima vs Hama Stars - Part 1
» Quarter Final - Kagoshima vs Hama Stars - Part 2
» Quarter Final - Kagoshima vs Hama Stars - Part 3

Highlight
If you were unfortunate enough to miss the stream, then you should also check out this exciting battle from the Round of 16 between teams Daibatsu Punch (Jin (KA), Punch the Senpuu (JN), Koufu (AO), Itoshun (BR), Koedo (JN)) and Hama Stars (Chotaro...

About a week ago I was informed by an arcade operator acquaintance of mine that Final Showdown would be released on the 29th of this month. While I had no doubt that this was true, I've seen this date pop up in several other places, including Niigata POPY's homepage, so it should be safe to say that the game will be in operation starting on the 29th! Expect to see more videos and impressions soon!

This week, Sega has awarded Ikebukuro Sarah and Shinjuku Jacky, two of the biggest names in VF history, the title of Moto Tetsujin, or Original Tetsujin, which they will carry on their player cards from now on. These two join Bunbunmaru and Kyasao, who received their titles last year. Congrats to both!

» VF 10th Anniversary ~ Memory of a Decade

The 11th annual Beat Tribe cup, the biggest Virtua Fighter tournament in Japan, is on this weekend, and looks to be yet another huge gathering of the top talent in the Virtua Fighter world. This is going to be a huge 5 on 5 event, with 140 teams signed up so far. For those who can't do the math, that's over 700 players from around Japan for this one tournament! Not only will there be the regular team tournament, but also an over-30s/ladies tournament as well!

All of your favorite players, including Koedo, Chibita, Kamaage and SHU will be out in full force with their teams, and luckily for those who cannot attend, the official Tougeki site will be broadcasting the tournament on their official website!

The event will begin on Sunday, July 18th so make sure to check the Tougeki site for the line on that day!

» Beat Tribe cup live stream

VF5FS Official Site
The official web site for VF5FS is starting to take shape with a teaser flash site highlighting some of the new points to look forward to with the soon to be released (in arcades) Final Showdown!

» http://www.virtuafighter.jp/vf5fs/index.html

VF5FS Wallpapers on D.K's blog
The past few entries on D.K's blog has seen a slow trickle of VF5FS Wallpapers being made available for download. For convenience, below are the links to D.K's diary entries where you'll find the Wallpapers released so far:

Pai, Aoi, Jeffry, Akira
» http://www.virtuafighter.jp/dk_66.html

Lion, Lau, Jacky, Sarah
» http://www.virtuafighter.jp/dk_68.html

Blaze, Jean, Taka, Wolf, Vanessa, Shun, Eileen, Lei, Brad, Goh, Kage
» http://www.virtuafighter.jp/dk_70.html

Kamaage, one of the top Akira players in Japan, is also the owner of Virtua Dojo, which has become the central site for Japanese VF players in the past year. In the past the site has supported blogs, streaming video and message boards but according to Kamaage, the site is getting a massive overhaul to make itself more appealing not only to domestic players, but international players as well.

According to his personal blog on VF Dojo, the site will soon sport the following features:

Multi-language support: User blogs, shoutouts and movie comments will be automatically translated from Japanese to either English, Korean or Chinese.

Ustream support: This has been a major point of contention with the international players, as the current movie system has been giving overseas viewers trouble in the past. By moving to Ustream, Kamaage hopes to alleviate any problems and allow more people to get on the streams that they operate.

Interface change: Due to an increase in content the site will be undergoing a visual remake to accommodate everything.

Assistant instructor feature: This will allow some of the common users to assist in some areas of the site.

Kamaage mentions that the remake is about 30% finished, and that he hopes to have everything done by the time Final Showdown is released.

Katagiri's Blog #69

Hey everyone, this is D.K.

Since the Final Showdown location test started, we've been receiving many demands from people that they want to see more videos, so to answer our fans, we've put together this special video, please take a look!

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VF5 Final Showdown Trailer #2

Around the 30 second mark of the video, you'll see that Jacky's Middle Spin Kick (b, f+K+G) is blocked by Sarah, but Jacky's kick is actually stopped by the block. For those who have played Virtua Fighter for a long time, there's no doubt they'll notice that and think "That's just like Virtua Fighter 3!", but we're calling it "Guard Snap".

In VF3, attacks that were fully circular or swung downwards, we had implemented a similar system, but for VF5 Final Showdown this effect is added to moves that are fully circular or that leave the attacker at a huge disadvantage when blocked. We really want people to understand better visually if their attack was blocked or if they blocked an attack successfully.

Pay attention to the kind of damage you're doing in your combos too! In VF5R, no matter how many attacks you were able to add into a combo, the damage scaling would mean that the damage difference would be minimal, but this time if you're able to vary it up in the latter part of your combos, you'll be able to see the damage difference.

The damage scaling calculation and the knockdown system have all been revised, so from this iteration, we're hoping to make it as simple as we possibly can. I guess I can go into detail about that at another...

First Final Showdown Location Test Announced
Sega has announced that starting today, VF5 Final Showdown will be on test in the following locations until July 7th (Wednesday)

Ikebukuro GIGO
Club Sega Akihabara
Club Sega Shinjuku West Exit

After the location test is finished, the game will continue to be on play at the Shinjuku location only. This news is troubling because Sega has only been holding location tests in the Tokyo area (the most popular area for VF) for the past several years, and has not given the rest of the country a chance to play the game, which is the complete opposite of what Capcom, Examu and other companies have done with their recent releases.

I will be in Tokyo at the end of July, so any gameplay movies and impressions will have to wait until then. Fortunately, there should be some gameplay videos floating around starting tomorrow, so be on the lookout for them in the usual places.

» VF5FS Discussion Thread
» VF5FS Location Test Videos

Twitter Support for Final Showdown!

Sega has announced on the official Virtua Fighter page that the upcoming Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown will be officially supporting Twitter, making it the first arcade game in Japan to make use of the popular service. Twitter has been extremely popular in Japan, with 16% of Japanese internet users using the service, and has recently dethroned the popular mixi as the #1 service in the country.

By creating a Twitter account and linking it to your VF.net account (via PC or cellphone), your Twitter account will be automatically updated when you are playing. Also, if you are viewing VF.net and look up a certain player, you can automatically add them to your Twitter following list if they have a Twitter account registered and visible (of course, you can set it to invisible if you wish). Not only that, but since you can look up recent players you’ve encountered with VF.net already, if they have an account, you can follow them on Twitter as well.

Katagiri’s blog also mentions how Twitter will be incorporated with your play in Virtua Fighter. Whenever you pull off something impressive you can have it automatically post on Twitter. Of course, if you’re wary of cluttering up your Twitter feed with VF tweets, you can manage what kind of updates will be sent to Twitter. Katagiri gives these examples:

“DK’s Lau has just been promoted to 5th Dan at Club Sega Shinjuku West Exit #VF5FS”
“DK’s Lau has put together a 10 game win streak at Club Sega Shinjuku #VF5FS”
“DK’s Lau has earned the “Dragon Wing” item from a Basic Capsule (Rare) #VF5FS”

Also, you can follow the Virtua Fighter team via Twitter right now, as they have created an official Twitter account !

»...

Virtua Dojo Movie Database

Kamaage of vfdojo.net has worked very hard at providing the VF community with a database of VF5R competition and tournament matches! With this excellent resource you can search for your favourite player by their Ring Name in English!

For more information, check out the Virtua Dojo Movie Database thread.

Official link » vfdojo.net Movie Database