Author: Ian "iantothemax" Walker

After placing a spotlight on Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 last year with a huge exhibition between co-organizers Joe “LI Joe” Ciaramelli and Matt “Shock” Luongo, East Coast Throwdown 2015 will continue showing love to the NetherRealm community by making Mortal Kombat X the tournament’s finale.

Yes, you read that right. While nearly every other tournament across the world is scheduling Street Fighter to close out the event, Scorpion and company will be bringing this year’s East Coast Throwdown to a close.

But that’s not all. The organizers will also be providing a $1500 pot bonus to Mortal Kombat X’s prize pool, along with smaller boosts for Ultra Street Fighter IV, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Super Smash Bros. Melee.

With the ridiculous number of fighting game tournaments starting to pack into every calendar year, it only makes sense that organizers are trying their hardest to craft a unique experience and identity for their events. Community Effort Orlando saw great success with their wrestling motif and ran with it, NorCal Regionals features an incredibly heavy focus on Capcom titles, Final Round can always be expected to give Tekken the shine it deserves, and now East Coast Throwdown is looking to set themselves up as the premier location for Mortal Kombat competition.

After seeing the insane amount of attention streamers received from folks both inside and outside the community upon Mortal Kombat X’s launch, it should be interesting to see how well those numbers transition to a much different setting.

East Coast Throwdown 2015 is scheduled for June 13-14 in Morristown, New Jersey. Further information can be found through the event’s official website.

Source: East Coast Throwdown, special thanks to Arturo Sanchez for bringing this to our attention.

Back during this year’s hectic April Fool’s Day, Bandai Namco dropped a video featuring popular Tekken characters joining the world of Galaga to participate in some vertical shooting instead of the fisticuffs they are known for. While many likely wrote that off as a clever joke, it appears as if the mashup is indeed real and will be arriving on mobile devices incredibly soon as a way of celebrating the fighting franchise’s twentieth anniversary.

Famitsu reports that the developers are planning to release Galaga Tekken sometime tomorrow, April 30, at the completely reasonable price of free. As the new screenshots below highlight, players will be able to control characters like Heihachi, Lili, and Asuka as they blast fellow cast members from the sky. Though the sprites are a little hard to make out, the game also appears to feature cameos from King, Alisa, Panda, and newcomer Lucky Chloe.

Galaga Tekken will be released for both iOS and Android devices, though its availability outside of Japan is still up in the air.

Source: Famitsu via Siliconera

Back in February, we learned that the organizers behind the annual KVO tournament series had partnered with Team St1ckbug to foster a greater relationship between the Japanese and North American fighting game communities, resulting in a larger-than-usual event with an impressive eleven-game lineup. But it appears that wasn’t the only exciting collaboration set for this year’s competition.

According to new details from Alan “St1ckbug” Bakes himself, KVO x TSB 2015 has been designated as an official ARC REVOLUTION CUP qualifier for Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- and BlazBlue: Chronophantasma EXTEND, which will allow first-place finishers automatic entry into Arc System Works’ prestigious event. Due to scheduling, they will also be acting as the very first ArcRevo qualifier, kicking off what is sure to be an exciting few months of fighting game action.

The joint event will also feature qualifiers for Evo 2015’s Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax tournaments and offer ranking points for Capcom Cup 2015.

KVO x TSB 2015 is scheduled to take place this weekend, May 2-4, in Osaka, Japan. More details can be found through their official websites.

Source: St1ckbug

Learning to play fighting games at a competent level, like any other skill, requires a great deal of study and practice. Even those we consider naturals, such as Justin Wong, wouldn’t be where they are today without focusing on their gameplay and constantly striving to improve.

But raw practice can only take a competitor so far. More recently, we’ve seen folks like Infiltration keep track of notes on character and player matchups, checking between sets to remind themselves of specific details they may have overlooked thanks to the often chaotic nature of tournament competition. This integration of separate technology with gameplay hasn’t been a revolutionary step in the way we approach fighting games, but one piece of equipment may see some interesting applications in the near future.

Earlier this year, Danish manufacturer SteelSeries released the Sentry Eye Tracker which, as the name so aptly describes, tracks your eye movements to provide a visual representation of what you were watching while playing a game. Though the entertainment benefits are obvious with the advent of professional streaming, the replay feature can also give competitive gamers the ability to watch their matches and develop strategies around the way they ingest information.

To highlight its usefulness, 4Gamer took the Sentry for a spin, but in a way that’s sure to interest members of the fighting game community. Instead of casually applying the overlay to a random game, they tapped HORI’s Sako Naoto to give the peripheral a whirl while playing Ultra Street Fighter IV.

What resulted, as you can see in the video above, is an incredibly detailed look at how Sako approaches a competitive match from a visual standpoint. While his eyes may be drawn to any number of menu indicators during downtime, the way in which his focus shifts and stabilizes says a lot about the resolve he (and likely many other high-level players) show when entering a game, not to mention his emphasis on tracking the space between himself and the opponent.

As more and more money is poured into events and competitive gamers begin to make a decent living off their skills, the need to stay one step ahead of your contemporaries, even by a tiny margin, becomes an important part of maintaining one’s career. Communities like StarCraft and League of Legends have seen teams sequester themselves to train for months at a time, sharing knowledge and leveling up in an environment conducive to fostering their abilities much like professional football teams hold training camps for weeks before the season begins.

Keeping with the football comparison, one could logically see fighting game players using this technology to condition themselves to concentrate on specific parts of the screen much like linebackers and safeties learn to read quarterbacks, perhaps to improve how they approach the neutral game.

In any case, with $500,000 on the line at Capcom Cup 2015, a possible $50,000 heading to Killer Instinct’s prize pool at Evo 2015, and Mortal Kombat X making huge strides with ESL, the time is ripe for players to seek out technology like this and find new ways to improve their training. Unfortunately, the $200 price tag will likely put it out of reach for most of the fighting game community.

What do you think? Could this prove to be a valuable resource for fighting game players or is it just a fun novelty? Feel free to drop your opinion in the comments below.

Source: 4Gamer via Pssych

Although fighting game sales have seemed to dry up over the past few months, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live have once again focused their attention on our favorite genre with a number of great discounts.

From newer titles like Ultra Street Fighter IV and Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late to older releases you may have missed like Skullgirls Encore and Street Fighter x Tekken, there’s bound to be something here that will pique your interest.

You’ll find the entire round of fighter markdowns below, but be sure to visit the links at the bottom of this article for a full look at all the sales currently available.

PlayStation Network

Game	Platform	PlayStation Plus Price	Sale Price	Original Price
Aquapazza	PlayStation 3	$7.50	$10.20	$29.99
Arcana Heart 3: LOVE MAX!!!!!	PlayStation Vita	$10.00	$12.50	$24.99
Arcana Heart 3: LOVE MAX!!!!!	PlayStation 3	$10.00	$12.50	$29.99
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND	PlayStation Vita	$3.75	$5.10	$14.99
Chaos Code	PlayStation 3	$3.00	$4.08	$11.99
Darkstalkers Resurrection	PlayStation 3	$6.00	$7.50	$14.99
Persona 4 Arena	PlayStation 3	$7.50	$10.20	$29.99
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax – Tohru Adachi	PlayStation 3	N/A	$2.49	$4.99
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax – Marie	PlayStation 3	N/A	$2.49	$4.99
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax – Margaret	PlayStation 3	N/A	$2.49	$4.99
Skullgirls Encore	PlayStation 3	$4.50	$6.00	$14.99
Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late	PlayStation 3	$23.99	$27.99	$39.99

Xbox Live

Game	Platform	Sale Price	Orig. Price
Street Fighter x Tekken	Xbox 360	$7.99	$11.99
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition	Xbox 360	$5.09	$8.99
Ultra Street Fighter IV	Xbox 360	$10.04	$11.24
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix	Xbox 360	$3.74	$4.94
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix	Xbox 360	$2.49	$3.29

Sources: PlayStation Blog, Major Nelson

With the fighting game community continuing to grow, developers are beginning to take notice of our passion and provide some amazing support. From Capcom and Sony’s work with Ultra Street Fighter IV to Nintendo finally noticing the passion of the Smash scene, it’s never been a better time to be a fighting game fan.

In an effort to celebrate Killer Instinct’s return to Evolution and a variety of other major tournaments throughout 2015, the developers are set to provide substantial monetary backing for the game’s best players. But it’s going to take some help from the community.

Starting from Cinder’s launch on April 30, everything fans spend on content–from complete seasons to individual downloads–for two weeks will be collected in a special fighting game community fund with a maximum amount of $100,000. The first $50,000 raised will go directly towards Evo 2015, while the rest will be distributed to other events, both offline and online, throughout the year.

Additionally, Shadow Jago will be available to purchase for the first time ever, bundled with 7500 Killer Instinct Gold (the title’s in-game currency for unlockables) during the aforementioned fourteen-day period. While he’s only a skin at this point in time, the developers will turn Shadow Jago into a unique playable character should they meet the $100,000 limit.

This is another tremendous opportunity for the community to directly contribute to the prize pools of our largest tournaments, and it should be interesting to see how successful this drive becomes. We’ll be sure to keep you updated as more details emerge.

Source: Killer Instinct