Category: News

This November marks the second anniversary of Dissidia Final Fantasy hitting Japanese arcades. To celebrate this, Square Enix is holding a special 2nd anniversary livestream on November 26, 2017.

The 2nd anniversary stream, which airs at 6:00 PM JST, will contain some news on a new, large-scale update that’s coming to the game in arcades. In addition to this, they will also have some information about the console version, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT for PlayStation 4.

Dissidia Final Fantasy is the 3rd installment — and the first arcade installment — of Square Enix’s Dissidia franchise of Final Fantasy crossover arena fighters. The game is currently out in Japanese arcades, and will hit PlayStation 4 as Dissidia Final Fantasy NT on January 11 in Japan, and January 30 for the rest of the world.

Source: Square Enix via Gematsu

Following up on the announcement of an establishment of the American branch of Japanese game maker Arc System Works, the company has more news. Through its Japanese headquarters, the company made a statement regarding the upcoming BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle.

Arc System Works itself will handle the publishing and other aspects of the upcoming crossover title. Furthermore, they will perform miscellaneous actions — such as marketing, licensing, and distributing the game — and possibly future ones as well. There’s no word on the European publisher yet, but PQube has been the typical go-to for their fighting games.

Until now, Aksys Games typically handled the localization of many Arc System Works games, particularly the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue fighting game series. It’s unclear whether this relationship will continue for the “mainline” fighting titles from ASW.

Source: Gematsu

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As part of Capcom’s second financial presentation for 2017, the company has reported that it has shipped 900,000 units of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite worldwide while Street Fighter V has now shipped a total of 1.9 million units — just shy of Capcom’s initial 2 million target which it hoped to reach back in March 2016.

When you consider that MvC:I is not as well-known as Street Fighter, the huge amount of negative press surrounding the title and its smaller budget compared to Street Fighter V, 900,00 shipped units is by no means a complete disaster. Sales have slowed to a crawl following its initial two weeks of release though, so I doubt it will reach its 2 million shipped units target by March 2018.

As for Street Fighter V, it has now shipped as many units as Super Street Fighter IV — with the release of Arcade Edition this coming January hoping to push that figure even higher. I suppose reaching your initial sales target almost two years after launch is better than not reaching it at all. Ultra Street Fighter II however, has done better than forecast, with Capcom shipping 500,000 units worldwide. Capcom refused to comment on whether Switch-exclusive games are in the works, instead stating that the console is “important as one outlet for multi-platform games.” Fingers crossed for MvC:I on the Switch then.

You can find all the hard facts and figures via Capcom’s official website. There are no juicy details hidden within the presentation though, besides Capcom’s continued devotion to esports via the Capcom Pro Tour.

Sources: Takashi Mochizuki; Capcom

The IOC (International Olympic Committee, a.k.a. The Supreme Authority of the Olympic Movement) came out of their Olympic Summit in Lausanne, CHE with a surprise announcement directly related to gamers: “esports” should absolutely be considered a sport.

Does that mean sponsored esports pros should prepare themselves for 2018’s Pyeongchang Olympics? Well — not quite.

According to the official report from Olympic.org, while the committee officially recognizes the training and intensity of high level esports, there’s still a few hurdles left to clear for a spot at the Olympics:

• In order to be recognised by the IOC as a sport, the content of “esports” must not infringe on the Olympic values.
• A further requirement for recognition by the IOC must be the existence of an organization guaranteeing compliance with the rules and regulations of the Olympic Movement (anti-doping, betting, manipulation, etc.).

While bullet point #1 is largely philosophical in nature (you can check out the Olympic Values here), it’s the lack of a true governing body that’s keeping gaming away from gold medals. Specifically, a governing body recognized by the GAISF (Global Association of International Sports Federations), which the IOC works closely with. The IOC made it pretty clear what needs to happen next:

The Summit asked the IOC together with GAISF in a dialogue with the gaming industry and players to explore this area further and to come back to the Olympic Movement stakeholders in due course.

Considering that there’s quite a few companies now that run their own international leagues and tours (Namco, Capcom, NetherRealm, etc), the next arms race in the FGC might just be a race to GAISF recognition.

Source: IOC

There are some games that, despite all the new installments and sequels that have come after it, that still see regular competitive play. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike is one of those games. Now, players in the United Kingdom will get a chance to prove their class and their skill with the return of the country’s premiere 3rd Strike tournament, Gutter Trash.

For any Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike players in the UK, registration for Gutter Trash Vol. 8 is now open. Interested competitors can head on over to the events smash.gg page to sign up.

Gutter Trash Vol. 8 will be taking place on November 17 and 18 at 199 Eade Rd, Harringay Warehouse District, London. The event will feature both a singles and 3 on 3 team tournament.

Source: Gutter Trash