Category: News

It seems like every time we turn around, there is another pot bonus piling on at Frosty Faustings IX–in Elmhurst, Illinois on January 27 and 28. With various members of the community and even corporate sponsors stepping up, this is shaping up to be a big year for the annual event.

The team behind the tournament announced that Bryan Armitage of Paradise Arcade Shop has stepped up in partnership with the event, to sponsor a $500 pot bonus for Street Fighter V. With all these pot bonuses showing up, is this the tipping point for you to get in on the event before registration closes on Friday night?

Source: Frosty Faustings

Looks like the new graphical update brought a new bug in with it.

The latest patch for The King of Fighters XIV–version 1.10–provided a significant and hotly anticipated graphical update to the game’s visuals. However, it seems to have inadvertently also introduced a glitch that can interfere with online play. According to SNK:

There is an issue where the game will consider the player to have disconnected from an online battle, if they change the display settings for “Icon,” “Title,” or “Rank Match Fight Record” on “MY PROFILE” screen. We are currently looking into it and hope to have a fix as soon as possible.

Because this will affect win rates and disconnect penalties, please refrain from making any changes on the “MY PROFILE” screen.
We are also investigating into any other issues with this patch, and will notify everyone once our investigation is complete.
We apologize for any inconvenience and ask for your patience as we prepare another patch to solve these issues.

SNK has cultivated a good track record addressing glitches for The King of Fighters XIV since the game’s release–including the recently found Ramon infinite–so a patch to fix this issue is likely coming very soon.

Source: KOF WORLD (Facebook for Business)

With Final Round XX, which takes place March 10-12 in Atlanta, Georgia, announcing that they will officially be a part of the Capcom Pro Tour 2017 Season in two months, many within the community are wondering if Street Fighter V needs a second balance patch–following last month’s Season Two update–before the competitive Season begins.

Citing characters like Nash, Ryu, F.A.N.G and even Rainbow Mika receiving a heavy amount of nerfs–while already-powerful characters like Guile and Urien were given a hearty amount of buffs–as possible justification for another round of tweaking, as well as Battle Director Woshigie’s comments to Yahoo! Esports that the Season Two balance changes would not be “What players are expecting,” (which could be seen as a contradictory statement, as Capcom had been promoting that SFV’s balance philosophy would be to focus primarily on buffing weaker characters to the level of the top tiers, as opposed to hitting them with heavy amounts of nerfs to bring them down closer to the middle of the pack). One of the slides at their Evo panel even stated that one of their “Lessons Learned,” was to “Don’t greatly nerf characters, buff the weaker ones instead,” to ensure that there is “large character diversity in each tournament.” Additionally, we have Akuma, as well as the other five yet-to-be-revealed new challengers for Season Two, who will automatically alter the meta and tier lists simply with their presence alone.

While balancing a fighting game is certainly not an easy–or enviable–task, VesperArcade suggests that perhaps Capcom should utilize a public test server (similar to what can be seen in games like Overwatch) to allow players to try out potential changes that Capcom wants to make, and having the opportunity to leave their individual feedback for the development team to take into consideration; as similar to what they did on the Capcom-Unity Forums for the creation of Ultra Street Fighter IV.

“It just looks like Capcom has their own agenda when it comes to balancing, and I think we have some very smart people in our community that can give very valuable feedback and insight on making all the characters fair, and especially, fun. That is the key word: fun,” Vesper said. You can catch his entire video on this topic below.

So what are your thoughts on this hotly-debated topic? Do you feel Capcom should stick to their word of only doing balance patches in-between CPT seasons, and that we need to let everything play out before jumping to conclusions, or do you think there are some balance concerns with the current version of the game that should be addressed before the Pro Tour starts heating up? Feel free to let us know in the Comments below!

Source: VesperArcade

There were a batch of free themes that were made available recently, but there are still more themes coming in. We now get access to the Psychic Girl, Mai Shiranui and Mexican Fighters themes, which were initially only available in PlayStation Network stores outside of the US.

In addition to these, we also got a pretty slick Samurai Showdown VI theme a few days back, going nicely along with the recent port of that title to PS4. All of these themes are free, bringing the total free King of Fighters XIV themes up to 13; be sure to snap them all up while they’re available.

Source: PlayStation Network

We’re coming up to the big Nintendo Switch reveal on Thursday, and it’s only likely that leaks and rumors are going to come out. In a post by user yoonshik on NeoGAF, which has gathered screenshots from the Twitter account DroidXAce, documents have apparently leaked from HORI’s European division which show off multiple accessories coming to the Switch.

@DroidXAce pic.twitter.com/8nSyHT2CnX

— DroidXAce (@DroidXAce) January 10, 2017

While the majority of these leaked accessories are things like decals for the JoyCon, charging stands, a LAN adapter, and even a charger that plugs into a car’s cigarette lighter, the main two peripherals that are important to members of the FGC are a Switch edition of the Real Arcade Pro stick, as well as a new HORI pad. In the NeoGAF thread, yoonshik posted what looks like official marketing renders of some of these products, including the HORI fight pad.

Now, if this is real, it possibly confirms two major things for the Switch. One: that fighting games are coming to the Switch in a big way, so much so that they are releasing the RAP stick especially for the system. As HORI previously made a special version of the RAP for the Wii U to play Tekken Tag Tournament 2, this could mean that Tekken 7 could be on its way as a possible Switch launch title. Two: it potentially confirms that a Pokkén remaster is coming to Switch, seeing as HORI made the special Pokkén fight pads and these new controllers are to replace the old ones. Especially since the DLC fighters from Pokkén have yet to arrive on the Wii U, it makes the most sense that these characters would arive in a brand new version for the Nintendo Switch.

Of course, there is the strong possibility that the internal documents acquired by DroidXAce are fake, but the marketing renders posted by yoonshik do look authentic. All will no doubt be revealed on Thursday night, so keep an eye on Shoryuken as more develops.

Sources: NeoGAF; DroidXAce

The race to get into esports continues as two major teams receive investments from well-known companies and sports teams. In a statement released today, Immortals has received a major cash injection from broadcasting company Lionsgate, while the Miami HEAT have announced a “strategic partnership” with Misfits.

Lionsgate is no stranger to the world of esports, as they are currently partnered with the ESL and Microsoft to help with the future of competitive Halo, and have previously invested in mobile streaming platform Mobcrush. Talking about the investment, Immortals chairman Clinton Foy said that “what we’re doing today in eSports is like the early days of building the NFL and NBA. It’s not the evolution of games–it’s the evolution of sports, technology and media.” Immortals CEO Noah Whinston added that “Immortals and Lionsgate are both focused on developing new entertainment formats, and we’re thrilled to collaborate with them at the cutting edge of eSports media.”

The Miami HEAT are following the new trend of figures and teams from the NBA-backing esports organizations, with Shaq being a joint owner of NRG Esports, Rick Fox owning Echo Fox–who recently launched a massive FGC offensive–and Renegades being managed by Jonas Jerebko of the Boston Celtics. In a statement released by the Miami HEAT today, the NBA team will assist “in all duties including marketing, branding, promotion, retail, digital and sponsorship activation on behalf of the franchise, and to cross-promote the HEAT and Misfits.” Speaking about this partnership, Misfits CEO Ben Spoont said that “this partnership will be the catalyst and foundation to our continued expansion of the Misfits organization into a global esports brand and company.”

OFFICIAL: HEAT Announce Strategic Partnership With esports Club, @MisfitsGG

Full release: https://t.co/gePswhkXOh pic.twitter.com/206LxuswPH

— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) January 10, 2017

With both Immortals and Misfits currently having a stake in Super Smash Bros. Melee, it stands to reason that both teams will be looking to expand into the greater FGC in the coming months, as seen by the massive landgrabs made by Echo Fox. As the esports landscape becomes full of these household names, you can expect to see more players breaking off from traditional FGC sponsors to ally behind the big bucks and brand recognition of teams like Echo Fox, Immortals and so on.

Sources: Variety; The Miami HEAT