Check out the Gamespot’s On the Spot show on 2/23 to catch a ton of new Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown info straight from our producer, Patrick Riley! He’ll be on hand to talk about new features in the upcoming release, as well as show off the game running on Xbox 360 / PS3! Once you check out the show, come on back and let us know what you think!

[The following blog comes from our old friend Superfuzz, a self described Father, Husband, Gamer, Ex-Phantasy Star Universe Game Master, and lover of classic arcade gaming. Enjoy this first report at the recent Tournament for Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown here in San Francisco!]

On February 10th, Sega, in conjunction with iplaywinner.com and SouthTown Arcade held the first ever North American Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown tournament here in San Francisco. It was a fun night in which people came from across the country to play the only cabinets located outside of Japan! For many, this was the first time that people were able to play Virtua Fighter 5 with Jean Kujo and Taka-Arashi, both of whom were introduced/reintroduced in Virtua Fighter 5 R, which was a revision that was only released in Japan.

Few games have the history, or the hardcore following that the Virtua Fighter series. From its beginnings as the original 3D polygon based fighter upon the games release in December of 1993, the game has quickly built a reputation for being an extremely technical fighter that rewards smart play over flashy combos and button mashing. Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown continues this tradition, while adding a more robust costume system and gameplay rebalancing. This was the first time that the public was able to play Final Showdown here in the states since the game was displayed at PAX back in September.

Although the arcade was packed with Sega fans eagerly awaiting their turn to be some of the first in the US to get a crack at Final Showdown, there was a lot of other Sega related items at the arcade that would have made the hardcore fans happy. From the Astro City arcade cabinets that were host to some of the newer Capcom fighters, to the large number of games that were still running on Naomi hardware, such as Border Down and Marvel VS. Capcom 2. One of the more exciting discoveries was Cosmic Smash, a game that I have never seen in person! I remember reading about it in the Official Dreamcast Magazine and being taken in by its visual style. The best way I can describe the game: mix the play mechanics of Virtua Tennis with the block-breaking gameplay of breakout, all with the visual style of Rez. Sounds good yea? The game was definitely an interesting piece of Sega history that took me by surprise!

It was a fun night and I will be looking forward to attending more tournaments at SouthTown in the future. Although the game is not on permanent play over at SouthTown, Sega will be bringing the game over to SouthTown over the next few months in preparation for the Xbox Live Arcade & PlayStation Network release of the title during the summer of this year. The following is a tentative schedule of dates in which the public can take part in a future Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown tournament. Since these dates are subject to change, it would be a good idea to check out https://www.SouthTownArcade.com for more information as the tournament dates come near:

• March 30th
• April 27th
• May 25th
• June 15th

Miss the event? Iplaywinner.com archived their full stream (including commentary!) for your viewing pleasure. Check the full stream here and pop over to flickr to view the event photos!

We’re pretty excited to have a series of trailers coming your way all about Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown. Today’s video is a lesson in history straight from Makoto Osaki and Daichi Katagiri of AM2. Sit back and relax as they walk you through the original game to the current version of Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown!

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is headed to PlayStation Network and Xbox 360 Arcade and this summer 2012 we’re giving you, the fans, a shot at adding in your mark on the upcoming game! The challenge: name opponent characters that appear within a special single player mode! Get creative, enter as many times as you like, and you could have your characters in a Virtua Fighter game for all time!

Submission Guidelines

Every contest comes with a few hoops to jump through and guidelines to be aware of. We highly recommend you look through our rules, located below this posting, and review all submission requirements. That said, this is what every entry should include:

The name of your Opponent – This name can be anything you like (up to 16 alpha-numeric characters only, spaces included), but it must not be something you don’t own the rights to. Be original!
Your Opponent’s tagline – Your battlecry! It can be two lines of text (alpha-numberic only) and up to 20 characters per line.
Your Favorite Virtua Fighter Character – Let us know which specific character this applies to, if you have one in mind. We can’t make any promises, but we’ll do our best to match your name and tagline to an appropriate fighter.
Enter by January 31st – It’s a quick turn around, so get cracking and send us your opponents!

Enter as many times as you like! – You have multiple chances to win.

Example!

Using the above image as an example, the Opponent’s name would replace Jacky Bryant’s name in blue and the battlecry would appear beneath it. Easy! Here is an example including character counts:

Johnny Johnson (14 total characters)
Watch out! (10 characters)
I am invincible! (16 total characters)

What Can I win?

Immortality! No, not literally, but you will get your opponent’s name and description into the Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown game – and that’s pretty freaking sweet. Good luck!

Official Rules for USA and Canada

Sega of America, Inc.
“Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown™”
Opponent Naming Contest
Official Rules

There is no purchase necessary to enter or to win.

1) Promotion Description: Sega of America, Inc. (“Sponsor”) is offering the “Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Opponent Naming Contest” (the “Promotion”) and will award determine winners based on judging all eligible entries against the criteria established in these Official Promotion Rules. The Promotion begins at 12:00:01 PM AM US Pacific Time (“PT”) on January 25, 2012 and the deadline for submission of entries is 11:59:59 PM PT on January 31, 2012 (“Submission Entry Period”).

2) Eligibility: Promotion is open to all legal residents of the fifty (50) United States, the District of Columbia (excluding Puerto Rico) and Canada (excluding Quebec), who are 18 years of age or older at the time of entry (“Entrants”). Employees, officers and directors of the Sponsor, its parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, divisions, advertising, promotional, fulfillment and marketing agencies (collectively “Promotion Entities”), their immediate families (parent, child, sibling & spouse) and persons living in the same households of such individuals (whether related or not), are not eligible to participate in the Promotion. Void in Puerto Rico, all other US territories, Quebec and where prohibited by law, rule or regulation. All federal, state and local laws and regulations apply.

3) Creating your Character Submission: Create a name for a “Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown” character as well as two (2) different phrases or “battle cries” that your character would speak, (your “Character Submission”). Your Character Submission must: (a) be prepared in English and designated as either a male or a female personality; (b) consist of no more than sixteen (16) characters (including spaces) for the Character name and no more than twenty (20) characters (including spaces) for each of the phrases or battle cries; (c) be totally original, created by you, cannot be previously published or appear anywhere else and CANNOT contain any third party copyrighted material or otherwise infringe on the intellectual property or other rights of a third party; (d) be suitable for general audiences (i.e., may not be obscene or indecent, including but not limited to nudity, pornography, profanity or gratuitous violence); (e) not contain defamatory statements (including, but not limited to, words or thoughts that are widely considered offensive to individuals of a certain race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or socioeconomic group); (f) not include threats to any person, place, business, group or nation; and (g) not invade privacy or other rights of any person, firm or entity, and it must not in any other way violate any law or regulation.

4) How to Enter your Character Submission: Send an e-mail to communityteam@sega.com with “Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown” in the subject line. In the body of the e-mail include the following informational points (your “Entry”):

• Your first and last name
• Your age
• Your date of birth
• Your state/province
• Your e-mail address
• Your telephone number including area code
• The gender designation for your character; male or female
• The name you have created for your character
• The 1st character phrase or “battle cry”
• The 2nd character phrase or “battle cry”
• The name of your favorite Virtua Fighter™ character

There is no limit to the number of different times you can enter, however, each Character Submission must be new and completely different from any previous Entry you have submitted and each must be submitted as a separate e-mail Entry. By entering, you agree that you are assigning all ownership and usage rights to your Character Submission to Sponsor in exchange for no compensation of any kind.

5) Judging and Winner Determination: Entries will be judged by a panel of marketers from Sponsor (“Judging Panel”) and will be judged and weighted equally on the following points: (a) originality; (b) creativity; and (c) content relevance to the theme of “Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown.” Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any Character Submission it deems to be highly similar to any other Character Submission made by an earlier Entrant. The Judging Panel will determine up to fifty (50) winners in the female character category and up to fifty (50) male character winners. At Sponsor’s sole discretion, if an inadequate number of entries or entries of inadequate quality are received, Sponsor reserves the right NOT to determine any entries as winners or to determine any number of winners fewer than fifty (50) in each of the respective categories. The decisions of the judging panel in all matters relating to this Promotion are final. Judging will be completed on or about February 9, 2012.

6) Acknowledgment: Winners will be notified by the e-mail address associated with their entry that their Character Submission has been determined a winner and will be featured in the production of the upcoming game release of “Virtual Fighter 5 Final Showdown.” There is no monetary value associated with this acknowledgment and the number of entries determined as winners for use in the game is at the total discretion of the Sponsor and its Judging Panel.

7) General: If, during any period of the Promotion, for reasons beyond the Sponsor’s control (including, but not limited to, tampering or computer virus infection), the Promotion is not capable of running as originally planned, the Sponsor, at its sole discretion, reserves the right to cancel or modify the Promotion, without liability and to the extent feasible, will determine winners among entries received prior to cancellation or modification. Sponsor is not responsible for Internet, computer hardware and software, phone, and other technical errors, malfunctions, and delays. Entries that are incomplete, inaccurate, irregular, or otherwise not in compliance with these Official Rules, are void. All Entrants agree to comply fully with each provision in these Official Rules. Any person attempting to defraud or in any way tamper with this Promotion and any person who does not comply with these Official Rules, will be ineligible and may be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Without in any way limiting, expanding or amending the Terms of Service at http://www.sega.com/legal/terms.php which Terms of Service policy shall remain in full force and effect, if Sponsor is duly notified that any element of an Entrant’s Character Submission infringes upon the rights of another person and/or receives a legally valid request to remove the affected Character Submission because of such infringement, such Character Submission may be removed and disqualified from the Promotion, as Sponsor may determine in its sole discretion. Further, no Entrant will be named a winner unless Sponsor determines, in its sole and absolute discretion, that such Entrant’s Character Submission has been or can be sufficiently cleared for legal purposes and such Entrant has complied with the terms of these Official Rules.
Past experience has shown a promotion such as this one may generate similar submissions which closely resemble concepts and ideas developed by the Promotion Entities whether before, during or after the Promotion. Entrants may see a presentation that seemingly incorporates an idea or concept or includes materials similar to that contained in their entry (e.g., Character Submission). Any similarity may be purely coincidental and is always unavoidable in light of the volume of ideas that the Promotion Entities routinely consider in the course of their content development. Consequently, the Promotion Entities must, and have adopted policies and procedures to protect themselves from potential liability and claims and as part of these Official Rules requires all Entrants (and, if eligible minors, their parents or legal guardians) to agree that: (a) the Promotion Entities may use any and all ideas, concepts, material and expression, in whole or in part, submitted or contained in a Promotion entry, or other material you submit, including, without limitation, the Character Submissions and all copyrights and other intellectual property rights therein anywhere in the world in perpetuity; and (b) all entries and entry materials (including, without limitation, the Character Submissions) become the property of Sponsor and will not be returned.

Right to Use Your Work and Information About You: By participating, you: (a) represent and warrant that your Character Submission is wholly original, not previously published, and does not incorporate or include anything that is owned by any third party or would require the consent of any third party and your Entry does not violate any copyright, trademark, publicity right, privacy right or any other right of any third party; (b) automatically grant to Sponsor a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, create derivative works from, modify, publish, edit, translate, distribute and display your Character Submission; (c) agree that upon selection as a winner, you agree that your Character Submission shall legally be considered a “work made for hire,” with all rights therein, including, without limitation, the exclusive copyright, transferred to and being the property of Sponsor; (d) in the event your Character Submission is considered not to be a “work made for hire,” you irrevocably assign to Sponsor, all right, title, and interest in and to your Character Submission (including, without limitation, the copyright) in any and all media whether now known or hereafter devised, in perpetuity, anywhere in the world, with the right to make any and all uses thereof, including, without limitation, for purposes of advertising or trade; and (e) agree that by entering your Character Submission, you grant to Sponsor the right to sell and otherwise distribute your Character Submission on any of its websites or in any of its products without any compensation. The rights granted under this paragraph shall extend to Sponsor and its indirect and direct parent companies and their respective affiliated companies with respect to all entries and all other submitted materials related to the Promotion, including those submitted by non-winners and winners.

By submitting a Character Submission, you grant to Sponsor, its parent and affiliated companies the right, except where prohibited by law, to use your name, likeness, picture, address (city and state), voice, biographical information, the Character Submission in your entry and written or oral statements, for advertising and promotional purposes in promoting or publicizing Sponsor, its products or services, without compensation unless required by law. You shall have no right of approval, no claim to compensation, and no claim (including, without limitation, claims based on invasion of privacy, defamation, or right of publicity) arising out of any use, blurring, alteration, or use in composite form of your name, picture, likeness, address (city and state), e mail address, biographical information, or entry. The rights granted under this paragraph shall extend to Sponsor, its parent, and affiliated companies with respect to all Entrants in the Promotion, including non-winners and winners. Sponsor, however, does not have any obligation to use the winning or non-winning entries for any purpose.

9) Release of Liability and Issues of Law: By participating in the Promotion, all Entrants release Sponsor and its indirect and direct parent companies and their respective affiliates, partners, subsidiaries, officers, directors, agents, employees and all entities associated with the development and execution of this Promotion from any and all liability with respect to and in any way arising from (i) participating in this Promotion, (ii) any injury or damage to an Entrant’s or third person’s computer related to or resulting from the Promotion, and (iii) damage to a user’s computer system (including, without limitation, any server failure or lost, delayed or corrupted data or other malfunction) due, either directly or indirectly, to an Entrant’s participation in the Promotion or downloading of information in connection with the Promotion. The Sponsor reserves the right to modify or cancel the Promotion in the event that any portion of any website used to administer any aspect of the Promotion becomes technically corrupted.

All Federal, state and local laws and regulations are applicable. THE CALIFORNIA COURTS (STATE AND FEDERAL) SHALL HAVE SOLE JURISDICTION OF ANY CONTROVERSIES REGARDING THE PROMOTION AND THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA SHALL GOVERN THE PROMOTION. EACH ENTRANT WAIVES ANY AND ALL OBJECTIONS TO JURISDICTION AND VENUE IN THOSE COURTS AND HEREBY SUBMITS TO THE JURISDICTION OF THOSE COURTS. The Promotion is void where restricted or prohibited by law.

10) Winners List: Winners will be announced at blogs.sega.com on or about February 9, 2012.

11) Sponsor: Sega of America, Inc., 350 Rhode Island Street, STE 400, San Francisco, CA 94103.

12) Promotion Administrator: Extra Mile Marketing, 16611 N. 91st Street, STE 106, Scottsdale, AZ 85260-1523.

SEGA is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. SEGA, the SEGA logo, VIRTUA FIGHTER and VIRTUA FIGHTER 5 THE FINAL SHOWDOWN are either registered trademarks or trademarks of SEGA Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

VF Fans Rejoice! Virtua Fighter returns to consoles with an all new version on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade! Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown is the second revision from the Japanese arcades. Never seen outside of Japan, this version comes home with a ton of changes, balances, and feature updates. We’ll get into that stuff in a second, first though, we have more news …

Virtua Fighter is at PAX!

We are bringing the ARCADE version to play all weekend long at the Seattle Gameworks! In a custom Lindbergh arcade station, straight from the Arcades of Japan (it still smells a bit smokey), we have Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown Ver. A on hand. This is the FIRST time to play the new version outside of Japan!

Starting August 26th at 11am, the Seattle Gameworks will have the stations set up, ready to play, with our own Patrick Riley to explain some of the finer points of the game to the uninitiated. Run, don’t walk, to Gameworks and we’ll see you at the show!

Gameworks Seattle
1511 7th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101

August 26 – 11am – 8pm
August 27 – 11am – 5pm & 6pm – 8pm (during the SEGA PAX Event)*
August 28 – 11am – 8pm
* Gameworks will be closed for one hour while we prepare for the SEGA PAX Event that evening.

Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown – the Details

For those familiar with the series, the folks asking on twitter, on facebook, in our forums – seeing Virtua Fighter return is welcome news! We cannot thank the fans enough for their support; we look forward to delivering this title for your enjoyment! For those who are less familiar with the new version of the game, we have a brief list from our press release today that walks you through the changes.

The Perfect Fighting Experience: Virtua Fighter 5’s signature style of hand-to-hand combat, with revised mechanics, balance, timing and more, along with simplified controls for new players while retaining the depth that veterans demand
Dynamic and Interactive Arenas: Fighting areas in new shapes and sizes, including arenas with fences and walls that are different for every round – take unexpected advantage of fighters’ new wall-based moves, or break through the fences with special attacks
A Mode for Every Fight: Dominate the leaderboards with VF5’s extremely responsive online battle system, widely praised for having little to no latency, or take on an army of opponents yourself in a new single-player mode
Endlessly Customized Combatants: Enter the ring with one of 19 playable characters, including fan favorite Taka-Arashi from Virtua Fighter 3 and an all-new character, Jean Kujo, and customize them with unique costume and character items.

Even More Virtua Fighter info!

Head over to Gamespot and check out their Virtua Fighter coverage, including an interview with additional details about the release.

We look forward to hearing your responses, comments, and feedback! We’ll be at PAX too, don’t forget, come out and play and have fun!