Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Message Board

Come Saturday, April 26, Walnut, California will play host to the 2014 incarnation of the Sega Cup Virtua Fighter Tournament, and now you, too, can throw your hat into the polygonal ring.

As with last year's tournament, Sega Cup Virtua Fighter Tournament 2014 will focus on the latest version of the fighter, Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown. Games will take place on the PlayStation 3 and each round will be decided by best of three matches. The top 16 players in the tournament will take home a portion of the "over $15,000" in prize money at stake at the event.

Full details on how to register for the tournament can be found at Eventbrite, though keep in mind that there is an entry fee of $10, and currently there are only 111 spots remaining. Additional details on the event can be found at the tournament's official website. [Image: Sega]

This week on Xbox Live, you can get into a fight for cheap. And not the kinds of fights you get into with racists over chat - the kind you might actually enjoy. The XBLM Deal of the Week, active from today through Oct. 8, gives you half off Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, Street Fighter 3 Third Strike Online Edition, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix, and Dungeon Fighter Live - the last one not really fitting the theme, but at least it has "Fighter" in the title.

Other deals going on this week include discounts on Activision-published games, Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition, and Fighters Uncaged for Kinect.

A spectacular show of Virtua Fighter prowess was on full display at EVO 2012. Watch as RZR Itazan takes on Shironuko in the grand finals.

If I've learned one thing from video games and file management, it's to never name your project "final."

Fighting game fans worldwide have spoken. Since the release last week, we’ve seen an overwhelming amount of support for Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown. Today, we are releasing our tutorial video #3 for Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown that we put together while working closely with AM2 (the development team) and VF community members. We are hoping that these videos will help newcomers pick up VF5’s advanced techniques quickly!

Also, just a few weeks ago in LA, we teamed up with fighting game legend Alex Valle and his crews from Level|Up Series to host a Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Pre-launch party. We’ve invited the VF legends, Fuudo and Chibita, from Japan to demonstrate the game and also take on 20 or so challengers. Amazingly, we had people fly in from Australia, Japan, Singapore, Canada and all over the US just to make it to this event and … we had a blast! We’ve put together a short video of our event. If anyone is interested in seeing what the VF community is like, you can watch the video here!

We're of the firm opinion that your time is too precious, too valuable to be spent reading a full review for a game that was already reviewed many, many years ago. What's the point of applying a score to a game that's old enough to be enrolled in the sixth grade? That's why we invented Deja Review: A quick look at the new features and relative agelessness of remade, revived and re-released games. The last time we saw Virtua Fighter 5 was five years ago on the 360, boldly advertising online play on the cover (which wasn't guaranteed in the fighting genre at the time). Over the years, the Japanese arcade version of VF5 has still been in development: it's been tweaked, rebalanced and of course, granted many wonderful new costumes, hats and so on.

The console version, meanwhile, has remained abandoned for those five years. This long-awaited digital release, appropriately titled Virtua Figher 5 Final Showdown, gives console owners Sega AM2's years of hard work on their flagship title all at once for a pittance of $15 on the XBLA and PSN. (PSN+ members get it for free this month.)

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is the definitive version of the popular Virtua Fighter 5 series, developed by AM2. The game introduces two new playable characters, overhauled fighting mechanics and dynamic and interactive fighting arenas. Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown also includes console-only features such as a robust Training Mode, eight-player Online Room Match Mode and a match record feature to replay, save, and upload fights.

In its PSN debut, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is $14.99 and each character costume customization DLC pack is $4.99 each at launch, with each pack containing a whopping 600-900 customization items.

Two additional customization bundle packs, one consisting of nine character customization DLC packs and the other with 10 character customization DLC pack, are also available at launch for $14.99 each. Yes, that means there will be thousands of customization items per bundle pack.

However, only on PSN, for two weeks only (from June 6th to June 19th), the Complete Edition ($45 value), which includes the full game and all 19 character customization DLC packs, will be offered storewide at a discounted price of $29.99.

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is also the PlayStation Plus Game of the Month. All PlayStation Plus subscribers will be able to download the game as part of their instant game collection free between June 5th to July 3rd. In addition, we will be offering 20% off on both character customization bundle packs to Plus members for two weeks (6/5-6/19). We will also be offering one free dynamic theme and 20 free avatars (scheduled to be available on 6/26) to Plus members.

Akira and Jacky throw down in the new Virtua Fighter

More brutal combat courtesy of the new Virtua Fighter.

The Virtua Fighter community is still alive and kicking.

This June, people will be kicked in the face. Hard, and often.

We can't see the title of the new XBLA/PSN release of Virtua Fighter 5 and not think of "The Final Countdown." And now, we are in the final countdown before Final Showdown's release. Sega announced today that the 3D fighter will arrive on PSN June 5 and on XBLA June 6.

Should you want to make the delightfully budget-priced fighter less budget-priced, the release will be accompanied by a bunch of character customization DLC. Individual character packs (containing "600-950" items!) will be released for $5/400 MS Points; or you can buy two bundle packs (one with 9 characters' items and one with 10) for $15/1,200 points, also on release day.

For those of you in need of a professional-grade accessory for a low-cost downloadable game, Hori announced plans to release an official Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown arcade stick for PS3 in North America this summer.

Based on Hori's Real Arcade Pro V3 SA model, the VF5 stick uses authentic Sanwa Denshi parts for the stick and buttons, and totally inauthentic optional turbo settings for all buttons. Pricing has not been announced, but the stick runs for 13,800 yen ($170) in Japan.

SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON - SEGA of America, Inc. and SEGA of Europe Ltd. today announced that Virtua Fighter 5, the latest title in its celebrated fighting franchise, will see a grand update and expansion released as a standalone title for both Xbox LIVE Arcade for the Xbox 360 video game and ente...

Originally released in arcades, SEGA today confirmed it's bringing Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown to PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade...

Not since the Halcyon days of two-thousand and seven have North American players been able to partake of the resplendent joys inherent to Sega's Virtua Fighter series. But hark, lo on the horizon, a messenger brings a communique from the Japanese publisher, sending word of the last arcade iteration crossing the great seas to our North American shores, by way of magical tubes, wires, and drives hard as the most adamantine steel. Forsooth, a new epoch of Virtua Fighter relevance may be upon us yet, but not for yet another year's span. Zounds!

Oh Virtua Fighter...

*cough* Okay, enough of that. Indeed, Sega will be bringing Virtua Fighter back to American audiences with Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, the last arcade version released in Japan. This version, which features updates to the core mechanics and game balance, dynamic in-game arenas, online play, and 19 playable characters, will be coming as a downloadable entity for Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network.

Sega doesn't mention anything about pricing in its press release, presumably because the game is a whole year away from release. Sega pegs VF5FS' release date as somewhere around summer 2012.

But hey, look on the bright side: at least you'll have a full year to dig up a copy of the original VF5 and get back into practice. Or you can just do as I do and intend to dig up VF5 and practice, only to completely forget about that idea an hour later, then continuously remind yourself to do so every time you see a new preview or advertisement for VF5FS, yet still continue to do nothing about it, eventually resigning yourself to just download the game and start fresh, only to go online and have your ass handed to you by people who did actually practice in the interim time between now and the game's release. Demoralized, you will stick to playing through offline arcade modes for the sake of achievements/trophies, and stare longingly at the online multiplayer menus, the way a lovesick teenager stares depressingly at the hottest girl in school making out with the captain of the football team.

Seriously, never do anything the way I do it.

The pioneering Virtua Fighter series hasn't seen a release in North America since 2007. Sega just announced plans to bring the latest version of Virtua Fighter 5 over -- as a downloadable game. Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown is based on the 2010 arcade version, which adds new costume options, dynamic arenas and, most importantly, "a full overhaul of Virtua Fighter 5's mechanics, balance and animations."

19 playable characters will be available, including the sumo wrestler Taka-Arashi, who returns from Virtua Fighter 3. Sega is planning to release Final Showdown next summer. If you're at PAX, you'll be able to play the arcade version at the nearby Gameworks. Rather than set up console demos at the show, Sega has brought in full arcade machines to show off Final Showdown.

#virtualfighter Sega wants in on the Street Fighter IV-led fighting game resurgence. Their entrant? A new version of 2006's Virtua Fighter 5, Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, scheduled for a downloadable release on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 next summer. More »

#sega Sega keeps Virtua Fighter alive (in Japan at least) with yet another update to the seminal 3D fighting game. What does Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Version A bring to the beat 'em up? Dural, maybe? More »

Another version to make you forget about R.