@fredchuckdave: DotA had like a bajillion streams so they could do 2 for SF. Mike Ross/Combofiend/SKill could all be valid choices for stream 2 or F-Word or someone.

Worth mentioning that the Arc Revo Cup 2015 wrapped up yesterday/today and it looks like machaboo ran an absolute train on the Xrd competition. His teammates Dogura and Kazunoko did not even have to play in the finals.

Grand finals:

Ogarinko vs. Unusual

• Machaboo (Ky) beat Ogawa (Zato-1).
• Machaboo (Ky) beat Karinchu (Millia).
• Machaboo (Ky) beat Koichi (I-No).

The tournament was streamed on nico nico so it might be best to wait for YT archives if you want to watch it.

Machaboo is such a beast he stopped using his player card in arcades because everyone was dodging his Sol. I heard he played Ky at ArcRevo, I'll have to watch the archive. Also worth noting for people that may not realize, he put out Ogawa. The winner of Xrd at EVO 2015.

They also announced the new version of GGXrd, Revelator will be out in arcades by the end of August 2015. Jam was also announced as another returning character.

@hassun: Fuudo the brick wall.

@fredchuckdave: ?

You mean the third dude? That's Machaboo. I'm not sure Fuudo plays anime games now that I think about it.

Hmmm, if Jam is in it maybe I'll need to get Revelator after all...

Still waiting for Baiken though.

Tatami Gaeshi!

Cool to see that there was still a character to add for Revelator. I thought it was just going to be Johnny and the new girl at this point. Hopefully when they eventually get around to a console version they'll add a couple more. I'd love to be able to play Anji again, but I doubt he has priority over characters like Baiken, Testament, and Dizzy.

@mikefightnight: Dat Jam reveal.

Looks like the rumour was true, Haitani is now being sponsored by BrawL, an e-sports team/sponsor from Mexico.

https://www.facebook.com/BrawLMx

http://brawl.gg/en/about-us/

https://twitter.com/BrawLeSports

Let's hope this goes better than Kazunoko's Zeveron adventure.

Take a look inside a Taito Station: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/08/japans-gaming-centers-provide-joy-for-the-kid-inside/

@hassun: I was about to post the same article. Cool they allowed pics to be taken. I guess since it wasn't during there busy hours.

Hey, I was there like a month ago! Its a really cool place, but when I went the Street Fighter cabs were a wasteland, so I had to go to another arcade nearby to get some matches in. Gundam EXVS was packed to the brim just like everywhere else though.

@jesna: Did you take some nice pictures on your trip/Hiroshima? I'd love to see them.
I visited it a few years ago. Pretty nice, modern Japanese city. Although I guess most people visiting it only go to the A-bomb stuff.

Looks like I got the Taito Stations mixed up, I went to the one in Akihabara. That's what I get for looking at the picture without carefully reading the article itself I suppose. I did go to Hiroshima, but, as you said, spent most of my day going to the Peace museum.

I have plenty of pictures on my phone, I'll try to remember to upload some of the better ones on my GB profile when I get some time. I've got a somewhat blurry photo of a crowd of people playing that awful Hokuto no Ken fighting game. Everybody was getting super hype for it, was fun to see.

@mikefightnight: Yes! Jam is quite literally my jam.

@jesna: If you've seen Raoh on Saltybet you know that game is the hypest shit. Kokuoh takes up the whole screen!

@jesna: I took so many pictures on my trips. Even some rudimentary videos!

Post #4000

Beta is up for an internal stress test sneak on now

God I remember playing HnK back when it came out in arcades, and then watching as it slowly became more and more broken in increasingly hilarious ways. Why does this even happen.

http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2015/aug/18/wed-work-hard-make-video-game-fans-pachinko-slot-fans-snk-sheds-some-light-their-current-plans/

@l1ghtn1n My Kobu seems to be coming around, you gave me that Xian confidence boost or something:

@starvinggamer It's the Kitana Premier Tower this week if you're curious, if only I played Mournful it wouldn't be too hard to get 900-930kish, I'd recommend doing simpler combos since the objective is to flawless everything (and optimally it's always 3 combos anyway, barring landing a corner combo to start the round):

@fredchuckdave: Hm, that reminds me I haven't played MK in quite a while and I have FiOS now so my internet is somewhat less shit than it was before. Maybe I should go online and get horribly wrecked and not be able to blame it on lag.

But Rising Thunder is so fun (and makes me so angry)!

@starvinggamer: Seems like Talos was built to be frustrating for his players, unless you've had better luck with the issues you had a few weeks ago?

@fredchuckdave: His new SPD actually tightens up a lot of the holes in his gameplay. Closes the loop on a lot of his pressure options and covers the parts of wakeup that he could do literally nothing (other than wakeup super) about previously. Still can't throw tech to save my life for whatever reason though. Still is always a gamble trying to AA with him so the most annoying fights devolve into jump-in cross-up cross-up forever as I cry and fall apart.

@hassun: Can't wait for that CvS3 Pachinko Machine

@viciousbearmauling: The KoF MOBA Machine too :'(

Just got ruined by SonicFox twice in a row in Rising Thunder. Does that make me a furry now?

Man, that fight is tough.

RIP NLBC RIP Next Level

Had many a fun evening watching NLBC and its predecessor Guard Crush.

Anyone know why Next Level is shutting down? I saw the twitter post from Henry but need some more info.

RIP Young player development scene in the US.

@hassun: @starvinggamer: @flstyle: So I got a mic for the youtubes and the first thing I had to know was this:

I didn't think it was too bad, hurray for having a deep enough voice. Now to master talking in it without just saying the ubiquitous lines. Probably not happening.

Sad news about NLBC but I have faith something else will appear in its place. The FGC is too healthy right now for setbacks like that.

@fredchuckdave: ... needs work.

@fredchuckdave: Uh... hm... well that's certainly a thing.

@hassun: The point isn't whether its good or bad, it just needs to be done of course. A necessary ritual.

Seems like arcades even in giant cities don't really cut it except maybe GGA. But we'll probably have a well known weekly somewhere when SFV comes out, at least for a little while. I think arcades dying is a virtual guarantee of E-Sports rising in its place so that should be fun.

Pokken tournament going on over at http://www.twitch.tv/pokemon. Some FGC regulars are there as well. Saw Spooky playing earlier.

Update on the NLBC situation: http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2015/aug/21/next-level-arcade-new-york-city-close-february-co-owner-sheds-light-situation/

For those unfamiliar, Next Level Arcade is an arcade in New York City host to the NLBC weekly, as well as many FGC gatherings. Despite a long running, co-owner Henry Cen has stated that they will be shutting their doors on February 29th, 2016.

It would seem that this sudden turn of events is due to a disagreement between both owners concerning the future of Next Level Arcade, resulting in an agreement to go their separate ways once the lease ends in February.

This comes as a shock to much of the community, especially in the east coast, with another beloved arcade closing up shop. Victor "Spooky" Fontanez, the man responsible for running NLBC at the location, gave the first hints at this trouble in a discussion he held over his stream.

"My disagreement with my business partner was about my concerns for the future of Next Level, and because of our differences regarding this issue, we've agreed that after the lease is over to go our separate ways," Cen stated. He continued "I still want to provide a new home for the community in the future and I hope that everyone can support Next Level in these last months before it's closure."

Many in the community first learned of this through Next Level Battle Circuit, where Spooky vented frustrations on the issue in the beginning of his most recent stream. Victor opened up to the stream, saying "Basically we have a breakdown of communications at the store. There is a good chance that we will be ending Next Level Battle Circuit very soon, possibly by the end of the month."

I hope something good comes out of this.

Two great events have wrapped up and I think it would be a shame to ignore them:

First there was the GG Xrd Promotional/Invitational/Team Exhibition tournament "Toshin-Gekitotsu".

The matches were actually closer than I expected. Even relative newcomer Daigo made a good showing!

Results (Courtesy of Shoryuken.com)

The entire event has been uploaded to YouTube! Worth a look.

P.S. Ogawa played with his gilded EVO stick!

Next up we have Taiwan Fighter Major 2015.

Oh my word this was a doozy! The event was streamed on Capcomfighters so the stream archive is behind a paywall but if you have time to watch the matches on https://www.youtube.com/user/GameStartAsia/videos you definitely should. Especially Itazan (who has been on fire recently) vs Misse (Best Makoto m8). Other highlights include a double big body match with Itazan vs Stormkubo going at it twice.

Top 8:

Seriously if you like Misse/Makoto at all you should watch these matches.

Hype

Hype 2

@hassun: You can watch the twitch archive on twfighter for the taiwan tournament. That exclusively top tier top 3!

Gamerbee was there but didn't participate?

I think Gamerbee is involved in running the tournament, so he probably didn't enter to avoid any conflict of interest issues.

@fredchuckdave: He didn't because he was organising/hosting the event.

Thanks for the heads-up!

As far as the Capcup standings go Misse moves up to 19th, pushing Arturo Sanchez of the recently departed NY scene off the list, Tonpy and Itabashi are both looking very solid with around 100 points each. And I guess we now have 2 Hugos with 64 points. Hopefully Infexious keeps doing well at UK events and/or actually attends some of the other European events. Also Sako just needs to go to a tournament in the US (i.e. Summer Jam) and get some points!

I'm guessing @flstyle will do a new post soon but if not we pretty much have a ranking or premier event every weekend from now until the end of the year, should be exciting stuff.

Another highlight:

Mad Catz seems to be making a lot of moves on Twitch.

In other news, there was another solid USFIV tournament in Japan yesterday/today.

Japan e-Sports Championship 2015

Notable contestants: Ai Ai, Galtu, Nemo, Santarou, Dashio, G.Y.R.O., Yossan, Nishikin, and more.

Lucky it was streamed (and archived) on Twitch.tv! http://www.twitch.tv/cyactv/v/12307356

Bracket: (SPOILER WARNING) http://cyac.com/node/123304/bracket

Diego Umejuarez?

Speaking of Pokken, what the proper fuck is going on with America!?