(Thanks to @hassun for linking to the YouTube upload of the show)

Fighting game community members and Twitch and Capcom staffers respectively, Mike Ross and Peter Rosas (Combofiend) revealed the line-up of 2015's fighting game tournament events to become Pro tour premier events, getting some of that Sony money!

The Capcom Cup's entrants has been doubled from 16 to 32 and last year's champion, Japan's Momochi (representing Evil Geniuses) will gain automatic entry. He is also free to enter any other tournament in the calendar. Other non-premiere events, ranking events, are said to be rewarding CPT seeding points at their events too, which can be found here.

http://capcomprotour.com/

http://www.twitch.tv/capcomfighters

Because of their high international presence, EVO and Canada Cup have been listed under the wildcard "region." Looks like a good spread of events to me, happy to see Hypespotting to continue to get representation and the USA events practically picked themselves.

Half of the $500,000 will provide bonuses to whatever prize money each individual event makes up on its own through entrance fees, sponsors and their own back pockets etc. The other half will make up the prize money for the Capcom Cup, the end of year event that all the premier events will be awarding seeding points to.

Premier Tournaments Prize Pool Bonus (excluding EVO and Japan-based events) : Total $15,000 split between top 8

Evolution Prize Pool Bonus: Total $50,000 split between top 8

Capcom Cup Prize Pool: Total $250,000 split between top 8

That is a lot of money! The top 8 out of the 32 will all get paid but according to the rules, only the top 8 will get to play 3/5 matches, all the other matches leading up are 2/3.

Anyone going to any of these events? Will you be watching? Who've you got to make the top 32, top 8 and to win the whole thing?

Top 32 US: KBrad, Nuckledu, Snake Eyez, Ricky, Justin, Christopher Jesus, Smuggles, Sanford, Balrog, others

Europe: Valmaster, Ryan Hart, Problem X, Louffy, others

South America: Someone

Asia: Daigo, Yolochi, Kazunoko, Sako, Pepeday, Infiltration, Xian, Gackt, Fuudo, Nemo, Bonchan, Tokido, Gamerbee, 2 Poison Players, others.

32 is difficult to name everyone without just pulling from the 2014 standings, could probably do like 24.

Top 8: Nuckledu, Ryan Hart, Daigo, Momochi, Fuudo, Infiltration, Nemo, Bonchan

Winner? Probably Daigo, Momochi, or Infiltration.

For the most part qualifying is just being able to attend a bunch of tournaments and do well (i.e. have a sponsor), not to say those aren't most of the best players but people that can't/don't travel as much will be at a severe disadvantage naturally (Filipinoman, Velociraptor).

Oh yeah that stream happened today. Thanks for the breakdown.

Apparently it's going to be a 2-day event and all the matches are 3/5 or something? SO HYPE!

Only top 8 is 3/5.

You really have to look at the prize pools from each tournament on the past few years to understand just how much of an increase 120k for the winner is. (Spoilers: It's a massive increase.)

I kind of want to see some of the OGs in the scene win a big pot like that. Just as a thank you for all the work they have done. It might be hard for people like Daigo though. Refusing to counterpick when someone picks Dhalsim against him is all nice and honourable but with this much money on the line I wonder how many others will be that steadfast. With the prize pool increasing this much I expect a lot of new faces as well. Certainly when SFV rolls out.

As for who takes it, my brain says it will be a player like Infiltration or Xian but my heart says says Sako or Tokido or maybe even Daigo.

It's annoying that Capcom Fighters has a paywall on their entire twitch archive but people who missed it can watch that always interesting UltraChenTV discussion for free here:

www.twitch.tv/ultrachentv/v/3803188?t=5m22s

(You'll have to copy paste this or something because for some reason GB does not recognize this as a valid link.)

Thanks for the clarification, and fix't?

This is hopefully the swan song for Street Fighter IV, and what a way to go out.

After the announcements about Ultra and Street Fighter V, I'm not surprised that it's on PS4, but that makes things rough for people who don't have sticks yet. You'd either have to buy one at an event or wait until April to get one at the normal price. And like @l1ghtn1n said, people with custom setups may have a tough time based on how the PS4 handles things.

@starvinggamer: Thanks and how did you manage that?

@l1ghtn1n: With SFV being exclusive to PS4 and PC everyone who is remotely serious about being it is going to have to get a PS4.

@hassun: http://

@recspec: Capcom could always integrate the Lab Zero/Cowboy driver that lets PS3 sticks work on PS4 into the rerelease of USFIV and SFV. I mean, they won't, but they could.

@starvinggamer: Capcom is more than free to prove me wrong, but I am 99% sure that they wouldn't want to mess up their relations with Madcatz, Hori, Qanba, and so on. Arcade sticks aren't built to last more than a few years of constant use, and these companies expect you to "upgrade" and buy a newer, flashier one, every few years. EVO gets played on 360 instead of PS3? Have to get the 360 one, or dual-mod. EVO gets played on PS4 instead of 360? Have to get a PS4 stick, or get it modded.

Certainly you could bypass all this bullshit and just patch USF4 to be compatible with PS3 sticks but... arcade stick manufacturers would NOT be happy. It's especially bullshitty considering that with the PS3, you could pretty much just plug whatever in and it would work (except for 360 controllers/sticks). PS1 controllers via converter? Just fine. Sega Saturn controllers via converter? Just fine. Your ugly Logitech PC gamepad? Just fine. That weird arcade stick you got for your PC long before you got a PS3? That works too.

It's particularly upsetting to me considering that after years on a PS3 stick I got an eightarc specifically because it was dual-modded, so I could compete in 360 tournaments. Now I have to think about getting this fucking thing modded already, modding a stick to support PS4 is serious shit.

Capcom Fighters has now put the CPT2015 announcement stream on YouTube:

@hassun: Thanks.

Awesome! That was great. Combofiend seems like an aight dude.

@geraltitude: Combofiend is OG. He goes way back.

Updated the OP with the YouTube upload of the original video.

The first ranking event has concluded! Here's the results and WF, LF AND GF.

Placing and ranking points

Cannes Winter Clash was pretty hype. Some technical issues here and there but he competition was fierce and had some (semi-) surprising results too.

Check out the Teams competition if you want too: There was a 2v2 and a 5v5 tournament.

Next stop: Jakarta, Indonesia!

@flstyle: Thanks for updating, was going to whenever I saw another FGC thread. The top 8 is still on the twitch archives, Tonpy is the best Viper I've seen in quite a while, extremely high level play all around. Shirtless Poongko, need I say more? r/Kappa is the vaccine for EG.

WNF Online is tonight and should be commentated by Aris/Gootecks which is just amazing; if the commentators aren't hype then it isn't quite as interesting. I've seen too many NLBCs to really retain that much interest aside from looking at the brackets and seeing if there was a surprise.

@fredchuckdave: Watching Tonpy really hurt at times. He was really lacking in international tournament experience and his nerves got the better of him many times. I think he even bowed out of the 5v5 team tournament because of his bad performance in the 2v2 tournament. I'm glad he seemed to be able to shake off the nerves later on in the singles tournament though.

Sako is still in Cannes as well (he even brought his wife and child) and earlier today he played a FT10 with Luffy and a FT5 with Gagapa (along with multiple FT2 matches against other members of the community).

Plenty of Cannes Winter Clash (with English commentary) and the Sako sets can be viewed at http://www.twitch.tv/gameslines/profile/past_broadcasts

Final Round is shaping up to be hype as fuck.

@hmoney001: Multiple high stakes tournaments full of top players are coming hard and fast right now. Even outside of the Capcom Pro Tour like SXSW Gaming Fighters Invitational and Red Bull Kumite.

Some highlights from the Cannes Winter Clash:

and of course:

I'll have a blog up for that as usual, we should probably see if we can get the chat opened up for it.

I'm always in bed here in UKland before WNF starts (4/5AM) I haven't seen one of those yet.

@fredchuckdave: I noticed that Valle was asking Sci if he wanted to comment on a WNF so we might get some BOOLIT BOOLIT BOOLIT action soon.

@flstyle: I'm sure if we ask Jason we can get the secret GB illuminati chat up for Final Round.

Kind of sucks for me personally that USF4 is going to be played on PS4's since I just got an eightarc, but definitely cool that it's starting to get up there in terms of prize pool.

That does suck, I hope someone figures out a work-around.

@belegorm: If Luffy can get an adapter for his damn PS1 controller I think you should be able to get a converter or workaround for that eightarc.

Personally what I kinda hope is that I can at some point grab a ps4 stick and sell the eightarc whenever I don't need to play anything on 360 any more (probably won't take too long as the tournaments will be PS4 and locally I can just borrow a stick).

Anyone going to Combo Breaker in Chicago? Kind of think I might try to get out there, sounds great.

@hassun: Maybe I'm just a moron, but while I've used plenty of converters for controllers, people just seem to be against using converters with sticks so I've gone with the crowd. Thought about dual-modding but that's nearly as expensive as another stick anyway.

It should probably be mentioned that in the latest Capcom Pro Talk (ep3) Mike Ross announced that due to possible conflicts of interest because of his job he would not compete in the Capcom Pro Tour 2015. Of course he will still be at events as commentator/presenter/interviewer and even play in non-serious/team competition.

I think I really underestimated how many Asian region players will be there in retrospect.