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January 24, 2017
The first official Capcom Pro Tour event for 2017 has been announced.
The upcoming event is Final Round 20 and it will be the first event of this year to be included in Capcom Pro Tour rankings. Final Round has been a part of the Capcom Pro Tour in the past, and Fight Round 20 will be the third year running. It's not yet been confirmed whether Final Round 20 will be a Ranking or a Premier event, but some other details have been confirmed.
After last year's miscommunication from Fight Round 20, the bracket system will work. For example, last year Fight Round held a Premier event for the 2016 Capcom Pro Tour, but because of the lack of access to online brackets, it was very hard for players to figure out exactly who had made it out of the original stages and into the Top 128.
This year, the pools will be played out over two days instead of one, and the Smash.gg platform will be used to track matches and provide accessible online brackets for anybody to view.
So
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January 21, 2017
BeyondTheSummit has released the key dates and details for the upcoming Smash Summit 4.
It has now been confirmed that the event will take place from March 2 and will end on March 5. To begin with, the prize pool is sitting at $15,000, but it will grow depending on how many fans attend the events.
Even with a $15,000 base prize pool, this will be an important event to take the win, and it could perhaps be the event that could be open to absolutely anybody.
Whilst both Hungrybox and Armada are still performing incredibly, Hungrybox's recent broken finger has put some doubt on his upcoming performance. Armada is still looking like a strong contender, but his most recent Smash Summit win was at Smash Summit 3 doubles, at which point he had help from the formidable Mew2King. Mang0 has also been in great form this year, even if he hasn't managed to hit as many first place wins as Hungrybox and Armada.
In total, there will be sixteen players to attend the Smash Summit
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January 20, 2017
All of the juicy details for the first Battlefield 1 DLC expansion to actually cost any money have now been revealed.
The first DLC for Battlefield 1 is called They Shall Not Pass, and it will include new maps, new weapons, new items, a new game mode and some other extra features.
Firstly, let us share what we know about the maps. The new They Shall Not Pass DLC will have a total of four new multiplayer maps. The four maps are named, Fort Vaux, Rupture, Soissons and Verdun Heights.
With these four maps combined, players will have a nice mixture of claustrophobic underground tunnels, iconic trench and bunker warfare, open farmland and torched rubble.
Frontlines is the included game mode in They Shall Not Pass. Frontlines has a mix of gameplay from Conquest and Rush. "Both teams fight for one flag at a time and when this objective is captured the action moves on to the next. Capture the enemy's HQ control point and the game turns into a Rush-style section where
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January 19, 2017
Thanks to the EA Access program on both the Xbox One and the Origin store on the PC, EA Access subscribers will be able to play Mass Effect Andromeda a week before launch.
It's not been confirmed yet, but it's likely that all, or if not, the majority of the title will be available during this early EA Access period. Similar to different EA Access promotions in the past, this early play time will be restricted to just 10 hours of gameplay. Players can close down their game and open it at any point to ensure they get the most out of those 10 hours.
Once the 10 hours are up, players will be locked out of playing, but they will be able to continue their progress on the full game a week later.
To make the deal sweeter, this promotion will apply to those that have not yet pre-ordered the game. This means that players with EA Access will be able to get a taste of the Mass Effect Andromeda experience before purchasing it. Once again, players who go through this route will be
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January 18, 2017
If you're a fan of the Tekken fighting game series then you'll know that it's been a long wait for the proper release of Tekken 7. Since Tekken 6 we've had new Street Fighter Titles, a new Mortal Kombat game and even a new Killer Instinct exclusive for the Xbox One.
Thankfully, we can finally confirm that Tekken 7 will be making it's way to consoles soon across the globe. The bad news is that Bandai Namco will not be able to meet the 'early 2017' window they had previously set for the fighting game title. Now, Tekken 7 will be launched later in the year.
"We were trying our best to get the game out at that time," project lead Katsuhiro Harada mentioned to GameSpot when referring to the 'early 2017' launch window at a press event held in Tokyo earlier this month.
Harada continued by saying "We saw some title, some our own, some from others, which didn't have a very good launch because of lack of content, or whatever it was, and it caused players to bash the product."
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January 17, 2017
The movie studio behind hits like The Hunger Games, Power Rangers, and the Expendables has announced its recent investment in esports team, The Immortals.
It seems as if we're seeing investments from all over the place when it comes to eSports, and now Lionsgate has got in on the action. Interestingly, The Immortals has already seen financial support from other popular names including Michael Milken and Steve Kaplan.
Lionsgate didn't share too many details on what their investment would involve or what they would hope to receive from their partnership, but it's clear that they see the expectation in the eSports industry to follow the footsteps of other popular sports industries, such as the NBA and NFL.
This isn't the first time Lionsgate has gotten involved with video games. In fact, they have an entirely separate wing dedicated to interactive experiences and video games.
Lionsgate President of Interactive Ventures and Games mentioned, "We're delighted to be
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January 14, 2017
Twitch might have a near-monopoly on the video game streaming industry, but other competitors are still fighting hard to get a grip on it.
One of the longest running competitors for video game streaming is Hitbox - it's a service that offers a similar service to Twitch, and also has a larger focus on streaming esports. In recent news, Azubu has just acquired Hitbox for a sum of "tens of millions of dollars."
While operation at Hitbox is still going on as normal, this acquisition could mean big things for the platform and even bigger things for the video game streaming industry as a whole. To begin with, Azubu is certainly interested in putting more focus on the esports side of things. The majority of streams on Twitch are non-esports related, so Hitbox and Azubu have a potential void to fill.
Interestingly, Azubu is another streaming platform that hasn't managed to gain the attention it's hoped for. Previous talks suggested that Azubu was close to shutting down due
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January 13, 2017
The Miami Heat sports organization has recently purchased a stake in Misfit eSports.
Whilst unknown to some, the Misfit eSports org includes teams for Smash Bros, Heroes of the Storm and League of Legends. Perhaps their best-known players form their Overwatch team, which has recently performed incredibly well on a global level.
Most individuals would certainly know Miami Heat on the other hand - with a valuation of over $1.3 billion, the sports company is most known for their basketball team. In January 2016 the Miami Heat team was considered the 10th largest NBA franchise.
Considering the huge scale of Miami Heat, it's clear to see that the Misfits eSports organization are going to get all of the funding and support they need to keep their teams progressing towards new levels. Currently, the ownership of Misfit eSports resides with the original owners, but with Miami Heat owning a stake, they have the ability to call some of the shots as far as sponsorship deals, promotions,
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January 12, 2017
After a big unveiling event, details about the Nintendo Switch have been revealed to the world. We now know when the Nintendo Switch will release, the first party games it will include at launch and the price tag of the console and some of its accessories.
First things first; the release date. Nintendo has confirmed that the Nintendo Switch will get a release on March 3rd, 2017. The console will be made available globally from this date, so if you're interested in picking up a console make sure to have your calendars marked.
If you'd rather pre-order the Nintendo Switch, you can do so from a local retailer. For example, GameStop is currently accepting pre-orders for the Switch in the United States. The price tag for the Switch sits at $299.99 in the United States and $399.99 in Canada. The Nintendo Switch can be purchased for 279.99 pounds in the UK.
While extra accessories will be available, the day one unit will feature a left and right Joy-Con controller, wrist straps
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January 11, 2017
The year has only just started and Microsoft are already going crazy with their backwards compatibility lineup. In January so far, 10 more backwards compatible games have been made available to play on the Xbox One.
To begin with, a bundle of seven Xbox One compatible games were launched to the Xbox Games Store. This first bundle included both of the previously Xbox 360 exclusive Battlefield titles (Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3), as well as a number of other AAA and indie/arcade titles.
A little while after the initial 7 games were announced, 3 more titles were added to the backwards compatible games list. The additional three games were Mega Man 9, Mega Man 10 and Beat'n Groovy.
The full list includes the games listed below.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 ($20; 4.88 GB)
Battlefield 3 (requires disc)
Dragon Age: Origins ($15; 6.44 GB)
Ghostbusters ($15: 6.18 GB)
Scrap Metal ($15; 130.06 MB)
The Splatters ($10; 505.95