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ESPN will air 18 hours of eSports coverage on July 17th
ESPN is increasing its eSports coverage in a big way. The network will be airing 18 hours of eSports programming on ESPN2 and ESPNU on Sunday, July 17th. This will mark the first time ESPN will air an entire eSports block on its major networks, a far cry from the days when it relegated League of Legends matches to streams on the web.
ESPN2 will televise the 'Street Fighter V' finals from Evo 2016
Professional gaming continues its slow creep into the mainstream, landing airtime for another tournament on a prominent sports channel. ESPN2 will air the world championship matches for Street Fighter V live from the Mandalay Bay events center on July 17th at 10pm ET, but they'll also broadcast it on WatchESPN for you cord-cutters.
The best microSD card
By Kimber Streams This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer's guide to the best technology. Read the full article here. After 40 hours of research and testing over the past two years, we found that the 64GB Samsung EVO Plus is the best microSD card for most people's needs. It's the most versatile and cost-effective microSD card of the 15 we tested this year. The EVO Plus's speedy random read and write speeds are ideal for phone and tablet use, and its sequential write speed is fast enough for shooting 1080p video.
Watch the world's biggest fighting game tournament right here
This weekend over 6,000 folks from 47 countries will descend into Las Vegas to kick the (virtual) snot out of each other. That's because the 13th annual Evolution fighting game tournament, otherwise known as Evo 2015, starts today with world warriors competing across nine games including Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat X, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Ultra Street Fighter IV. They're battling for over $300,000 in prize money and in case you couldn't make it to Sin City for the show, we've got you covered. The competition starts at 12 pm Eastern / 9 am Pacific today and goes until the final street fighting man or woman is defeated Sunday night. As you might expect, the entire event's being broadcast via Twitch and you can park it right here on Engadget to watch the whole thing!
Rhino Slider Evo is a modular camera motion tool
We don't cover a ton of pro-level camera gear here at Engadget (though it's far from unheard of). But, a cool gadget is a cool gadget whatever it's for -- and this new motorized slider system from Rhino is one of them. For the uninitiated, sliders are what allow videographers and photographers to get those smooth, gliding shots. As for Rhino, they came to my attention through their GoPro accessories -- in particular the 360 swivel mount which is about the most fun way to wear your action camera. While camera gear can get pretty expensive (and complex) very quickly, my experience with Rhino's GoPro kit has been that is sits right in the "prosumer" sweet spot, so when I heard the company was making a motorized slider, I was particularly keen to try it out. The Rhino Slider Evo is currently launching on Kickstarter (it's fully funded already), but I managed to get some time with a pre-production unit to test it out.
Evo 2015 line-up announced, double helping of Smash
Super Smash Bros Wii U and Melee are two of the nine games already confirmed for this year's Evolution Championship Series. As revealed during last night's Twitch stream, the line-up for Las Vegas this July also includes returning games Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Ultra Street Fighter 4 and Killer Instinct, The remaining four games are new for this year, and they are Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Guilty Gear Xrd Sign, Mortal Kombat X and Tekken 7. Recent years have seen more games added closer to the event, though a roster of nine is already on the high end for an EVO championship. Whatever the full line-up proves to be, it's coming to the Bally's/Paris Las Vegas Casino, where the world's fighting game specialists will duke it out across July 17-19.
France's MD|Luffy wins EVO 2014 grand finals with a PS1 controller
Team France's MD|Luffy took home the grand prize in the final match of the Evolution Championship Series international fighting game tournament last night, becoming the first player in EVO history to win the grand finals using a stock PlayStation (PSone) control pad. Luffy's win cements a number of firsts for the long-running annual tournament. His victory marks the first time a player from Europe has won in a final round of a Street Fighter 4 EVO championship. Luffy's chosen character, Rose, is also the first female fighter to win a championship in the Street Fighter 4 series, overpowering competing finalist Bonchan's Sagat in a decisive victory following a high-stakes final round and bracket reset. Arcade stick purists across the globe proceeded to gnash their teeth and rend their garments in protest following last night's upset victory. Well, that's not entirely true - if anything, Luffy's victory demonstrates that using a controller you're comfortable with is a key factor in tournament play, as opposed to viewing expensive tournament-grade arcade sticks as a requirement for entry. (Still...a PSone control pad? Really? I mean, I would've expected the first EVO-winning pad player to use the more comfortable Sega Saturn controller, or maybe a Sega Genesis 6-button pad. That's impressive. Congrats, Luffy!) A full list of featured games and tournament results is available at Shoryuken.com. [Image: @Wario64]
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 joins EVO 2014 lineup
EVO fighting game tournament founder Joey "Mr. Wizard" Cuellar appeared on a recent episode of iPlayWinner's The Fray, where he revealed that Tekken Tag Tournament 2 would appear at this year's tournament. As we reported in September, EVO 2014 is slated to take place in Las Vegas from July 11 to July 13. As with last year, EVO 2014 will be streamed via Twitch. Though it's not terribly surprising to see the fan-favorite Tekken Tag Tournament 2 join the tournament roster, it's far from the only draw at EVO 2014. Other games appearing at the event include Super Smash Bros. Melee, Ultra Street Fighter 4, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, Killer Instinct, King of Fighters 13 and BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma. Alongside the addition of Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Cuellar also revealed that publisher Bandai Namco has signed on as a sponsor for EVO 2014. [Image: Bandai Namco]
EVO 2014 brings the fight back to Las Vegas July 11 - 13
Premiere fighting game tournament EVO Championship Series will return next year. Shoryuken has announced EVO 2014 will be held July 11 - 13 at the LVH Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The tournament will one again be streamed on Twitch. Last year's EVO tournament was full of heated contests and surprising upsets, with over 3,000 individuals showing up to compete in Las Vegas. 1.7 million spectators signed on to watch EVO 2013's furious fighting action this year on Twitch, making it the most-watched fighting game tournament ever broadcast through the site.
EVO 2013 smashes viewership records with 1.7 million spectators
This year's Evolution Championship Series, colloquially known as EVO 2013, was the most-watched fighting game tournament ever broadcast through Twitch.tv, according to the streaming site's VP of marketing, Matthew DiPietro. "It was nearly fifty percent higher than last year's EVO, which was the previous record holder," DiPietro said in a statement. "1.7 million tuned in during the course of the weekend." Records for concurrent, game-specific viewership were also broken, with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 peaking at 144,848 simultaneous viewers. Estimations place Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition and Super Smash Bros. Brawl at approximately 125,000 and 134,000 concurrent viewers each, respectively. Numbers like these, while certainly impressive, aren't all that surprising considering that this year's EVO was easily the most thrilling in the event's 11-year history. With legal drama, release date/DLC/new game reveals and some truly surprising winners at the end of it all, EVO 2013 put on one hell of a show.
Here's where you can watch EVO 2013 this weekend
Want to watch top-tier competitors fight it out in Super Street Fighter IV, Injustice, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and other crowd favorites? International fighting game tournament EVO 2013 is being broadcast live from Las Vegas across a trio of streams this weekend, so you don't have to miss a minute of the action. Three main channels will feature different games throughout today and tomorrow: srkevo1, srkevo2, and srkevo3. Twitch offers its own dedicated hub for the event, and if your brain can process all three streams at once, fighting game community website Shoryuken suggests using Multitwitch. The three streams are also embedded after the break below. Finals will be broadcast via the srkevo1 channel on Sunday. The tournament will additionally be simulcast in Japanese, for overseas viewers. A full schedule of featured games is available here.
EVO 2013 to be simulcast in Japanese
EVO 2013 will be live-streamed with Japanese commentators, courtesy of Mad Catz and Japanese video sharing site Nico Nico Douga. The stream will be free to view on the Nico Nico site. The Japanese iteration of EVO 2013's streaming schedule joins its English-language Twitch streams at srkevo1, srkevo2 and srkevo3, with the full schedule posted below. The Twitch streams come with a $12 premium option that includes ad-free viewing, chat access, exclusive emoticons and video quality of at least 720p, and all of that money goes to the EVO 2013 college scholarship for NYU Game Center. EVO 2013 kicks off on Friday, July 12, and runs through Sunday, July 14. Check out its Indie Showcase lineup here.
The top SpyParty player is a fighting game guy from EVO 2012
Four months before SpyParty debuted at EVO 2012's Indie Showcase, convention founder Seth Killian threw down a gentlemen's bet with SpyParty creator Chris Hecker: "An EVO attendee will be your No. 1 player in subsequent tests, and take down whoever the existing top players might be." Hecker took the bet. One year later, SpyParty is on its way to EVO 2013, and Hecker owes Killian a beer. SpyParty is slow-paced for a one-on-one "fighting game," but it requires the same mad obsession with detail prevalent in many fighting games. Players are either the spy or the sniper: As the spy they must blend in with a room of AI characters attending a fancy party and complete tasks unbeknownst to the sniper. The sniper has to spot the human character with enough certainty to shoot it before the other player completes all the tasks. The top SpyParty player in the world is Korey Mueller, AKA "kcmmmmm" (pictured above, standing in the blue button-down), and as a lifelong fighting game fan, it's fitting that he first heard about SpyParty at EVO 2012. Since the convention, Mueller has played 6,436 games of SpyParty and has spent 262 hours in-game, with 1,020 hours total log-in time. The player that comes closest to these numbers clocks in at 5,151 games and 213 hours in-game. After picking out which beer he's going to buy Killian, Hecker asked Mueller about his fighting game roots and how he thinks SpyParty fits into the fighting game community. "There's always this feeling that there's some way I can improve, and every time I meet a personal goal, I find another one," Mueller tells Hecker. "I couldn't really look at the game and decide to be a top player, I just wanted to continue to improve – and at some point, I guess I got pretty decent at it. Now that you mention it, 6,000 games is a lot." Yeah, it is.
Super Smash Bros Melee returned to EVO 2K13 streaming [update]
Update: Well, fighting game tournaments are all about swift reversals. Nintendo has sent word that the Super Smash Bros. Melee stream will be allowed to proceed as organizers intended. Original story: Super Smash Bros. Melee will no longer be part of EVO 2K13's streaming schedule, as per Nintendo's request. Shoryuken reports that Melee will be replaced by a mixture of Persona 4 Arena and King of Fighters XIII. Adding an extra level of pain to the entire situation is the nearly $100,000 the Melee community raised for breast cancer research, in the hopes that Melee would be a featured game during the EVO 2K13 streams. Nintendo recently started cracking down on broadcasters posting footage of its games online. In May, Nintendo hit "Let's Play" videos on YouTube – essentially narrated game walkthroughs – with mass revenue claims. EVO 2K13 is this year's installment in the prominent EVO championship series of fighting game tournaments. EVO 2K13 will take place the weekend of July 12 at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. [Thanks, Stephen.]
Injustice joins EVO 2013's lineup, DLC coming to Wii U this summer
Evolution Championship Series co-founder Joey "Mr. Wizard" Cuellar announced that NetherRealm Studios' DC superhero brawler Injustice: Gods Among Us is now a featured game in EVO 2013's official tournament lineup, joining big-name favorites like Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition. More good news arrived for Injustice fans today, in the form of a release window for the Wii U version's downloadable content. Responding to fan questions, the game's official Twitter account revealed that Wii U users will see its first round of DLC for the superhero and villain brawler this summer. Wii U players were previously left out in the cold as Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners tussled with newcomer Lobo earlier this week. NetherRealm did not detail if the Wii U plans include additional costumes currently exclusive to Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Injustice. Batgirl is next up in NetherRealm's DLC release schedule. Two more as-of-yet unannounced characters will join Injustice's roster at a later date.
The Summoner's Guidebook: LoL's World Championship fiasco alienates fans
I'm a big fan of e-sports, but League of Legends is currently one of the worst e-sports to garner a major scene. This isn't because the game is bad, though some aspects of LoL's Classic gameplay are bad for e-sports. It is universally because most LoL tournaments are poorly run and organized. A badly run tournament can ruin everything, regardless of how good (or bad) the game being played is. I would expect more from Riot Games, which creates and publishes League of Legends and which has a vested interest in fostering competition for the game. However, the studio seems to have learned absolutely nothing from very successful e-sports tournaments such as the Evolution Fighting Championships, the GOMTV Star League, and OGN's The Champions. All of these tournaments have better seeding structure and better venues, which contribute to a better overall event. Why can't Riot learn from these very successful events?
Sprint confirms HTC EVO 4G LTE in white, battle of carrier-specific phone colors rages on
Not to be outdone by that red Galaxy S III over at AT&T, Sprint has confirmed that its inadvertent ad posting wasn't just a fluke: it's bringing out a white version of the EVO 4G LTE. Strictly speaking, it's more of a aluminum-with-white-accents trim, but we'll let that slide given that the back and kickstand are now decidedly less smudge-prone. The white EVO will cost as much as that Galaxy S III variant (and the black EVO) at $200 on a contract. Sprint will start selling the white hue on July 15th -- and unlike AT&T, it should have phones on shelves rather than leave customers to online window shopping.
Get hype: EVO 2012 results and Grand Finals videos
Another EVO Championship Series has come and gone, taking with it the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a community. EVO is the Super Bowl of fighting games, but also a cultural mecca for those who share the genre as their life's passion.This year's proceedings were punctuated by surprises, upsets and incredible displays of skill and technical prowess, perhaps more so than any EVO in recent memory. Last year's Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition champion, Fuudo, tied with three others for ninth place at this year's tournament, for instance. Conversely, Perfect Legend successfully defended his throne as Mortal Kombat champion, becoming the first person to retain their title since Daigo Umehara's SSF4 victory in 2010.Head on past the break for results of the seven major tournaments that took place over the weekend, along with videos of the Grand Finals for each game, courtesy of IGN. If you're pressed for time, allow us to make some recommendations: Watch the first rounds of the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and SSF4:AE Ver. 2012 Grand Finals for two of the most exciting KOs of the weekend, and peep the King of Fighters XIII Grand Finals for the most excitable stream commentators in the entire world.
MadCatz producing limited edition EVO fightsticks
To commemorate this year's EVO Championship Series World Finals, arcade stick darling Mad Catz has created a limited edition "EVO Championship Series Arcade Fightstick Pro" for the PS3 and 360.Now, when we say limited edition, we mean exceedingly limited edition: Mad Catz is only manufacturing 600 of these arcade sticks in total – 300 for each system. While the parts used in the stick are not explicitly broken down, the fact that it's part of the manufacturer's Fightstick Pro line implies heavy usage of Sanwa Denshi buttons and sticks.For all intents and purposes, the limited edition joint appears to be a translucent purple version of Mad Catz's Street Fighter X Tekken stick, and at $159.99 it costs about the same as well. Pre-orders are now active at Mad Catz's GameShark shop.
Sprint's white EVO 4G LTE reportedly set for July 15th release, BOGO on Epic 4G Touch in tow
Are you a Sprint customer with a penchant for LTE technology and white handsets? If so, listen up. Intel leaked to blog TechnoBuffalo seems to indicate that the Now Network's very first LTE-toting handset will be hitting store shelves, in snow white, on July 15th; obviously, we're talking about HTC's latest spin on the EVO, the EVO 4G LTE. The albino set, much like its hued brethren already in market, will set you back $200 with a signed two-year commitment, or can be had for $550 contract-free. As an added bonus, it looks like Sprint will also be serving up a buy-on-get-one-free offer on Samsung's Epic 4G Touch. Purchasing one 4G Touch -- scheduled to get Ice Cream Sandwich in the near future -- for $99 on-contract will allow you pick up a second set for the always attractive price of $0. Any takers?
