Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

The professional Street Fighter 6 scene finds itself with some apparent challenges on the western front for eSports with previous Capcom Cup champions MenaRD and iDom recently announcing their free agent status, but there are still some big opportunities going around.

AngryBird and Big Bird have continued to showcase their talents as two of the absolute best SF6 competitors in the world, and the pair just joined forces with one of Japan’s big teams with an entertaining announcement video.

Both players will now be under the umbrella of RC Reject, who put together quite the reveal for the globe-spanning event.

Reject’s video starts out with Japanese FGC legends Haitani and Kokujin standing on a summoning circle with the team’s logo in the night, and when they hold their fans up, a beam shoots out onto the moon.

Reject|Tokido heeds the signal and pulls an E.T. by flying his bike in front of the moon all the way to Abu Dhabi where the legendary champion is then seen riding a camel in the desert with two floating orbs around him.

The orbs then float over to AngryBird and Big Bird, who are both also on camels, and then they show some more typical eSports team compilation shots of them all together and posing in their new jerseys.

If nothing else, you can’t say Reject didn’t put in a lot of work for this announcement — and now we know what part of Tokido’s recent globetrotting trip was really about.

Reject picks up SF6’s first Evo champion in AngryBird and the current Evo runner-up in Big Bird with the pair soon also making their way over to Capcom Cup 11.

The duo from the United Arab Emirates had both been with NASR eSports for a whopping seven years previously.

We rarely see Japanese eSports teams pick up foreign players (who are living outside the country at least), so perhaps this could mark more of a shift in the landscape since SF6 has proven to be a massive success in its home region.

The Birds are definitely a big get for Reject, and you can see how much they put into the video in less than 1 minute and 30 seconds below.

“Meet the Birds.”

Welcome to REJECT@FGC_Angrybird @Bigbird_fgc #RCWIN pic.twitter.com/hzBjji7lUX

— REJECT (@RC_REJECT) January 30, 2025

The search for the mysterious pink ninja, Floyd, in Mortal Kombat 1 has seen some great progress over the last several days. From the looks of it, the resources out there with information on how to encounter and fight him are accurate to the point now where many players are starting to find and defeat him consistently.

This fantastic hidden challenge breathed fresh interest into Mortal Kombat 1, and the majority of fans who have engaged in the search seem to love everything about Floyd. He’s become so popular so quickly, in fact, that one creator has spent 28 hours to immortalize the new palette swap ninja with an awesome custom-made figure.

This wicked Floyd figure comes from the mind of Linx, an artist who specializes in 3D printing and epoxy art.

The 3D printed Floyd uses models of Scorpion and Sub-Zero as its base with changes made to it to better represent what the pink ninja has in-game. According to Linx, this statue took 16 hours to paint and the entire process came in at about 28 hours.

Based on the photos, you wouldn’t expect the Floyd statue to be as big as it actually is. However, if you check out the creation process video found in the tweet below, you can see that it actually appears to be quite the large statue.

The end result is a fantastic looking representation of the elusive Floyd in Mortal Kombat 1. Check it out below.

Click images for larger versions

After 16 hours of printing/painting, I finally finished the 1st Floyd custom statue! What do y’all think?

If you’d like to checkout the full process, I streamed it on my channel right here –

i hope Ed Boon Sees This I’d Go Nutz! To place an order… pic.twitter.com/6plLZFl70d

— linx (@dramaqueenlinx) January 28, 2025

Mai Shiranui is now less than a week away from hitting the stage in Street Fighter 6, and she’s bringing a lot more than just her good looks too.

Capcom has announced even more new features / additions coming to SF6 in the incoming update for Mai with the latest information revealing some big changes for the ranked offerings.

These changes are primarily aimed at the Master ranked players specifically to offer the most dedicated combatants more rewards and incentives to keep grinding.

First of all, SF6 is going to be adding three more ranks to the system with High Master, Grand Master and Ultimate Master.

They haven’t said yet what the Master Rate point requirements are for each, but they presumably all fall between Master and Legend ranks moving forward.

The next change for Master players is the introduction of an “ACT” system that will determine a character’s starting MR points when a new phase drops depending on their performance in the previous phase.

Click images for larger versions

Capcom says this should split players to be closer to opponents around their skill level more consistently than before.

Finally, the most interesting addition is probably going to be the Master ACT Rewards feature.

It appears players will receive a new type of points for playing ranked matches with Master-ranked characters that can be exchanged for in-game items.

The preview image seemingly shows users must first complete the “All” section of the point levels (300 in this case) before unlocking individual character rewards.

And the big draw of the ACT points is going to be the character colors that look to cost 100 points each.

It seems every fighter is going to have access to a new pink / purple color for exchanging those points, and hopefully there’s new selections with each phase moving forward.

■変更点3
前ACTのMRをもとに「新ACT開始時のMR」がプレイヤー毎に決まる「開始レート個別制」を導入！
中央値が1500なのは変わりませんが、その前後の適切な位置にプレイヤーが分かれることから
ACT序盤でも同じ強さの相手とマッチングしやすくなりました。…

— ストリートファイター / STREET FIGHTER (@StreetFighterJA) January 30, 2025

These rewards will be found in the Master Phase tab being added to the Rewards menu of SF6.

This of course isn’t all that’s coming in SF6’s update in terms of features and quality of life improvements either.

Capcom is implementing a feature to allow you to “restore” custom matches that disconnect in the middle of the action, which is an interesting tech advancement option.

On top of that, players will be able to view replays immediately after online matches end from the rematch menu.

And they’re making improvements to the World Tour mode as well to help track down and train with the Masters.

It’d certainly be nice to see more incentives like the Master ACT points implemented for lower ranks as well to reward players for using the mode more, but this is still a nice step forward hopefully — depending on how quickly you can accrue said points to use.

This new update will be dropping alongside Mai on February 3, 2025.

Despite how grim things were looking only a few years ago, Marvel vs. Capcom is back, and there’s more than just game content the companies have been putting together.

Marvel recently revealed a new line of their comic books coming this year that’ll feature special Marvel vs. Capcom variant cover art

These aren’t actual MvC comics themselves in the vein of the mini comic that was included with the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection from a few months back.

Instead, Marvel is running a follow-up line to the previous promotion they put out in December to put MvC art on their upcoming book releases.

The first one featured 11 different covers, but this next one will include 9 according to First Comics News.

Said upcoming featured characters are Colossus, Wolverine, War Machine, Hulk, Cable, Magneto, Gambit, Sabretooth and Juggernaut.

Like the first wave, theses covers will be using the iconic Bengus character portraits from Marvel vs. Capcom 2 with fairly empty backgrounds and the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection logo.

These comics are slated to go on sale throughout April 2025 starting with West Coast Avengers #6 and X-Men #14.

We’ve also been translating a secret Japanese MvC website from the ’90s lately with developer blogs revealing new information about the series’ creation like how Galactus was rejected as the final boss of the first game with Marvel and Capcom going back and forth debating over characters like Carnage, Fin Fang Foom and Onslaught to use.

You can check out the new covers coming in the gallery below as well as the release dates for the comics they’ll be attached to.

Click images for larger versions

On Sale 4/2:

• West Coast Avengers #6 (War Machine)

• X-Men #14 (Magneto)

On Sale 4/9:

• Incredible Hulk #24

• Uncanny X-Men #13 (Gambit)

On Sale 4/16:

• Cable: Love and Chrome #4

• Wolverine #8 (Sabretooth)

On Sale 4/:

• X-Force #10 (Colossus)

• X-Men #15 (Juggernaut)

On Sale 4/:

• Wolverine and Kitty Pryde #1

Capcom has just announced a new Capcom Spotlight presentation that is set to take place next week. In it, we’ll be getting the latest information on several of the company’s current and upcoming titles.

While there will be a big focus on Monster Hunter Wilds here, it has already been confirmed that a handful of fighting games will also be featured during the show.

Capcom states that the core of this presentation will be a 20 minute program discussing their various games. After that, a 15 minute segment for Monster Hunter Wilds will air.

The Capcom Spotlight is scheduled to take place on February 4 at 2 p.m. PT.

“In Capcom Showcase, get the latest info on Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Street Fighter 6, Capcom Fighting Collection 2, and MARVEL vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics!” wrote the official Capcom USA Twitter account.

Based on past experience with these Spotlight presentations, we can deduce that there’s a good chance we’ll be seeing new content and announcements made for the aforementioned fighting games.

Tune in live on Feb. 4 at 2pm PT for Capcom doubleheader! Join us for a 20-minute Capcom Spotlight followed immediately by a 15-minute Monster Hunter Wilds Showcase!

https://t.co/wTzDBaKGFi

In Capcom Showcase, get the latest info on Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Street… pic.twitter.com/EoHd3IfOEJ

— Capcom USA (@CapcomUSA_) January 30, 2025

Street Fighter 6 is close to wrapping up its second season of DLC with the release of Mai Shiranui coming the day after this showcase, February 5th. This SNK guest fighter will act as the third additional character in Season 2, and legacy character Elena is expected to follow her and close out this batch of new fighters this Spring.

With Mai dropping the very next day, it is entirely possible that we get our first glimpse at Elena during the Capcom Spotlight likely in the form of her World Tour teaser.

On top of that, it’s been over a year since Outfit 3 was released and fans have been very vocal about wanting more, so we might see what’s coming next on the costumes front here as well (hopefully, anyway).

We’ll also be getting an update on Capcom Fighting Collection 2, which will likely bring new gameplay and talk about the features the game will include. The biggest thing we might see out of this title, though, is its official release date as it is currently just “2025.”

What’s also interesting, though, is that Capcom also intends to talk about Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics during this presentation. The compilation of legendary Versus series titles was released back in September of last year, and outside of perhaps discussing the reception to the game or simply recapping what it’s all about, it’s hard to tell what else there might be to talk about.

These compilations traditionally haven’t seen any post-launch content support (outside of updates for bug fixes and necessary changes), but it will be fascinating to see if maybe that’s changing here with the MvC collection — and this would be a strong title to start such support with given its popularity.

What are you most excited to see during the upcoming Capcom Spotlight presentation? And what do you think Capcom will reveal?

Be sure to let us know in the comments below.

Coming packed with the Mai update

Capcom continues to announce quality of life changes that are set to be added to Street Fighter 6 when Mai drops on February 5. It has been confirmed that a handful of improvements to various aspects of the game are coming packed with the Mai update, and today we learned about something called “Match Restore.”

With this new option, players will be granted the ability to restore certain online matches that disconnect prematurely back to the start of the round in which the game dropped out.

“The Match Restore feature will be added in Custom Rooms,” the official Street Fighter 6 Twitter page said in a tweet today. “When a fight is interrupted mid-match due to a problem, resume the fight by restarting at the start of the round when the disconnection occurred. (One on One only)”.

As noted by Capcom, this feature will only be for matches that take place in custom rooms. Naturally, this means you won’t be able to do this in something like ranked matches if, say, an opponent decides to rage quit on you.

This feature is very likely designed to assist with online tournament matches as it’s not unexpected for matches to randomly disconnect due to different internet connections, speeds, and distance between opponents.

Should this feature function as advertised, it could make a case such as a sudden disconnect during an official online Capcom Pro Tour tournament match much easier to restore and set up so that the competitors can continue right where they left off.

Click images for larger versions

QoL Improvements with the Mai Update

The Match Restore feature will be added in Custom Rooms.

When a fight is interrupted mid-match due to a problem, resume the fight by restarting at the start of the round when the disconnection occurred. (One on One only)#SF6Tips pic.twitter.com/BjlYpOwwWB

— Street Fighter (@StreetFighter) January 29, 2025

Earlier this week, Capcom also revealed an improvement being made to World Tour mode that allows players to better locate and figure out how to become the pupil of the various Master characters in the game.

In addition to this, Street Fighter 6 is also gaining an option that allows players to view their replays right after a match ends and several improvements to how the in-game replay options work.

Mai Shiranui is the third DLC character coming to Street Fighter 6 here in Season 2. She is joining the fight, along with the aforementioned quality of life changes, next Wednesday.

PAR|JoeCrush is a Tekken 8 competitor known for playing JACK-8. In some of his most recent appearances, he came in first at First Attack 2024, second at DreamHack Atlanta 2024, 25th at Evo 2024.

Recently, JoeCrush opted to create a match up chart for JACK-8 in Tekken 8. With this, JoeCrush is able to indicate which characters present advantageous match ups for his characters, and which characters give him problems.

According to Joe Crush, JACK-8 goes even against Dragunov, Reina, Claudio, Paul, Raven, Zafina, and Panda. JACK-8’s ability to go even against Dragunov is particularly important considering how impactful the character has been in the current meta.

It’s also said that JACK-8 has advantageous matches against Clive Rosfield, Eddy Gordo, Lee, Victor, Leroy, and a few others. Many top players have declared that Clive Rosfield to be a high tier contender, but JACK-8 appears to have a very strong match up against him.

Of course, JACK-8 is going to struggle against fighters such as Yoshimitsu, King, Alisa, Heihachi, Kuma, Kazuya, Jun, Nina, Feng, and many others. Notably, there are quite a few top tiers found in these categories.

Overall, it would appear that JACK-8 has more troubling match ups than favorable ones. This means that those dedicated to playing JACK-8 will have to work hard in order to achieve wins.

Check it all out below:

Click images for larger versions

Nintendo has finally officially unveiled their Nintendo Switch 2. As of right now, we can only say for sure Mario Kart will be on the new system, but we’ll very likely discover more of the Switch 2 library in April during the scheduled Nintendo Switch 2 focused Direct.

It just so happens that Masahiro Sakurai has been working on a secret game project since April 2022. He apparently whipped up the proposal for this project “at lightning speed” back in July 2021 when he was still juggling the development of the Kazuya and Sora DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Based on the timing of everything, it seems extremely likely that Sakurai’s upcoming game will be for the Switch 2. Many are already speculating that this will be the next entry in the Super Smash Bros. series.

While Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was the best-selling game on the Switch with over 64.27 million sales, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate crossed a new milestone with its 35.14 million sales, cementing its place as the third best-selling game on the Switch.

With all of this in mind, it’d definitely be in Nintendo’s best interests to continue their tradition of releasing a new iteration in the Super Smash Bros. franchise for every console since the Nintendo 64. After all, the Switch 2 is going to need a strong library of first-party games to continue the success set forth by its predecessor.

Of course, it’s difficult to imagine how Masahiro Sakurai and Nintendo will be able to follow up on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It ultimately will boil down to getting a strong selection of iconic characters for the roster. A character like Halo’s Master Chief could be a good candidate.

Is Master Chief even feasible for Super Smash Bros. though? Over the years, this has felt like an impossible scenario even for the Super Smash Bros. series. Fortunately, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that it could finally happen.

With Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, we technically already have characters that required collaboration from Microsoft. Rare’s Banjo-Kazooie joined as DLC on September 4, 2019 while Minecraft’s Steve was added on October 13, 2020.

Having said that, Banjo-Kazooie and Steve at least have a history on Nintendo platforms. Halo’s Master Chief has always been on the Xbox and PC platforms.

Despite this, there have been plenty of rumors spanning from 2004 to 2007 that suggested that the Halo series would be dropping on the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS. We’ve even seen footage that showcased an early prototype of what Halo would look like on the Nintendo DS.

For whatever reason, this concept never became a reality. To this day, the Halo series has remained exclusive to the Xbox and PC platforms.

However, this could be changing in the near future. Microsoft has been pushing to have more of their first-party projects appear on other platforms in an effort to expand audiences, likely due to the poor performance of the Xbox Series (they no longer report console sales earnings seemingly for this reason).

Back in November of last year, Microsoft released an ad that classified the PC, Samsung Smart TV, mobile phones, Steam Deck, Amazon FireTV Stick, and Meta Quest as an “Xbox.” Effectively what this meant is that there would be less exclusivity of the Xbox Series going forward.

Phil Spencer of Microsoft also stated that he sees no “red lines” for porting games to the PlayStation. Considering that Microsoft seemingly has an even better relationship with Nintendo, it’s hard to imagine this not applying to the Nintendo Switch 2.

Indeed, Phil Spencer has already declared that he’s “really looking forward” to supporting the Nintendo Switch 2 with Xbox games. With this, Master Chief and the Halo series may finally appear on a Nintendo console.

It certainly helps that Halo Studios Community Director Brian Jarrard openly expressed support of Master Chief joining Super Smash Bros. back in 2021. This is quite similar to how Phil Spencer openly supported the idea of Banjo-Kazooie becoming playable in Super Smash Bros. years before it actually happened.

As a longtime fan of both games, it would be amazing to have a Chief/Smash announce today. Nothing is happening that I’m aware of, but maybe momentum this week can open a door. If you agree, maybe we can *politely* express our excitement to @XboxP3 and @thetruebowser

— Brian Jarrard (@ske7ch) June 15, 2021

If this ever happens, Master Chief would probably be prohibited from using realistic weaponry. Fortunately, he also has access to plenty of energy-based firearms and futuristic equipment to fight with. These tend to fit well in Super Smash Bros.

Ultimately, it feels like Master Chief’s odds of becoming playable in Smash have gone from being outright impossible to very plausible in recent years. Should the next Smash entry feature Master Chief like this, it will surely break the internet.

As of right now, it’s not even confirmed if a new Super Smash Bros. title is even being worked on for the Switch 2 right now. We’ll just have to wait and see how things play out from here.

It seems that Capcom has been one of the few major developers to consistently post record-breaking sales reports year after year for quite some time now (while also keeping all of their core teams intact too).

Capcom just released their latest financial report for the last quarter of 2024 ending in December, which revealed some new sales figures for the developer’s best-selling games, including Street Fighter 6.

As can be seen in the official third-quarter presentation, Street Fighter 6 was Capcom’s seventh-highest selling title of the fiscal year up to that point.

In that nine-month period, SF6 managed to sell 1.095 million copies around the world, which is nice to see for the fighting game’s second year, even if it was still behind the likes of Monster Hunter: World, Monster Hunter Rise, Resident Evil 4, and Resident Evil Village.

This puts Street Fighter’s new total sales numbers at 4.4 million.

That’s an additional 300,000 from the last quarter ending in September, which would be just under the average for the rest of the fiscal year, but still pretty impressive nonetheless.

At this same juncture of time, Street Fighter 5 had only managed to sell 1.9 million copies, so SF6 is still putting up more than double the performance of its predecessor.

On the flipside, we still don’t know exactly how much the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection has sold since its launch in September, but we do know some goals it hasn’t reached just yet.

The report shows that Devil May Cry 5 was Capcom’s 10th best-selling title of the fiscal year up to this point at 979,000 copies.

Since MvC is nowhere else on that list, we can safely assume the new collection has yet to hit 1 million copies, but it’s not time to worry yet.

Previously, Capcom stated the MvC Collection was selling exactly as they forecasted, and that’s not all.

The company also finally updated their series sales rankings, which put Marvel vs. Capcom up from 11 to 12 million games sold across all entries.

So the needle is being moved, however, we don’t yet know how much of that is from the collection and how much is from Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite — especially with the MvCI Beyond mod project giving the game a boost late last year too.

Moreover, we can also look to the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection because while it may be sitting at 3.4 million copies now, it took quite a while to reach that point.

That collection launched in May 2018, but it didn’t reach the 1 million mark on Capcom’s sales rankings until over a year later as of September 2019.

Considering the MvC collection did top some U.S. sales charts upon release, that hopefully means it sold even better than the Street Fighter one at the start and will reach 1 million faster than it.

And we’re sure Capcom will be the first to let everyone know when Marvel does one day reach that million mark.

We still don’t have Capcom’s fully updated Platinum Titles numbers yet, but those should be coming soon.

Plus looking ahead, we’re curious to see if Mai Shiranui’s launch for SF6 will boost the sales any more than normal for the current quarter too.