First U.S. SBO Qualifiers for UMVC3 Confirmed!

Arcade UFO has just announced the first U.S. SBO Qualifiers for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, which are to be held in Austin, TX on July 14th and 15th, 2012.

UFO has confirmed not just one, but TWO spots for the USA in SBO Finals, which will be determined via two separate double-elimination tournaments that weekend. Hit the jump for more details!

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SBO 2012 Dates & Location Announced, UMVC3 & SC5 Format Update

Today, Super Battle Opera AKA Tougeki announced some big news regarding this year's event. First of all, the dates will be Saturday, August 4th and Sunday, August 5th, 2012 and it will be held somewhere in Narita City, Chiba. This means that the venue (not yet disclosed) will be located very close to Narita airport, making it convenient to International travelers visiting for the weekend.

More importantly, http://www.tougeki.com was updated today with a brief note about the format of UMVC3 and Soul Calibur 5. There has been a lack of news about how qualifiers would work for these games since they cannot hold qualifiers at arcades like they can with the other titles. Tougeki had this to say in response:

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Zebra Research Journal: Common Myths Dispelled

A lot of you folks may not know this about me, but I am actually a Zoologist with an expert focus on Zebras. I am looking at a Zebra right now and enjoying its presence in every possible way; I'm petting it, feeding it, and riding it all around the Zoo. You may not have seen a Zebra in a long time or perhaps ever in your life, but they undoubtedly exist.

Zebras are an endangered species, but they are far from extinct. Countries besides the USA have far more Zebras than we do, and the Zebra population has even seen tremendous growth in recent years in countries such as India and China.

As a Zebra lover, there are a few things I occasionally hear that don't make any sense when I want to talk about my favorite animal with other people.

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KVO UMVC3 Player Preview Part 2 of 2

With KVO coming up so soon, we thought you might want to know a little bit more about the players and who you guys should be rooting for and against. I went ahead and asked Taitsu -- the Japanese player who wrote a ton of interesting player profiles on SRK -- and he was kind enough to send me another boatload of player profiles in Japanese! Today, I'll be showing you the last of those profiles in English!

Hit the jump for the second batch and be sure to follow me on Twitter (@fubarduck) for more updates from Japan!

For a complete list of players and the stream schedule click here. 

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KVO UMVC3 Player Preview Part 1 of 2

With KVO coming up in just two more days, we thought you might want to know a little bit more about the players and who you guys should be rooting for and against. I went ahead and asked Taitsu -- the Japanese player who wrote a ton of interesting player profiles on SRK -- and he was kind enough to send me another boatload of player profiles in Japanese! Today and tomorrow, I'll be showing you those profiles in English!

Hit the jump for the first batch and be sure to follow me on Twitter (@fubarduck) for more updates from Japan!

For a complete list of players and the stram schedule click here. 

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KVO Japanese 3v3 UMVC3 Major and Kubo x Godsgarden 1v1 Preview & Stream Schedule

With the IPLAYWINNER crew prepared to travel to Japan and bring you an epic showdown straight from Den Den Town in Osaka, Japan, we think it's time to take a look and examine the players who will be competing as registration has now officially been closed!

May 4, 2012 is going to be the day for two amazing UMVC3 events in Japan. First up will be KVO Day 1, which will be a 3v3 UMVC3 event held at the Athena Nipponbashi Arcade, presented by well-known Japanese players Kubo and Kyamei and with stream and English updates by IPLAYWINNER! As soon as that's over, we'll be moving down the street to CCO cha, a maid cafe also in Nipponbashi for KVO x Godsgarden, a collaborative event with stream by Godsgarden. For you, that means a full day of nonstop high-level Japanese Marvel Madness!

Hit the jump for full player preview and stream scheduling!

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Amalgame TV: Kusoru Interview Notes & Show Preview

Amalgame TV's guest tomorrow morning will be Tekken prodigy Ao, who won Final Roundbats for Tekken 6 and represented Japan at Final Round 15! He placed 1st in the TTT2 tournament and 2nd in T6 after a heated Grand Finals with Anakin.

Ao will be playing Street Fighter X Tekken with Frieda, and we'll get to see a 3D fighting gamer's approach to a new 2D game.

We also have a monster announcement coming up on this one, which will be posted here on iPlayWinner in English after the show! Tune in at 6AM PST / 9AM EST to see it happen live.

Hit the jump to see an English summary of Kusoru's Interview from last week!

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Amalgame TV Returns with Special Guests Kusoru, TS NerdJosh

This week, Amalgame TV returns from a week-long break after recovering from a long and draining Final Round. However, we're making up for it with a double down of top tier guests - Kusoru, the controversial champion of UMVC3 at Final Round 15 and TS NerdJosh, who just snagged $25,000 in cash for his victory on Cross Assault! Hit the jump for all the details!

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Amalgame TV: AE (America Edition)!

This week's Amalgame TV will be brought to you live from Austin, Texas with co-host Frieda visiting in-person from Tokyo, Japan in preparation for Final Round this weekend! If I get my new hardware working in time, the plan is to get UMVC3 streamed simultaneously so that you guys can challenge him in Ranked Matches online for Japan to watch! Frieda will also be talking about his impressions of Texas, as he arrives later this afternoon. 

Be sure to tune in at 5 a.m. PST / 8 a.m. EST for a special in-person show!

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Amalgame TV: Kubodsgarden Impressions

Frieda is back from Osaka and ready to talk about Kubodsgarden. What are his feelings on the first Japanese offline UMVC3 major? Is he salty he went out in the first match against LiquidMetal? Finally, and most importantly, what are America's impressions on Japanese UMVC3 play? We will be discussing exactly that on tomorrow morning's Amalgame TV stream at 5:00AM PST!

Hit the jump and tell us what you thought about Kubodsgarden. Many Japanese UMVC3 players (including Kubo himself) will be tuned in, anxious to hear what we thought!

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Kubodsgarden - Japan's first offline UMVC3 Major

Stream monsters around the world are in for a treat, as this Friday night we'll be able to watch Kubodsgarden, Japan's first offline UMVC3 major to be held at Athena Arcade in Osaka, Japan! The event is being hosted by Kubo and Kyamei, who are no strangers as top players in Melty Blood, Arcana Heart and Aquapazza.

Tune in at 8:00PM Pacific Time this Friday, January 20th on Frieda's Twitch.TV channel and get ready for a night of world-class UMVC3 play. The event has over 50 signups who will be attending from all regions of Japan! Hit the jump to see the full list of registered players, you'll recognize quite a few of the names!

After the main event, there will also be a special First to 10 Grudge Match between LiquidMetal (of MVC2 fame) and SpinKing!

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UMVC3: Japanese Players Discover New Anti-Phoenix Tech

An anonymous Japanese UMVC3 player has discovered powerful new technology that will surely change the way American players think about Phoenix. Hit the jump for the full video and explanation!

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Amalgame TV returning from Holiday Break

After a 2-week break for the holidays, Frieda and I are well rested and ready to bring you a new episode of Amalgame TV tomorrow at 5:00AM PST. We've also got a snappy new logo, submitted by one of our Japanese listeners!

Hit the jump for the archive of our last show before the holidays, and leave comments if you have any questions for the Japanese scene - I'll answer them in English on the show!

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Amalgame TV: Weekly Recap - Legendary Guilty Gear Player Ogawa Talks UMVC3

Amalgame TV is a weekly broadcast by Frieda (Tokyo, Japan) and fubarduck (Austin, Texas) aimed at explaining and discussing the International Fighting Game scene in Japanese. Broadcasts are held every Tuesday at 5:00AM Pacific/10:00PM Japanese Standard Time.

Frieda's Twitch TV Channel & Archive: http://www.twitch.tv/frieda0914/

Update: Ogawa will be joining us again in tomorrow's episode! This time, he'll be trying UMVC3 netplay for his first time!

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Amalgame TV: Super Special Guest Tomorrow!

Amalgame TV is a weekly broadcast by Frieda (Tokyo, Japan) and fubarduck (Austin, Texas) aimed at explaining and discussing the International Fighting Game scene in Japanese. Broadcasts are held every Tuesday at 5:00AM Pacific/10:00PM Japanese Standard Time.

Frieda's Twitch TV Channel: http://www.twitch.tv/frieda0914/

Tomorrow morning's Amalgame TV will be featuring a SUPER awesome special guest announcing his debut into the UMVC3 scene! Our guest is a VERY well known Japanese player who is a worldwide-known dominator in his previous game, and will be demonstrating his new skills in some Japanese XBL matches for us although he's still just learning the game. The archive WILL be saved on the Twitch channel as usual in case you miss the live broadcast.

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Amalgame TV: UMVC3 Discussion!

Tomorrow morning's Amalgame TV broadcast will feature discussion on the UMVC3 changes as well as analaysis and highlights from the Norcal vs Capcom UMVC3 event last week! Japan's MVC3 scene is hype to hear about the changes, so that will be our main focus this week, but we'll try to squeeze in some Q&A as well.

Hit the jump to see last week's English Q&A videos and submit any questions for the Japanese scene via comments!

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Amalgame TV: Message from Shiro / Return to Q&A Format

For the past few weeks, Amalgame TV took a slightly different format from the norm. With my two weeks in Japan, we took special guests visiting for SBO and brought Mike Ross, 801 Strider and HadoukenMD on the show. Last week, we had a two-hour talk special with a post-mortem of my Japan trip and SBO.

Tomorrow, we'll be returning to the regular Q&A format so we'll again be answering any questions you guys may have for the Japanese scene. We've also got a special (translated) message from Shiro on last week's show - hit the jump to watch it and submit your questions!

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How to purchase Nico Nico points to view SBO 2011

Today, due to a lot of requests, I'm going to show you guys how to create a Nico Nico account and purchase points through the site so that you can watch and enjoy SBO this year! 

SBO is a Pay Per View stream. The cost is 1500 yen, which is about $19.50 by today's exchange rate, but supporting the American SBO reps is priceless!

Remember to NOT restream or view restreamed footage of SBO. Arcadia and Enterbrain perform a thankless service, and they deserve your support. If the price seems expensive, what better way to support the community than to split the cost with your friends and have a viewing party! Hit the jump for the full tutorial!

Stream time: Fri, 9/16, 7PM Pacific/10PM Eastern.

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Amalgame TV: Weekly Recap

We've answered a boatload of questions for you guys on Amalgame TV Episode 2. In the meantime, hit up the comments with any more questions you might have for Japan!

The next episode of Amalgame TV this Tuesday will feature both of us totally LIVE from the same room in Japan, since I will visiting for the next couple of weeks. We also may have a special guest!

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Amalgame TV: Weekly Recap

Amalgame TV is a new weekly broadcast by Frieda (Tokyo, Japan) and fubarduck (Austin, Texas) aimed at explaining and discussing the International Fighting Game scene in Japanese. Broadcasts are held every Tuesday at 6:00AM Pacific/10:00PM Japanese Standard Time.

The first official episode of Amalgame TV aired last week on Tuesday 8/30! Hit the jump to see a transcription of Japan's questions for us, find out the answers to your questions from last time and submit more for the new show tomorrow!

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