Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Global Arcade Championships

Namco is sponsoring a really big Tekken Tag Tournament 2 competition with some insane prizes. This competition is ARCADE ONLY, for a welcome change!

Qualifiers are being held in various arcades around the world, with the one or two winners from each country being flown to Korea to compete in a country vs country world tournament and a $10,000 grand prize.

For USA:

 

The tournament qualifiers are being held at the Puente Hills Round 1 in SoCal.
Hella details on the USA qualifier HERE.
I was just at (Moreno Valley) Round 1 at the beginning of the summer. When I went for the second group of visits, the arcade was re-arranged and they had some new games. One of them was Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Unlimited. Not only did this machine have a working Bana Passport reader, with cards available to buy at the counter, but it was also set on free play for some reason.

It was probably a mistake of some sort, but I'd like to think that they secretly set random games on free play every once in a while for fun (I would). When I came back the next day, free play was not set. We got to play tons of TTT2 during that last set of visits. So, long story short, I fully caught Tekken fever. I haven't really played any Tekken games since Tekken 4 and I had no plans to buy the PS3 version of any Tekken game. Thanks to the arcade, I went out and picked up TTT2 and Tekken 6 for PS3. It just shows that arcades are important in driving console sales (duh).

I think it's a super rad move that Namco is hosting an arcade only tournament. I've heard some people complaining about it, but seriously, console tournaments are a dime a dozen. Arcades need to have some special love. Thank you Namco!

Namco posted the tourney news on the Tekken-net, but I heard about it on the Avoiding the Puddle show.
If you care at all about Tekken, fighting games in general, or arcades you should definitely check it out. It's pretty super.



The World finals are going to be held on October 26th 2013 in Korea. Cafeid is going to be streaming the event on their twitch.tv channel.
Good luck!

USA Tekken Net

Namco Bandai has revealed the sites for upcoming Tekken Tag Tournament 2 location tests in the USA.
The locations are as follows:
Funworks in Honolulu, HI
Super Arcade in Walnut, CA
Round 1 in City of Industry, CA
Arcade UFO in Austin, TX
Next Level Arcade in Brooklyn, NY
As of today the USA is also connected to the worldwide TEKKEN NET.
You can register here: http://exam.tekken-net.jp/tag2/

Tekken aside, this is important news for arcade enthusiasts in the US, as Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is the first arcade game to be networked worldwide. We almost didn't get it. It was thanks to much complaining and arguing with Namco that we are being included in the worldwide Tekken Net. Arcade games in Japan have been networked for years now and it's a big part of why they are still popular there.

Namco is a huge player in the arcade scene and if they make money off of networking their games here, we, (in the US), might see more networked arcade games in the future. Which, in turn, can only be helpful in the arcade revival (not to mention the future of US Tekken). Wouldn't you like to play arcade games with a worldwide high score table? I would! Even if you don't live close to a location test, or care about Tekken I think it's a good idea to at least sign up!
That's all for now! Support your local arcade!

Discuss this topic on the forums!