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Evo Fighting Game Tournament to Hold Japan Event

The organizers of the annual Evolution Championship Series (Evo) fighting game tournament announced on Sunday that the event will expand to Japan. The organizers did not provide details on when the event will be conducted, but promised more details at this year's Tokyo Game Show in September. Street Fighter series producer Yoshinori Ono and Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada were on stage for the announcement.

The Evo tournament previously organized a Japan event in 2011 as a collaboration with Godsgarden, a Japanese invitation-only tournament. The tournament was to be held in May 2011, but was postponed indefinitely due to the Tohoku earthquake in March 2011.

This year's Evo tournament took place in Las Vegas from last Friday to Sunday. Seon-won Lee (RZR|Infiltration) won this year's Street Fighter V tournament, with teammate Keita Ai (RZR|Fuudo) in second place. This year's tournament attendance saw 5,107 attendees for Street Fighter V. This is the first time in the event's history that the tournament held top 8 finals matches in the Mandalay Bay Events Center for some games, including Mortal Kombat XL, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Street Fighter V. This year also marked the first time the Street Fighter finals were broadcast on ESPN2, as well as ESPN's WatchESPN service, in addition to the event's regular Twitch.tv streaming channels.

The Evo fighting game tournament began in California in 1996 under the name "Battle by the Bay," and eventually began holding the event annually in various locations in Las Vegas, acquiring its current moniker in 2002. The event hosts tournaments for a differing lineup of fighting games every year.

Sources: Polygon (Michael McWhertor), Famitsu.com