Smash Bros Picked Over Street Fighter V for Evo Japan's Sai Tournament

Back in the middle of March, Evo Japan organizers announced that three games would be featured in their pre-tournament, entitled [sài]. The event was planned as a showcase event ahead of Evo Japan 2018, taking place on May 20-21, 2017. At the time, Tekken 7: Fated Retribution and Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 comprised two of the three games featured at the event. Organizers also said that Street Fighter V would not be the third game.

Today, they've revealed that the third game will be Super Smash Bros for Wii U! The speculation previously was that SFV was missing the boat because it wasn't an arcade game in a region where the best players play in arcades. Super Smash Bros' inclusion means that wasn't the issue and perhaps tournament organizers (and the community) are simply lukewarm on Capcom's latest.

Interested participants can sign up for [sài] on the official Evo Japan website until April 24.

Organizers have said previously that Evo Japan 2018, which will take place at Akihabara UDX on January 26-28, 2018, will have its full lineup revealed at Evo 2017, which will happen on July 14-17, 2017 in Las Vegas.

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#1 yuberus A year ago

I wonder why KOF got left off? I didn't think japan had much of a Smash scene at all.

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#2 Kuni-Nino A year ago

If SFV isn't at EVO Japan, what's the point? There's no star power in any of those games to attract an international audience. There's potential in Smash but I'm so out of the loop in that scene that I can't make a real assertion. Tekken isn't out yet so the scene in NA is small and Guilty Gear is way too niche right now because of the dubious "anime fighter" label.

I know there's an arcade version of SFV in the works but there has been no real mention of it for a long time which makes me wonder if the project has been scrapped. Without SFV, I don't even know if I'll be watching. I had an interest in seeing guys that maybe aren't sponsored get a chance to compete in a tournament with all the SFV Gods.

Oh well, maybe I'll check it out to see if Tanukana can cement herself as one of the best in the world in Tekken.

#3 unoclay A year ago

Smash is a more interesting game than all of the other fighting games so this seems like a no-brainer to me.

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#4 luisvelazquez73 A year ago

@Kuni-Nino Evo Japan is not Evo.

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