Kotaku is going with an IGN report that "Marvel vs. Capcom 3" is on the way.

All of this hype took place during this weekend's ComicCon, where Marvel Studios' President of Production Kevin Feige was asked if a new MvC title was in the works.

"Yes. And maybe sooner than you think," Feige told IGN.

IGN also made note that the licensing for Capcom's newest game, "Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes," could make an MvC3 appearance in the United States very tough.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom will have an appearance at this year's Evolution Fighting Game Championships tournament. Players will be able to test the game out during the three-day tournament. EVO staff says the game has the pace similar to MvC2.

Capcom producers will be on hand to take questions and receive feedback about the game.

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This is the second in a series of opinionated pieces leading up to Monday's Championship Gaming Series World Championship match between the San Francisco Optx and Birmingham Salvo. In this entry, we'll talk about the Birmingham Salvo.


Mike Luxion, the best writer in the competitive gaming community, talked about how the brackets for the Championship Gaming Series World Final team tournament could have been constructed in about 5 billion ways.

In most of the brackets constructed by Luxion and most C.G.S fans, the Birmingham Salvo were given a top-three seed. Some people thought they were the best team, but the general consensus was that they were second at best, third at the very least.

Are these people wrong? Doubtful.

Going 2-0 in the European Tournament gave them the regional championship. Now, two additional wins later, they're in position to go after the world title.

Are any of their four wins soft? Hardly. When I've watched this team play, I keep thinking that they're a seventh North American team. They have players that can step up. Everyone does their job most of the time. With that, here's three questions going into Monday's final.

1. How much will Messy's loss on Monday factor in?

Wait, he lost? No, he won!

Yeah, for the statistician, Monday's result against Offbeat Ninja was a loss -- a 5-0 shutout. But because he won that one-round overtime, all is forgiven, and it's the only reason why we're talking about the Birmingham Salvo.

If Birmingham wins the title bout, then Messy could be the C.G.S equivalent to baseball player Dave Roberts.

In 2004, Roberts was traded from the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Boston Red Sox. He batted a mediocre .253 with the team. He had a whopping zero at bats in the postseason for Boston. Even though those mediocre stats fill his chart, Roberts will forever be a hero to Red Sox fans.

Despite everything that happened on Monday, I'm looking at Messy's situation from this perspective; he's 1-3 in the postseason. And that's what everyone should be looking at, because a one-round overtime can only get you so far. It might help in the early moments of his contest against NinjaCW, but will he be able to sustain that momentum against someone who is 4-1 this postseason? A tough task awaits Messy.

2. What's the one game they must win?

If I ask Birmingham's SarahLou to just keep pace with Vanessa, win or lose, that would work. But we're asking about wins. That distinction has to go to the "Counter-Strike Source" squad. They need to get a win to give Birmingham some sort of momentum.

Fortunately for the Salvo, the Counter-Strike team is 3-1 this postseason.

San Francisco is 2-3 this postseason, but they're on a two-game winning streak, including their epic rally to beat Dallas.

If Birmingham can't crack through San Francisco in Counter-Strike, they're title hopes dim big time.

3. How much can SarahLou get against Vanessa?

WARNING: I'm 0-2 in outloud Dead or Alive 4 predictions this season. It's the Get Your Tournament jinx in full effect.

That being said, I'm thinking it will be a 5-4 contest in favor of Vanessa.

I know that Vanessa (4-0) is playing like a beast in her past four contests and the consensus is that Vanessa is Vanessa once again.

SarahLou (3-1) has been strong in all but one of her contests. And in her loss to Mystik, she held her own in a very fast-paced contest.

One writer is predicting a 5-3 victory for Vanessa. I think this is going to be closer than a lot of people believe.

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In case you haven't heard, original Final Boss member David Walsh has been let go by the team, the league announced Wednesday night.

It didn't take long for someone to create a tribute video of the man known as Walshy. The reason it came up so quick was because the M.L.G community was clamoring for someone to do it.

You can view the tribute video right here.

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This is the first in a series of opinionated pieces leading up to Monday's Championship Gaming Series World Championship match between the San Francisco Optx and Birmingham Salvo. In this entry, we'll talk about the San Francisco Optx.

Ask a San Francisco Optx fan to define one moment that helped them get to Monday's title match against the Birmingham Salvo.

Is it when Chris "NinjaCW" Harris won the final round of his "Dead or Alive 4" game to give San Francisco the Wild Card?

Or could it be when the Counter-Strike team rallied to defeat the Dallas Venom in a quarterfinal contest?

Or, maybe it's something else.

Nevertheless, San Francisco seems to be one of those teams that keeps coming up with epic moment after epic moment. And because of that, they're in Monday's championship bout with the Birmingham Salvo.

Along with Birmingham, the Optx own the longest current winning streak at four.

As Monday nears, here's three questions that come to mind regarding this team:

1. Can they win two of the five contests and win it all?

I don't think any team wants to believe they can just get two of the five contests and win it all. I'm in the belief that San Francisco CAN do it, because they have a strong "Dead or Alive 4" presence and their "Counter-Strike Source" team can possibly run away with their contest.

The statistics don't favor my beliefs. In San Francisco's four-game winning streak, they've won at least three contests. Only once have they won four contests (Monday's win against Berlin).

If they get into a situation where the Counter-Strike team dominates and a Dead or Alive player goes 5-0 on someone, don't pop the Martinelli's just yet. This team, the way it's built, has to win at least three of the five contests.

Again, I'm throwing out the question here, but no team should ever think this way.

2. How much life did they receive winning the Wild Card?

The Wild Card in the C.G.S postseason is turning out to have the same effects as the Wild Card in Major League Baseball.

In the past 10 baseball postseasons, nearly half of the World Series winners were Wild Card participants. There's something about having that momentum going into the big dance.

We're seeing that with San Francisco. They won two matches in a span of 3 1/2 hours to win the C.G.S Wild Card. They built on that momentum with a win over Dallas, a team it had struggled against.

General manager Kat Hunter said something along the lines of "The league should have never given us a second chance." Now, everyone is seeing why.

3. Quick, name this team's most valuable player in the postseason.

Tough, right?

OK, maybe not.

In their four-game winning streak, Vanessa is 4-0 and has posted a plus-12 ratio. She's been the Vanessa everyone knows, holding down her opponents with a great offensive attack.

But guess who else on San Francisco is 4-0? The Forza team of Sackamonjaro and Miximup. They're posted a comfy plus-8 ratio. Maybe we should be talking about this Forza duo as the most valuable players of this tournament if they win Monday night. Sure, they're not creating memorable T-bone crashes, but they're getting the job done when the stakes are high. (They sort of spill their guts in an interview here)

Out of the three North American teams that reached the World Final team tournament, San Francisco is the only one that has two new drivers. Coach Hunter banked on two rookies, and it's paying off.

If San Francisco wins on Monday, then I'm sure a lot of people will look to Vanessa as the honoree.

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If you've followed the events on and after Saturday's "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" competition in San Diego, you know how vicious it has been.

The players and spectators have been laying out all of their frustration at the tournament organizers for what has turned out to be a bad event. Some of it has been justified, while some of it hasn't.

And in watching the whole episode unfold, I realized that the tournament organizers aren't the only ones that have taken a hit from the community. There's another group of people that will be hurt by Saturday's event.

Future tournament organizers.

If you don't know the Smash community and want to run a tournament, forget it. You won't get accepted now. Come back in a few months, or maybe 2009. The only people that will be running tournaments now will be people that have a name in the community.

The community won't trust anyone that doesn't have an established name. It sounds cruel, but I truly see that happening. Is it justified? The community might believe it; I'm not as quick to jump the gun.

For the past two years, I've known a tournament organizer from Compton who runs very successful competitions in games other than Smash. He's run major championships and regional events, all with successful turnouts. The only complaints he's ever received are that the players talk trash too much and players can buy back into a tournament (which I don't like as well, but that's another blog entry).

A few months ago, the tournament organizer asked me about Smash and how successful it would be if he ran it. I told him that if he did everything just like his other games, there's no doubt he'll see success. We reached an impasse regarding entry fees and payout (he wanted to give out $1,000 AND break even somehow). Nevertheless, he was willing to learn about the community and figure out what it will take to run a big Smash event.

He hasn't run a Smash tournament yet. And now, after Saturday's competition, it's better if he doesn't. Despite a clean record of running tournaments for other console games, he'll be hit with skepticism by the Smash community that it wouldn't help him at all. He's told me he wants to learn as much as possible before buying the Wiis and televisions and making the commitment. I've been willing to help him out so that he doesn't shoulder the load. I'm wondering if he should forget Smash and just focus on making his other console events even better than what they are now.

Other new or unknown tournament organizers who make their presence known after Saturday will be in the same situation. They'll have a clean record in other games, but will the community be willing to accept them? It's doubtful.

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It might be the setting, because that's probably the only reason I'm going to bring up this subject.

The situation I'm going to talk about happened during the Dead or Alive 4 contest between the Birmingham Salvo's SarahLou and the Carolina Core's Mystik.

I'm trying to remember exactly what round it was, but it was either Round 5 or Round 6 based on my notes. It's a little bit more important if it's Round 5 because Mystik was down 3-1 at the time. Hopefully the video is released in the morning so I can watch it.

Anyway, here you go.

Mystik opens up with some sort of a flying kick (Hayate players, help me out) that sends SarahLou's Kokoro flying. Almost immediately, Mystik did it again. As best as I could remember, she did it four times in the round and won.

The same move, four times.

And after the round, I said only one word.

"Smash."

I think a lot of you know where I'm going here.

If I post that round on my YouTube portal, there's going to be 30 comments of "Cheap." and "Mystik knows just one move." But I have to wonder outloud here. If Mystik (by the way, representing the A.V.) doesn't do the same move because she didn't want to come off as a "cheapie," how would it look if she lost? Given the circumstance, she would have been down either 4-1 or 4-2, and now she's really in dire straits.

Did I have a problem with it? No way. As you all saw tonight (or will see on G4), every point mattered. These players have to come in thinking that they need to get every round they play in any way possible. Cheap shouldn't register in their minds. If players want to do a flying roundhouse 35 times and win, fine. The crowd might not like it, but oh well.

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SAN DIEGO - It's funny how situations sometimes turn out differently than what was expected.

There were two big events that took place Saturday: the first round of Gamestop's "Madden" tournament series which happened all over the nation, and the "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" tournament at Dave and Busters in San Diego.

Prior to both events, I had my share of expectations.

I went in with high expectations for the San Diego competition. Thanks to some publicity from XSPN-AM 800 (San Diego's ESPN Radio affiliate), part of me thought this tournament could draw 200 players, which would be a new state record for a Brawl competition. Realistically, 125 players would have been about right.

Meanwhile, I feared the worst for Gamestop's "Madden" tournament series. They tanked very hard when they ran a Brawl tournament series, so there was every reason to believe the same was going to happen here. I warned players to prepare for the absolute worst when competing.

= = =

I come home from Saturday's Brawl competition and check for updates from the Madden tournaments. Here was the major complaint from the players:

"The prizes weren't even for all places."

Some players received an Xbox 360 faceplate and shirts. Other players received just a shirt. And there were some players that didn't receive anything.

As far as in-game, there were two major complaints. One store didn't allow ditto matches (a big problem in Madden 08 since San Diego isn't a counter-pick to New England). Another store didn't have wireless controllers. The weapons were attached to the game station (see the picture).

Other than that, there was nothing that made players go buckwild in the event. Players came, competed and went home.

Now, keep in mind that a lot of the tournament regulars didn't have to face stiff competition because the talent pool was so diluted (There were plenty of 35-0 scores). Whether this keeps up, we'll see. Right now, you have to give much love to Gamestop for learning their lesson from the Brawl tournament series.

= = =

There are about 100 players wondering why they made the drive to San Diego to compete.

Having had my share of tournament disappointments and problems, I have no trouble in saying that nearly every problem that occurred during the event could have been avoided.

When the venue does not allow people younger than 21 years of age, the tournament organizers seriously have to consider if that's the place to have a tournament. The Smash community is easily the youngest for any competitive video game. When I arrived at the venue, there were about 50 participants waiting outside, hoping for an adult to "chaperon" them in.

You could get away with these restrictions for games such as Madden, where the participation involves much older people, but you cannot for Smash.

The tournament organizers were then told they had to be done and out at 6 p.m. Combine that with the late start, and the competitors had just 5 hours to get their work done.

Despite knowing this, the tournament organizers still wanted to have a team and singles competition. There were two options that could have been made:

1. The team competition was already in progress, but in the early stages. Cancel the singles event and use all of the time to have the best team competition possible.

2. End the team competition and have a singles competition. The reason this is an option is because there is a collection of players that come to tournaments only for singles events.

When I competed in DDR tournaments several years ago, the standard schedule was to have the technical competition followed by the performance event. Because there are more technical players, it's ideal to have it first so more people are satisfied. There were rare occasions when the performance competition was first, and usually, it was because the performance event had great participants, or the technical competition didn't have many entrants.

For those Smash tournament organizers who run one-day, big-time events, they have to seriously consider running singles first. The comeback is that the team event is used as a warm-up. The rebuttal is that a lot of players participate in friendlies as well as the team tournament.

Back to the 6 p.m. deadline. This was caused by a wedding reception. Events such as wedding receptions don't come out of thin air. Someone had to check with the hosts at Dave and Busters to make sure nothing was going to interfere with the contest. When I ran tournaments in hotels, I checked about 10 times prior to the event that everything was secure. You never want to be blindsighted.

One of the biggest mistakes by the tournament organizers was that they still ran a singles competition knowing that they weren't going to have enough time to do it (only 90 minutes). OK, so they made it a single-elimination event, for 70 players. Could you have 69 matches in 90 minutes? At some point, the tournament organizers have to say, "OK, as much as we want to do it, we can't. It's time to cut losses."

= = =

For the second time, San Diego has taken a big hit because a Smash tournament flopped. This one is going to sting for a while. Out-of-region players are going to seriously consider whether to make the drive for another event.

I know I'm not the only one that is hoping San Diego receives a big event worth remembering for all the right reasons.

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