Last year for the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, GameStop held a nation-wide Brawl tournament, with the first round being on the day of release at over 2000 store locations.
This year, GameStop/EB Games is doing the same thing with Street Fighter IV.
Select stores in select districts will be holding round one tournaments inside their stores across the country, with events being as early as February 21st.
While rules and regulations are not finalized, it is highly unlikely that players can use their own controllers/sticks, nor is it likely that any unlockable characters (Rose, Dan, Gouken, Akuma, Sakura, Gen, Fei Long) will be playable at round one events. Also note that it is unknown which system the games will be played on.
Call around your district to find out which store in your area might be holding a round one tournament, as well as the rules/regulations that store may be implementing.
If this is going to follow a schedule similar to the Brawl tournament, you can expect round two tournaments to be in one store per participating district roughly 3 weeks after round one tournaments - with more concrete rules nationwide.
The finals will likely be held in San Diego at the GameStop Tournament Store - with prizes galore.
Can Canadians be part of this tournament? I live near Detroit and I was wondering if I am able to come to the tournament to participate. I live about 40 mins from Oakland Mall and I can come there. Please let me know any info you got. Thanks!!
The store in Antioch, TN is having this tournament on Saturday Feb 21…they stated they will be using XBox 360 since it is the system with the most “used” ones available.
Back when i was working at gamestop, we decided to do it as legit as possible and bring in Gamecube controllers and let people pick their chars and stick to them, we kept items on though cause we felt we made things interesting.
I wonder how they’ll run the SF4 tournament though, hopefully decent enough, though I won’t be surprised that they’ll run it on the 360 and not the ps3 (horray for 360 arcade stick)
I edited the OP with the correct date of February 21st.
Here is the full list of dates
2-21-09: Round 1 Tournaments in approximately 2500 Stores.
2-28-09: Round 2 Tournaments in approximately 270 stores.
3-14-09: Round 3 Tournaments in 16 stores.
4-18-09: Finals likely to take place in San Diego.
For those who live in NYC or nearby, one of the Brooklyn stores is holding a tournament. Not sure if other NYC stores will hold tournaments or not. Here’s the address of the Brooklyn store:
GameStop #3827
34 Graham Ave
Brooklyn NY, 11206
(718) 782-0547
Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-7pm
Sun 12pm-6pm
Have to reserve a copy at that store in order to participate, or so I was told. For those in the area, the closest subway stops are Montrose Ave on the L train or Lorimer St on the J/M trains.
Omaha Metro: Gamestop at village point is holding the tournament for our area, stopped in and found out about it but more info will be posted in store etc…