Twitter Support for Final Showdown!

Sega has announced on the official Virtua Fighter page that the upcoming Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown will be officially supporting Twitter, making it the first arcade game in Japan to make use of the popular service. Twitter has been extremely popular in Japan, with 16% of Japanese internet users using the service, and has recently dethroned the popular mixi as the #1 service in the country.

By creating a Twitter account and linking it to your VF.net account (via PC or cellphone), your Twitter account will be automatically updated when you are playing. Also, if you are viewing VF.net and look up a certain player, you can automatically add them to your Twitter following list if they have a Twitter account registered and visible (of course, you can set it to invisible if you wish). Not only that, but since you can look up recent players you’ve encountered with VF.net already, if they have an account, you can follow them on Twitter as well.

Katagiri’s blog also mentions how Twitter will be incorporated with your play in Virtua Fighter. Whenever you pull off something impressive you can have it automatically post on Twitter. Of course, if you’re wary of cluttering up your Twitter feed with VF tweets, you can manage what kind of updates will be sent to Twitter. Katagiri gives these examples:

“DK’s Lau has just been promoted to 5th Dan at Club Sega Shinjuku West Exit #VF5FS”
“DK’s Lau has put together a 10 game win streak at Club Sega Shinjuku #VF5FS”
“DK’s Lau has earned the “Dragon Wing” item from a Basic Capsule (Rare) #VF5FS”

Also, you can follow the Virtua Fighter team via Twitter right now, as they have created an official Twitter account !

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