Update: added a few notes about the finals on Sunday.

Notice that this is not the World Championship but in fact a qualifier that took place online over several weeks.  Dune told me about entering it and how it was very tough but as you will see he managed to qualify and along with MadKOF, Lacid, ET, Xiaohai and others, were flown to Shanghai where an old concert venue (originally built as a slaughterhouse) had been transformed into a modern almost glitzy esports colloseum.  Built in 1933, the building actually reminds me of London’s Barbican, with its grey winding stairways which on weekends are lined with instagrammers as they take selfies on their way to the modern coffee shops inside.

The players introductions with the cosplayers was so great.  Dunno what that movement sequence was but K’ just standing around not really caring was spot on.  Mai appearing out of nowhere and nearly getting elbowed by Dune was also quite funny.

Now let’s move onto the main show.

Watching the stream, it was absolutely top notch in terms of production value, and I didn’t notice any controller issues.  The live band launched the event at the 30minute mark.  That was really cool (a touch out of sync at times and the volume was going up and down but generally great).

So I had to ask myself, where was all this money coming from?  KOFXV Vice and Mature dlc sales? Kek, doubt it.  Then I noticed the sponsors, but these were quite common for eSports events.  I hope SNK can bring in more sponsors as the viewership was good (1k live and 39k views in less than 6 hours on yt with 3k on twitch).

Speaking of western audiences, SNK didn’t promote this much, their discord just threw out the link as it was running and as for X, well I don’t use it anymore and their website, well, that’s a mess of information, and their own SNK WC schedule doesn’t even list it.  So I’m going to have to assume that this was broadcast on a Chinese channel and hopefully got tons of views.  No idea if there was an official recast but I did see 3mancell doing a Japanese one.

Oh wait, did you want to hear about the action?  Perhaps how the patch affected the top tiers?  It didn’t.  As expected, players didn’t really have time to study the differences, and stuck to their guns, with Xiaohai dominating with Benimaru, ET giving up on the buffed Hinako immediately and everybody using the censored Isla (who actually looks quite cool in black and red).  Vice and Mature were nowhere in sight.

So after day 1, as the top 8 were decided, Oda came out.  To nobody’s surprise, he said anything is possible with KOF and somehow the conversation turned towards COTW and while the chat was asking for more content for KOF, Kyo1, Krizalid and ASTs, the next trailer was presented:

DAY 2 will be streamed here

I’ll update this page with any pertinent observations but I think we’ll just enjoy a thoroughly good beat down and then maybe another COTW thing.  There has to be money coming out of this somewhere, KOFXV is a 2 year old game and even using this to merely boost COTW is just crazy talk.  SNK needs to put on shows like this in North America, of course, but that market is just harder to crack and the results may not justify the expenses.  The winner of the SCS will join the other qualified entrants to compete at the yet to be announced location in 2025 for the SNK World Championships 2024.  Perhaps it will be announced here…

Updated after the finals: Well, that ending was a little confusing.  After the amazing beat downs, including an extraordinary OCV by MOK and Shun Ei versus the GOAT, we weren’t sure if M’ had won or simply reset the brackets.  The chat continued to hope for an announcement of KOF XV Season 3, but their hopes were shattered.  What came next seemed to be a presentation of the qualified players for SWC 2025, but a little more confusion ensued, as the graphic said SWC 2025.  So was that actually  the final championships tournament of 2024 which would take place in 2025?  Why did they change the title year?  You may remember there were already complaints about this.  In any case, there will be a grand final tournament in 2025 to wrap up the 2024 season, no idea what it will be called but frankly it doesn’t matter, it’s going to be great!  I personally would be happy to see it in this venue but I’m sure the entrants would prefer a trip to Tokyo… and either location would avoid VISA issues.

Overall, of course there were a few hiccups, but it was a great event to watch, and thanks to SNK for investing in it.  Again, I have to wonder where all this money is coming from, and how they are measuring the return on it.  There is no SNKWC Merchandise or anything to buy.  Is it merely streaming revenue?  In the meantime, SNK just announced another project called Perseus.  SNK is taking so many risks on investing in new ventures!  They didn’t announce the beta test of COTW and strangely nothing was announced at the end of the tournament, leaving us hanging until the stream was cut.  ET then went on stream to get drunk and eat hot pot with Xiaohai and friends- it all seemed a merry occasion.  I’ve heard there are some photos floating about, I’ll update this post if/when I find them.  It may feel like “that’s a wrap” for KOF XV, but lobby activity has picked up again, we still have a few more qualifiers and then the final tournament to watch.  Will Xiaohai finally be dethroned?  Stay tuned!