C. Viper will be added to the iPhone version of Street Fighter IV, Capcom announced. She'll be available via download and it's no charge. Here's a video of her in action.

ESPN posted another article this past weekend about the life of a Madden player. In this, they talk to several competitive players about the competitive scene and how high the stakes can get. For a guy like Eric "Problem" Wright, the stakes can get really high.

A 21-year-old college student from West Covina, Calif., Wright is considered by many within the hardcore Madden NFL community to be ... the greatest player of all time. The Jerry Rice of rocket catching. The Dick Butkus of the game's virtual lumber-laying "hit stick." Since entering the competitive "Madden NFL" scene as a high-school junior, Wright has won dozens of tournaments and thousands of random games.

And that's not all.

"I've made close to $300,000 in tournaments," he said. "I've made nearly $500,000 underground. Online, I have to play with aliases. Or else no one will bet with me."

Add it up: that's 800 large. I thought Wright was joking. That is, until former Madden Challenge champ Ayan "Fool" Tariq mentioned that the pot for Madden NFL "money games" -- read: wagering on wins and losses -- can run between $300 and more than $3,000. Meanwhile, Topp told me that he won $50,000 playing against former NFL defensive tackle Sam Adams.

None of the "Madden NFL" hardcore scoffed at that claim, either.

Southern California will be well represented at Super Battle Opera next month. The two qualifying tournaments for Tekken 6 and Street Fighter IV took place Sunday afternoon in San Mateo.

For Tekken 6, the team of Rip, Suiken and Aris won the title, beating Mr. Naps, William Powers and Master Bolo in the finals.

Team Evil Geniuses won the Street Fighter IV tournament, beating the team of Vance Wu, Filipino Champ and 200 Yen in the finals.

Five of the six players on those two teams are from SoCal.

You can check out the full list of qualifiers on Event Hubs, including where the teams are from and what characters are primarily used.

Street Fighter x Tekken will be at the Gamescon event in Cologne, Germany, on Aug. 19, the opening day of the four-day event.

Producers Katsuhiro Harada and Yoshinori Ono will be at the event and likely playing the game. Here's more from SDTekken:

Witness the clash of two Legends of Fighting at gamescom 2010 for the Duel of the Decade. Join the exclusive premiere of STREET FIGHTER X TEKKEN and meet the makers of the two best fighting games, Yoshinori Ono (Street Fighter) and Katsuhiro Harada (TEKKEN). Watch as the two fighting game icons Ryu and Kazuya test their might on stage and on screen.

Where: Konrad-Adenauer-Saal Congress-Centrum Nord
When: Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at 2 PM local time (Doors open at 1 PM

Each visitor will get an exclusive give-away to remember this awesome premiere.

Following the presentation is a games tournament with the best STREET FIGHTER and TEKKEN players.

Are you strong enough to meet the challenge?!

In an interview just after a private showing of King of Chinatown, Empire Arcadia's Isaiah "Triforce" Johnson got on the mic to talk about the state of his organization, as well as those that aren't with it anymore.

Several players have left for good or joined other competitive gaming teams. This included Justin Wong, who is now with Evil Geniuses. But neither side had wanted to talk about the move until Triforce did a few days ago.

"That issue is not resolved," Triforce said of his best player leaving. "I cannot comment any further because there's logistics behind it, so i can't say whether he's still in Empire or with another organization.

"That's for the wise men to figure out."

King of Chinatown is a documentary focusing on Jusitn Wong. It began filming in October 2008, when Wong was still on the team. He left in June.

Soon after, Arturo Sanchez also announced he was leaving to dedicate his full time to Team Spooky.

However, in this video Triforce said Smash player Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman is still with Empire Arcadia, even though he is also a member of of vVv Gaming.

"The empire is fall from crumbling," Triforce said. "There's a chink in the armor, there's other players that can excel."

The interview, done by Raw Game Play, is in two parts, the first part is posted above.

ESPN has a great article in its E-Ticket/Outside the Lines series featuring the Madden series. It breaks down the history of the game, from how Madden got involved, to its current state. It adds a few things that weren't mentioned in G4's documentary, produced several years ago, including Joe Montana's influence.

It captures how a game that was a coinflip has become a national franchise, to the point that the little things seen on Sundays can be traced to the video game.

Does the pressure of being a franchise game get to the producers and makers? Seems like it, if you read the story:

Ian Cummings is the creative director for "Madden." If there's something amiss in the way the game plays, it's ultimately his fault. Mike Young is in charge of art. If the style of Pittsburgh's digital helmet numbers looks wrong, he's probably to blame. Cummings played his first game of "Madden" on the Apple II. Young grew up in St. Louis before the Rams arrived; as a child, "Madden" was his NFL. In a large corner office adorned with a University of Tennessee flag, the two work side by side, in part to better communicate, in part to commiserate, as in the following exchange:

Cummings: "Updating player gear is such a pain. Like a guy changing from a single wristband to a double. It never stops."

Young: "We have people that just catalog this stuff every week. A player will start wearing team-colored gloves. A team will put a special logo on the 20-yard line for Week 8. Another team won't wear a special patch. And if we don't have that, it ruins the game for some people."

Cummings: "'Madden' might have the hardest community to please. It's painful. It ruins weekends. I've been out to dinner with my wife, and I check my phone [for online fan feedback]. It's all, 'You suck; you're terrible; give up the NFL license.'"

Graphic by ESPN via EA Sports

The power of Katzuhiro Harada's Twitter portal has struck again. Earlier this morning, the producer of the Tekken series said both games in the Street Fighter x Tekken series will have different character rosters.

When answering a question about the rosters, Harada-San said the rosters will be "completely different."

So it appears that, other than the style of play, there will be another incentive to buy both titles. Event Hubs reported last week both Namco and Capcom are treating the series as a competition of sorts as they build both games.

Sakonoko won the Godsgarden Online Tournament final, beating YHC Mochi 10-5 earlier today. The final is posted above if you want to watch (starts at 16:04).

The stats of the tournament are in the stats section.

The two big advantages that helped Sako get the victory were EX usage and getting the first combo. Whereas most Dhalsim users value getting the first combo, Sako took that away from Mochi. Sako was 14-for-26 when getting the first combo, Mochi was barely 3-for-8.

Sako used more than double the EX meters than Mochi, 89-37, and then had a 2-to-1 success rate. That seemed to be too much to overcome.

I'll have much more from this tournament later today, so stay tuned.

Eduardo "Puerto Rico Balrog" Perez has joined Dominion Method Gaming, the organization announced Friday.

Perez has been a well-known boxer user in the Street Fighter IV series and has used various characters in HD Remix. He reached Championship Sunday of Evolution 2009's "Street Fighter IV" tournament, the only boxer player to do so. He was also one of three international players -- he's from San Juan -- to reach Championship Sunday that year in that game.

Here's part of the statement from Dominion Method Gaming:

He is considered the very best Balrog in the US and the best player in Puerto Rico. He came out of nowhere in the past year with his crazy skills with the boxer and fighting hard for that money. He has wow his fans, gain respect from fellow players and started a following... in the community.

Picture by Terry Ng.

Right here is the place to do it.

From Seth Killian at Capcom:

Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition is indeed coming.  When?  Can't say.  For which platforms?  Also still too soon.

What I can do is point you to the thread where you can tell us what you'd like to see.  As Ono-san mentioned, share your thoughts, and we'll see what kind of magic we can make happen...