Even I’ve got to admit that while Twitter is unquestionably the hippest most awesome way for totally rad and attractive people like myself to stay in touch… it’s still pretty inane. Case in point: last night, I received an important update from a friend, who announced that they had accidentally given their cat a boner. Guys? This is the internet. And it’s serious business.
Not ones to transform Twitter into anything it’s not, Sega have announced that the arcade version of Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown will feature Twitter integration. Because I absolutely needed more garbage sailing into my Twitter feed.
Actually, this is pretty cool from the proper perspective. You have to understand that in Japan, arcades are still alive and well. Remember the golden age, when we’d all head down to the arcade, and huddle around the machines, and call next, and develop rivalries? This is just the natural progression of that. And in that way, it’s awesome.
Players can link the machine to their VF.net profile to automatically update Twitter with their achievements, including winning streaks, dominations, and other braggables. The feature also tweets your location, so if a rival Virtua Fighter player tracks down your Twitter (also via VF.net) and sees your pwnage, they can saddle up and head down to where you are to help tear open assholes you didn’t know you had.
Frankly, marketed effectively, this new social integration could really help resurrect the arcade scene in North America – which these days amounts to a dusty Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2 machine, half its lights broken, parked outside the bathrooms of your local cinema. What a draw.
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