Sony buys Evo Fighting Games Championship Series

This story about Sony and fighting game esports, boiled down, in 1:36 minutes.

What's the fuss?

Sony acquired Evo, the largest and most prestigious fighting game tournament in the world.

The situation

Evo, also known as Evolution Champion Series, is one of the most famous esports tournaments in the world. Founded in 1996, the annual event sees thousands of attendees from across the world competing in different fighting games such as Super Smash Bros. and Mortal Kombat. With the tournament usually held at the Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas, the pandemic is forcing the competition online this year.

Sony announced it has acquired Evo, potentially indicating that future tournaments would be effectively branded as Playstation events. Although the immediately concern was that Sony would force Evo to only host Playstation exclusive games, they quickly quashed those rumours stating they will continue to be open to all platforms.

Boiling it down

Despite the relief of not restricting the game roster to only Playstation exclusives, Playstation has really been the "chosen" console for fighting games for a long period of time. With most of the fighting games being able to be played on the Playstation, fighting gamers may be comfortable under the new umbrella of Sony.

Interestingly enough, Microsoft purchased their own gaming tournament-esque company, Smash.gg, late last year. Clearly, these gaming companies want to tap into the fighting game community and hopefully make them more inclusive for more gamers.

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