kicking off today at Tokyo Big Sight's Amusement Expo: an exhibition match between all the pro-licensed Virtua Fighter eSports players, using the APM3 arcade version
draw (starts in 30mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvVatd070oE
exhibition start (13:30 JP time)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmSBZDLXu7M
Looks pretty straightforward: VF3tb with online play (including password matches), plus player data, titles, etc which can be saved to Aime & tracked via the new VF3TB Online portal, plus the ability to switch to the new arrange BGM that was recently produced for VFe. (They're also selling a new CD OST with the OG+arrange music.)
As for the netcode... no mention of rollback, and the PR says it's "based on the online tech cultivated by VFe Arcade", so it may not have changed at all from VFe (and that might be why there's no peep of an international release).
it's been ~half an hour so forgive me for possibly getting ahead of myself, but allow me to play devil's advocate on why VF3tb Online may or may not be skipping a globally-available home version:
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it's a vintage reissue, not a VFe-esque remaster or other nominally New thing, and the ceiling for sales on games like these, as well as the amount one can procure for marketing/events promotion/etc is naturally low, so it's easy to de-prioritise, especially given SOA's habit of deprioritising AM-centric projects in general
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if you ask any casual VF/Sega fan about VF3 in particular, they'd probably tell you that it was the black sheep in the franchise—now, could they tell you precisely why it has that reputation? Do they know of the massive grassroots scene for VF3tb in Japan and the broader and much more positive reappraisal it's received over the last decade or so? Are they aware that the Dreamcast port was a compromised version of the original game? My guess is no, no and no, but I don't think Sega's international branches are going to be able to dispel decades of ingrained insistence that VF3's "the Tekken 4 of VF" or whatever (nor do I think they'd even know where to start)
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VFe died a quick death overseas due to the lack of rollback netcode: the netcode solution could not adequately support an international online tournament scene, and the mere knowledge that rollback had been discussed and dismissed prior to launch was a PR death sentence, so if Sega's international branches were being presented with another reissue that would or could not launch with rollback netcode, I could see why they might think they'd be better off leaving it in Japan, rather than releasing it worldwide and reinforcing the idea that they have no idea what they're doing
I'm not happy that this release might not be leaving APM3, of course, but I'm ultimately more concerned about them creating a smooth runway for VF6, and I can imagine a scenario where a non-optimal VF3tb reissue might be detrimental to that process, and I find it much harder to imagine a scenario where they just Do It Good because, y'know, Sega.
What really annoys me is that, a couple time now, the VFe producer's been all "golly gee I really thought there'd be a bigger international scene for this game, I wonder why intl players aren't running tournaments", and one of the conclusions he came up with was that intl scenes prefer offline tournaments and are behind the ball on online tournaments... no, dude, it's because it's an old game, locked to a single platform, with zero publisher support and an extremely inconsistent online experience; is it really that hard to figure out?
