The tournament will run July 9th through the 11th in Las Vegas, Nevada, sure to be a sweltering good time. No announcements yet about the line-up that we can see, but last year bout featured Street Fighter III Third Strike, Street Fighter IV, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Guilty Gear XX, Soulcalibur IV and Super Street Fighter II HD Turbo Remix. We'd expect many of those to return, plus a new title or two.

Evo, Caesars, Vegas, 2010, Hype! [EVO2K]

This year's EVO will feature the likes of Daigo, Alex Valle, John Choi and Justin Wong and a special appearance by Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono.

For those of you who cannot make it to Vegas, good news! You can watch the fighting via a live stream. It's like Sin City coming to the comfort of your own home, but minus the free flowing booze, gambling and strippers — unless your home already has those covered. Lucky you!

Check out all the delightful details in the embedded link below.

EVO Championship Series [UNITY]

Perhaps they don't even realize it, but these few, these champions of a dying bit of pop culture, come to Las Vegas to scream into the approaching long night of arcade gaming.

Each year EVO gathers the best among fighting gamers to celebrate arcade culture, to stave off, at least for one week, the creeping death that has turned arcades into family fun centers, filled 7-Elevens with console games and not cabinets, swept public gaming from the face of America.

"Arcades have gone away but the culture is not gone," said Seth Killian, one of the group's founders. " It was such a great experience that we’re not willing to say it’s gone."

It's no surprise that a shared passion for fighting games is what sparked the EVO Championship Series.

In the early 90s games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter replaced pool as a viable way to shark for money. Most college arcades had its own Street Fighter muscle, Mortal Kombat expert.

In 1995 a group of top arcade fighters, sick of arguing over a newsnet who the player was, decided to gather at an arcade on Broadway in New York City to finally decide it.

"We all came from the street fighter arcades," said Seth Killian, director of EVO and community manager at Capcom. "Everyone coming to that thing was like the kingpin of their local arcades."

There were 40 people at that first throw down. It was played on Super Street Fighter II Turbo.

But turns out that didn't settle things permanently. The one-off gathering of cabinet gamers turned into an annual pilgrimage. They met in Boston, they met in California and finally the settled on Las Vegas as venue best suited for the match-up and inevitable side bets.

As the meet-ups grew each year it coalesced into something more formalized. Now the the group is run mostly by the community that gathers each year to play. Though a few like Joey Cuellar (administrator of the fighting mecca at shoryuken.com and former manager of famous Southern Hills Golfland arcade), Vik Steyaert (founder of Tekken-zaibatsu.com and elite French chef), Tom and Tony Cannon (aka “the Cannon twins,” shoryuken.com cofounders, and Tony created the amazing GGPO.net), and Killian help keep things in order.

"It was all completely organic," Killian said. "The structure was born out of "Shit we have way too many people showing up to these things."

So they started introducing more traditional tournament rules, finally settling on double elimination, to help determine who the best Street Fighter was. The annual gathering also grew in reputation, soon attracting gamers from around the world looking to cut their teeth on a tournament known for it's skilled players.

With the growth, the group of gamers behind EVO have had to make some tough decisions. Because they run tournaments that require more cabinets than exist on the whole continent the group decided to start using consoles for game play four years ago.

"It was an extremely hard decision," Killian said.

The tournament, which used to hold four qualifiers a year in the U.S., last year held qualifiers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Sao Palo, Brazil and London. Its from these tournaments that famous moments, like the Daigo full-parry video, are born.

And the meet up each year in Las Vegas isn't just about competitive fighting games, it's also a chance for gamers to hang out, have fun and celebrate quarter on the cabinet arcade console.

"We’ve recreated this experience," Killian said. "The arcade experience is so awesome. People become friends. That’s part of why we started throwing this tournament.

"Its about fighting games and competitions, but arcades are the crucible that sparked the awesomeness. I don’t know what awesome is made up of, I don't know the physics behind awesome, but I know it when I see it."

Fighting games, in particular, are about direct confrontation, Killian points out, and playing in person magnifies that feeling, gives it more personality.

"If Street Fighter only came out on consoles and never were in arcades I don’t think it would have been as popular," Killian said. "EVO isn't about bringing back arcades, but preserving this fire, this passion, this connection.

"The arcade machine is such a ziggurat, you have to engage with it. It’s not disposable, it’s a statement.

Finally... a console more expensive than the PS3! Envizions Computer Entertainment sent us the press release, announcing Evo: Phase One, a 'next generation media hub' that "allows customers to pause, rewind and record live TV, store family photos, play 3D PC games, and access console like applications." Stats?

The system will also boast amazing graphics supported by the Sapphire RADEON HDMI X1600 Pro graphic card. The Sapphire RADEON X1600 Pro has 12 pixel pipelines that provides the highest graphics performance in its class even for shader intensive gaming. Equipped with 128MB of DDR3 memory and this model features clock speeds of 500MHz (core) and 800MHz (memory). Other key features include customized liquid cooling system, built-in biometric fingerprint reader and digital video recording features.

The whole shebang will cost you $679.99 and the website is warning that there's a limit of one per customer. So all you millionaires envisioning building yourself a little fort entirely made of Evos will have to use 360s instead.

Press release after the jump. Florian Eckhardt

EVO: PHASE ONE LAUNCHES ON OCTOBER 20, 2006 IN NORTH AMERICA

Equipped with liquid cooling system, and integrated biometric fingerprint reader

For Immediate Release

Anniston, Alabama JULY 11, 2006 - Today the Envizions Computer Entertainment Corporation announced that the Evo: Phase One media entertainment console will go on sale via the internet October 20, 2006. The suggested retail price is $679.99 (80 GB HDD) The system will ship with the Akimbo video on demand application pre-installed, plus, customers can apply an additional discount on over 1,600 games from the Evo: Direct store upon purchase of their EVO unit.

Evo: Phase One combines computer, media center, and PC gaming into one unit. The system will also boast amazing graphics supported by the Sapphire RADEON HDMI X1600 Pro graphic card. The Sapphire RADEON X1600 Pro has 12 pixel pipelines that provides the highest graphics performance in its class even for shader intensive gaming. Equipped with 128MB of DDR3 memory and this model features clock speeds of 500MHz (core) and 800MHz (memory). Other key features include customized liquid cooling system, built-in biometric fingerprint reader and digital video recording features. EVO is designed much like a PC, customers can purchase extended warranties and get next day onsite assistance or 24/7 IT phone service and remote access service packages. The system's online and networkability will be more apparent in phase two and customized games will be available as the systems continues to expand. EVO will give customers the option to upgrade certain aspects of the system. The EVO: Phase One will offer one package option, with the suggested retail price of $679.99 . The package will carry one wireless PC game controller and a EVO: Direct discount card. Other accessories will sell separately. In addition, customers can order customize EVO paint applications upon request.

Derrick Samuels CEO and Founder reported today. "Evo will be one of the first true gaming hybrid consoles that will be built -to-order with few restrictions, but at the same time offer a platform that will constantly evolve to suit the customer's need. Evo is a computer but it will also provide the entire family the opportunity to access the different applications throughout the home via wireless network." Samuels added, " The final hardware units should be done in late August and is greatly improved from the unit displayed at E3 this year in Los Angeles. Upon request units will be available for review. Envizions' goal is to build on quality, service and reliability. To reward our customers we plan to ship all pre-orders first since the unit will have a limited release qualities available at launch."