Even better, if you like, you can set up a ninth player to act as the tournament host. The dedicated host doesn't participate in the tournament, but that machine sees all the matches and automatically saves all the replays. This will allow for proper online tournaments, which gives me some interesting ideas for things we could do on the site once this rolls out. Of course, the whole "host doesn't play" thing is entirely optional, and if you're both hosting and playing in a tournament and get mysteriously disconnected, the game does have host migration. So keep that in mind before you bail on a tourney, you little sneak.
The tournament mode will also come with some new titles that will serve as "belts" for winners of official tournaments. A quick tournament was held at a Capcom event last week to determine the initial holder of the "Blade" belt. I... placed second. Seriously, I got worked over baaaad in the final match. 1up's Richard Li is savage. He'll also serve as the initial Blade belt holder when the mode launches on 360. The belts are one-of-a-kind and can be stripped away remotely, so if a player doesn't return to defend his title in the next official tournament, Capcom can press on without him.
We'll have more on the retail disc next week, but this free tournament update already appears to be a cool addition to the game. Meanwhile, I'll keep thinking about some kind of weird, big tournament that we could hold with you guys once the update's out there.