The newly announced “Championship- Mode” for Street Fighter IV lets users take part in online tournaments, win virtual points for their brawling prowess and earn the respect of SFIV aficionados the world over. Sounds very cool!

It also sounds like it’s one for the hardest of hardcore players, although Capcom says that there will be five different grades of tournament, catering to players of all abilities. Whichever level you play at the structure and rewards remain the same. Win a tournament and you’re awarded Grade Points (GP), win enough of those and you’ll become eligible to enter higher level contests, where the winners are festooned with Championship Points (CP). Capcom reckons that CPs are the equivalent of prize money. To which we can only add, yeah, right...

But moving on, and another feature of the Championship Mode is the ability to watch, record and rate the best bouts. This works slightly differently on each platform. On the Playstation Network you can rate matches while you watch, selecting comments such as “Funny” and “Awesome”. Matches are then ranked based on these ratings. Meanwhile the Xbox LIVE version sounds a bit more useful. Users download the match they want to watch and can then view the joystick and button commands being used by each player – which is a great way to learn the tricks n’ tactics of the pros.

Better than all of the above, though, the Championship Mode is completely free and it arrives on both platforms simultaneously on Friday, April 24th. Get that? Something arriving on PSN and Xbox LIVE on the same day. Incredible, eh!