Virtua Fighter 5

Today is a sad day for Sega fans, as news breaks that 50-year-old creative genius Yu Suzuki has stepped down from his post as R&D Creative Officer at Sega, taking up a much-diminished role as R&D manager at the AM Plus division.

So, as a tribute to one of the greatest visionaries the industry has seen (or is ever likely to see), and as a history lesson for anyone too young to remember, here are five of Yu Suzuki's greatest moments

Whether it's by timeless game design, rabidly loyal community, or a fat slice of both, some videogames just keep coming back for more. Meet the games that will be around longer than you will.

Earlier this year, we were able to travel to Japan to see an early version of Virtua Fighter 5 for the Xbox 360. At that time, the developers were certain that online play could not be included - as it would compromise the quality of the play experience too much. That changed today. Sega has announced that, when it ships this fall, Virtua Fighter 5 for the Xbox 360 will, in fact, feature an online versus mode. To find out more, we spoke again to Yoshihiro Tsuzuku, the 360 version's

Virtua Fighter is more than a simple game to the Japanese - it's a phenomenon. Players gather at the Club Sega arcade in Akihabara, Tokyo to battle it out in massive tournaments - or just play for fun, as the best players gather at that spot. We were allowed to enter that domain with a camera, and we caught the 43 screens of Friday night VF5 action. We even interviewed Shinichiro Nagamine, a manager at the popular arcade, to find out the juiciest details about the competitions at the six-floor