These last posts went unnoticed last spring, so now I can finally comment on these...
To DominikJagr; I understand what you mean, but at least to us this tournament is so much more than just "get as big tournament as possible" - this is an event to which our friends travel across the country - friends that we see nowadays only once a year in this tournament. There is no need to expand this tournament (except there are plans on inviting all previous players to our 10th annual tournament next year), because this is a very working consept with all the trash-talk and big mouthing etc.
And when it comes to this emulator vs. real consoles -debate, it is obvious that we use those original consoles - I mean, it is kind of funny to connect those 25 year old cables to a brand new led-tv and see how horrible it looks. And I those three-button controllers are vital: we use to have mine cord-free controllers in use (I bought those back in the 90's) on one of the consoles, but there was so much debate about those smaller controllers (6-button version) that it was obvious that we needed equal equipments for every player. And one year I bought those replica-controllers, but those broke before the main tournament even started.
So there you have it, our tournament is not suppose to be as big as possible, it is much more about those players that come and create the athmophere every year.