U.S. and Japan Square Off in World’s First Giant Robot Fight

On October 17, American robotics company MegaBots chainsawed its way to a decisive victory over Japan’s Suidobashi Heavy Industries in the second of two giant robot duels.

The duels were the culmination of a two-year-old challenge made by MegaBots toward their Japanese robot rival. Suidobashi accepted on the condition that the robots involved must face each other in some aspect of melee combat. With both sides agreed, work began.

MegaBots crowdfunded more than a half-million dollars from over 8,000 backers on Kickstarter in order to refine the design of its paintball-slinging Mk.II mech. In August, the company unveiled their new “Eagle Prime” robot. At a hulking 16 feet tall and 24,000 lbs., the 2.5 million dollar machine can house two pilots above an 8 cylinder, 430 horsepower heart.

Suidobashi Founder and CEO Kogoro Kurata — who, along with MegaBots Founders Matt Oehrlein and Gui Cavalcanti, served as a pilot — stated that they could not allow another team to win, since giant robots are a part of Japanese culture. While Suidobashi’s robot won the first duel against MegaBots’ older Mk.II, the Japanese mech’s paintball guns and punches were no match for Eagle Prime’s savage four-foot chainsaw sword.

The 26-minute event premiered on Twitch.tv and is now available to watch on YouTube. If it proves popular enough, MegaBots Co-Founder Brinkley Warren suggested that it could evolve into a billion-dollar sport.

Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both.