The Xbox 360 version of Virtua Fighter 5 has gone gold, SEGA announced today. The game will be released later this month.

Along with the Gold announcement, a 674.39 MB demo has appeared on Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

Demo description from Xbox LIVE: “Virtua Fighter 5, the world-renowned fighting game, now features online gameplay. VF5 also lets you download replay data of top players from its online leaderboards, and includes the latest updates to game balance, in-game items, and CPU rival character AI. Experience the fun now in this downloadable demo.”

Although Virtua Fighter 5 on Xbox 360 is the first time a game in the franchise to allow online play, it’s very disappointing that the demo doesn’t allow gamers to try out the online component. Instead, you get to battle it out with a friend offline in the VS mode and also go solo in the Arcade mode. You have four characters you can play as: Akira, Sarah, El Blaze and Eileen.

[Also see: Virtua Fighter 5 gallery]