I agree with Calipower, Sabre and Master Chibi’s viewpoints. My logic is if Japan really loves SF, they’ll find a way to make their scene to be able to play SSF4 on console. North America and most of the rest of the world was forced to play on consoles, because our arcade scenes were dying. This might be Japan being forced to adapt to a similar situation that we had faced.
And anyway, I don’t see how Capcom of Japan would take this petition seriously. In their eyes, us not having an arcade version doesn’t effect us at all. So why would they listen to us on this issue?
But my personal prediction. Competitive sf4 takes a huge dive if we get no arcade release.
i cant imagine going to chinatown fair and theres no SF4 players there …no ssf4 machines…less congregating, less competition, less hype, less people caring.
Oh, by the way. Apparently it’s not Capcom’s fault…well it kinda is - because of their prices. The thing is that most of the arcades here haven’t even earned back the money they invested in SFIV when it came out. It seems Capcom DID offer an upgrade for arcades, but pretty much no operator wanted it because it’d just be investing more money in something that didn’t seem to pay off in the first place.
So I herd SSFIV will be console only and personally I would just say meh. Why should I play it when it doesn’t even have an arcade release!!?? I wouldn’t be too shocked if the major Japanese wouldn’t even play it honestly. They would play just for fluff but noting too serious.
Of course playing on a Taito Vewlix and a River Service Delta 32 will always be better than playing on a set up with a joystick that will most likely slide on your lap with laggy online play and the not the best HDTV setups. Look I own a candy cab, and personally I wouldn’t play on consoles after owning an candy cab. Controls are spot on, no lag, and you don’t have to worry about the controls sliding on you.
Plus using mics and video cams are terrible replacements for arcades.
Also, from Justin’s website, which I took from Marn’s sig:
“The Life of Justin Wong is very fun and challenging. Many people would love to be in my shoes, but anyone can be in my shoes. You MUST earn it. I wasn?t born with the talent of playing videogames. I earned it from playing at my local arcade, Chinatown Fair everyday.”
It seriously is, and the best remedy is to host your shit at your house. Get a community together, 12 TV’s, 12 boxes, 900 arcade sticks, and play to your hearts content. Oh wait that’s already happening… not only that but I almost PREFER it that way. Sure the hype of being at the arcade diminishes when you’re at home (yours or someone else) but when there’s 20 guys there that you know [or are getting to know] that are just as hype towards what you’re doing, what’s the problem? The game is about COMMUNITY more then anything else, that is where it thrives and the biggest plays [and players] manifest.
Though I don’t care for arcades, I voted YES. Plenty of peeps want that experience.
Dr. B loves to socialize with the ladies. And by socialize I mean scronk. And by scronk I mean listen to, intently. And by listen to, intently I mean fuck. Yes hetero.
I’ll sign, but no arcade release is just a sign of the times. The transition from arcade to console has been taking place for years and I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually there won’t be arcade releases at all. It’s like the impending physical copy to digital format. The arcade scene is tiny compared to the amount of people you can reach with a console release and console is certainly more profitable.
It’s been said before, that’s a great idea. It is a lot of fun, but you can’t do that shit everyday. You just gonna randomly show up at someone’s house and expect to play against everyone? You can’t replicate an arcade at someone’s house unless you straight up turn it into one. Nice thing about arcades is you can show up whenever and people will be there…then you leave whenever.
Let’s be honest, you think japan players gave a shit about us when t6, t6br, vf5r, vf4ft, all the guilt gear games damn near, and other games didn’t make it stateside in any way at all? I bet they didn’t think of us one bit. And for the few that did, they probably dwelled on it for 5 seconds and moved on.
i agree with everything you wrote but here’s my position.
you know how how the japanese scene is. and you know how arcade based it is.
if ssf4 is not released in arcades, this version of the game will basically be ignored by most of their competitive players.
at best, this means there will be a rift between what version of the game different people play with the arcade crowd playing vanilla sf4 while others play ssf4.
at worst, it could lead to their sf4 scene dying off or at least declining greatly.
either way, this is bad for their sf4 community.
now the problem is this:
if japan’s sf4 scene dies or becomes much smaller, (japan being a large demographic of capcom’s sf audience) this makes it more and more likely that capcom will stop developing sf4 related titles.
so in the bigger scheme of things… while i think the US can have a great community without japan, if their scene dies i really don’t think we’re going to see new sf games coming out of capcom. and i think we can agree that no new games is bad for everyone.
i just think this is one of many good reasons to care what happens to japan’s scene… even if we really only care about the US scene.
Alex I never once said I disagreed with anything you said. In fact, I agree with you. Of course we need to adapt and I like the positive spin you gave this news. You said so yourself though, it’s disappointing.
Second, I am in no way trying to step on anyones pride. You guys have the best scene of the West Coast. Just look at Evo and the dudes we saw. Sabres Sakura or Yeb’s Gen. Home grown, totally console, and we are damn proud of that.
I’m not dickriding the Japanese, it’s not about X-Copying strategies. Nor do we need them to survive. But, would don’t you agree that the Japanese contribute greatly to the overall health of the global scene? Aren’t you going to miss playing with these great players, going to SBO and the like?
I take the insult in stride. I do not play in Japan. I’d like to visit the arcades just like you all have in the past, sure. I’d like to visit so-cal, too. I’ve been to Evo, but mostly I just work with the scene we have here, and get around to East Coast events. We all contribute in our own ways. If you re-read my post, I talked about what Japan contributes but my main reasoning comes down to the respect I have for the scene as a whole.
Japan adds alot. East Coast adds. West Coast adds. Europe adds. We are all one.
At the end of the day, a lack of an arcade release will hurt Asia and very niche parts of the United States and Canada. We will adapt, the game will survive. The Japanese will have to adapt or get out of the way. In the mean time, though, why not show our support and why not treat them and every remaining arcade scene as our brothers and let Capcom know we want to see an arcade release. It doesn’t hurt anyone to do so.
I’m all for an arcade release because I do like those rare trips to CTF, but I won’t be too concerned if it’s not released in the arcades. I do own consoles to play it on.