SF4 on PSN isn’t bringing the community together, it’s making it worse. Lag SF4 does not make you better nor does it make a community. Just because times are changing doesn’t mean it’s changing for the better. Why do you think Japanese players are so much better than Americans? They for the most part only play at the Arcades.
LOL yeah I was high as a kite last time I played at Arcade Infinity.
You absolutely can get blasted and go to an arcade, you just gotta be smart about it.
Next trip to cali I’m hitting up Denjin.
I’ve been going to arcades my entire life. I’ve had several of regular arcades, dating back to Bannister Mall arcade in 1985. So I am a lifetime arcade goer. However, truth be told, the arcade market isn’t worth any resources. It is a total waste of time to make a game for the arcade. Most of us have never played the arcade version of SFIV. Most of us will never see it.
People who yearn for an arcade release are being very self-centered. Sure if you live in SoCal, you know the newest game will be at your arcade. Almost a year ago, the last real arcade in Atlanta closed down, and it’s selecton was not great. It had a broken MVC2 and broken A3 cabinet. And there was no way in hell we were getting SFIV there.
If you live in a scene with arcades, that’s cool. I envy you actually. I would love to get off of work, go dlown to the arade, and play a few games instead of signing into PSN and going against a bunch of shoto mashing/log abusing scrubs. But hey, that’s the world we live in, accept it.
SFIV, PSN, and XBL has helped the scene in more ways than you know. I have attended tournaments before SFIV was out, and the level of participation is always nice. It's good seeing a game draw the numbers. I mean I went to a few 3s and CVS2 tournaments, and well they barely could get 16 people in the bracket. You may have got like 24 if you were lucky. And you weren't going to get anywhre, because the dominators were pretty clear. And people who followed their scenes knew who the best were, and that even kept people away from entering the tounraments. I mean before online play, all we could really do is play games at home all day against the computer or go into training mode. I like going to training mode, and testing my stuff out a few minutes after I practice (strategies not combos as lag isn't good for combos). I like knowing within a few games if my setups don't really work well. Before, I just had to wait.
So yeah the console helps everyone, and is a way better alternative than arcades. And I am a die hard arcade player, and have been one for 25 yeas. But it's really hard to put arcades over consoles. ATL wouldn't even have a scene if it weren't for consoles, and that's a fact.I agree with you for the most part. Lag will always be there (even if it’s to a minimal) It’s not like tourneys would come to a halt. You obviously won’t be able to preform at your fullest but you can still gain knowledge from playing, thus helping the community. I never really said it was changing for the better. If we were not to get an arcade release (god forbid) we would have to adapt anyways. I think we could manage as a community with or without a console release. Yes, the negative do out weigh the positives, I’m just looking at it from another perspective for arguments sake.
Oh, we’d be better than Japan if there wasn’t an arcade release lol 
Well, as we can see from the latest Nakky blog, it looks like arcade SSF4 is a good possibility after all.
As for why they would deny an arcade version in the first place, the best explanation I’ve heard is that because they are cashing in so much on the console version now, they’ve simply decided to switch the cycles (console first, Arcade and PC later).
I’d be really surprised if this wasn’t announced/confirmed at Japan’s SF4 national tournament in April.
I don’t mind a console release first as long as the arcade version is guaranteed and comes out very soon after, no more than a month or two. If they change to that model I have no complaints.
Yeah, consoles are thriving over here, but they’re not thriving nearly as much in Japan (even though online play is better there). All the top players have gone on record saying they don’t really care for the console release and/or playing online, even with 5-bar connections. They’d just prefer to go to the arcade.
It’s also not practical for Japanese to have people over to their house for local sessions/tournaments for reasons that have been stated multiple times in this thread, even from people like Azrael or Reno that live in Japan. Their houses are just too small to hold more than, like, 2 guests. The arcade is basically like a big “friend’s house” where everyone is already going to play the best players.
When I play the game, the console matters the most to me. I’ve played on an SF4 arcade machine once when I went on a trip somewhere, and that’s it. But as far as the Japanese culture goes, the time is not right for them to embrace a console release with the same fervor as an arcade release. Maybe in 5-10 years it’s inevitable that Japanese arcades will fail, but we’re not there yet. And, as has been stressed time and time again, the Japanese players developing the game is very important. In order for the game to be the best it can be, we need the widest selection of the best players developing techniques. There’s a reason the SF4 console characters are so underdeveloped.
I’m very excited to hear that Capcom is more than likely going to release an arcade version. I’m also fine with this version being 6-8 weeks after the console version is out, but hopefully it’s not something goofy like 6 months away.
The announcement of the 3s characters is exciting to me, but I think I’m looking forward to a confirmed arcade release date even more. While I’ll likely never play SSF4 in arcades, I’ll know that SSF4 (a game I want to spend a lot of time with) will also have the best players playing it and developing fun new strategies.
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. His point was that the TTX2’s security measures have now been circumvented, so it can now be seen as regular PC hardware running regular PC software. Basically, the usual “ZOMG PIRACY” argument that comes up regarding PC releases is now also applicable here.
I’d wait for the magic 6-months window to pass, that’s how long Capcom’s games tend to remain console “exclusive”, transforming into PC-based multiplatform games immediately afterwards.
I don’t understand why Capcom would go to all the trouble they did with the BP and card setup for SF4 only not to pretty much repeat the same motions for SSF4.
Just edit your console software, sell it as an arcade upgrade and make some money. No big deal, right?
I still think they’re just going to go for a console release first though. It’s easier to update and patch… and once they have a working copy of the game the arcade release will be the ultimate release.
What keeps Arcades in japan from using a ps3/360 setup?
Just a thought.
There’s no coin/card slot setup for payments on consoles for starters. They’re not going to be able to access their account and earn BP from matches.
There’s also the fact that the vast majority of Japanese arcades are owned by corporations (like Sega, Taito, etc), not private enterprises like they are in America. They don’t want to mess with that sort of thing and all the legal trouble that comes along with it.
The lack of BP cards would be huge to them too, I think. They played without them for years, so it’s not a dealbreaker, but many of them have come out and said the battle cards were one of their favorite things about SF4 (Daigo, Kindevu come to mind as people who’ve said this, maybe Mago too). So once you experience this, it’s going to be lame going to a system without it, especially for the sequel to a BP card game.
I vote for arcade release of SSF4 NOW! D:<
Besides violating hardware/software licenses and the associated lawsuits, not much I guess. I’d totally do that if I wanted to get sued into the ground.
In China, well, it’s the wild west of piracy out here. It’s still annoying for the arcade ops who already have legit systems.
signed
I don’t particularly care one way or another about an arcade release, because I’d never play it. However, if there is one, I’ll be happy that it releases same time/after consoles and hopefully with the same content, that way I don’t have to wait longer to get the game while others get to play it.
Although, even though I had to wait for the home release to play SFIV, it came with extra characters and obviously modes and such. So I guess the wait can be evened out by getting a superior product in the end.
It’s the same issue you always see with anime/games from Japan, getting it quickly by various means, or waiting for a release by an official company a year or a few later and getting a better product.
Normally I always wait for official U.S. distributions, so I suppose I’d be happy if SSFIV had an arcade release, then a home release with another 5 3S characters.
But at the same time I’m happy that my playing of the game will not be postponed by Capcom wanting to make money off the cabinets before the home release, nor having people playing before me and making me jealous.
So either’s fine I suppose.
An arcade release would be great. Not that I’d get a chance to play it, but still.
Why would you want another situation where the console and arcade versions have different characters? I finally want that completely and totally unified, so there’s no more console character crap that doesn’t see any real play or development in Japan or the major US arcade markets.
The SSF4 roster is pretty crazy right now, anyway (35 characters? Is this a VS game?). Tons of different fighting styles, and an extremely likable roster. If they do release an arcade version (and it sounds like they will), adding more characters that wouldn’t get play in an arcade setting would be a bad idea, as it was for SF4. Either delay both games so the characters can be in both versions, or else save those character ideas for a universal patch/change/new release that affects everyone.
If there is an arcade version it would be the same as console. Same characters.
i actually thought about this a little and i think that there’s actually a potential for the console manufacturers to gain some ground in the arcade revenue.
when you look at arcade boards and pcb’s they are different from the consoles which these games are ported to. this drives the price up considerably for the boards. as far as i know tekken 6 was developed for a board which basically is a ps3, but with some small differences. these small differences mean different manufacturing methods and equals higher costs for production as producing them in the same quantities as their standardised versions would be stupid and hard to earn back.
but there could be a way of going around this. if the standardised counterparts could be used and just have a disc in the tray, then the cost of manufacturing boards would’ve been significantly cut. of course this implies that i imagine that producing the dvd / blu-ray alone is cheaper, even in the large quantities that it usually requires.
i guess a couple of you already see where i’m heading here. capcom includes a special “arcade-mode” which could only be activated through some sort of code of button inputs and could only be exited through a home button which the arcade controls of course wouldn’t have so people wouldn’t from the arcade go into the ps3/360 and fuck up settings. this coupled with a coin-op mechanic which would lock the controls until someone payed up could be the answer to the three platform developing at once and could spare developers the extra cost of porting the same game twice after the arcade port. you could for example have the 360 as the primary development console and port it to ps3 afterwards. one of these version have the special “arcade-mode” built in and be the arcade release.
if the console manufacturers are willing to be flexible a card-reader could be made to work with the console and you could also use the xbox-live network or psn network for tracking stats and such. of course the big problem here lies in the some probability of the consoles being hacked as a result of all this.
therefore i think that if ms or sony had gone together with arcade developers and come up with a general strategy surrounding a coin-op mechanic and a card system mechanic for their consoles, they could even see sales of their consoles going into the arcade market as it would be much more simple and risk free to buy a console instead of an entire arcade board.
unfortunately i haven’t got any figures regarding sales or profit margins when it comes to these arcade games. and the fact that these games are on arcade board gives the publisher much more freedom to drive the price up for the game. and the small fact that a fighting game that’s popular in the arcade doesn’t necessarily mean good sales in the whole. so the arcade board could in itself be a safe net where you can lean on the cabinets and everything costing a lot to make up for some lost revenue.
i don’t know if i’ve explained myself any good at all, but i hope some of you can see my vision though.
and i voted yes for an arcade version. fuck my spelling… i don’t speak english as my primary language. shiiiiet.
also i wanna see bison in a urien custume for ssf4. capcom MAKE IT ALL HAPPEN.