Promises of Arcade Street Fighter Used to Entice Visitors to London Show

Shaggy March 16, 2008 4

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Here’s another fine article by Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report. It sounds like some people are using Street Fighter IV like it was the GTAIV of the industry to get attention. Read on:

The first ever Play.com Live! event took place in London‘s Wembley Stadium over the weekend — the inaugural event proved a large draw for gamers of all ages, but was also embroiled in controversy.

The Play.com organizers had been linked to speculation that Capcom would be showing arcade cabinets running ‘Street Fighter IV‘ at the event. Play.com was linked to fuelling this speculation.

Upon opening a large number of event visitors were sourly disappointed to find that Capcom were not showing the game and had had no intention to show the eagerly awaited arcade title.

Capcom representatives’ questioned by Stinger representatives, confirmed that they refuted the claims that the game had been planned to be shown, and had already been deluged by visitors at their booth wanting to see the game – angry at its non-appearance.

Capcom had made apologies on Play.com‘s behalf regarding the confusion, though many disgruntled players saw this as a callous and profiteering exercise by the event organizers to increase their visitation.

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4 Comments »

  1. editor March 16, 2008 at 4:32 pm - Reply

    Just to add to the story, we now know that there is a SFIV machine in London, for consumer game mag tests!! Also the Play.com LIVE web site said the game would be at the show – and that some other web sites have started to edit their show previews to cover-up that the game was not see (other than a very old video trailer).

  2. PADDY-HACKERS March 16, 2008 at 7:30 pm - Reply

    I was absolutely disappointed with this event, the play.com said come and play pre-released games! not god damn HDTV’s showing trailer you could watch on the internet!! at the official Capcom website!.

    I felt utterly conned into this event because I literally came for this game & few others. I do feel this was con because website said very little about the game and didn’t warn us about any games being only viewable! (plus who wants to play DMC4 when its out on Xbox 360 & PS3).

    Every time I’m reminded about this event it just makes me so angry because it literally was them lying to customers to make them come!.

    Yes there is SF4 machine in London why could’nt we had test run on that?

  3. editor March 16, 2008 at 8:03 pm - Reply

    Paddy, the story is going round that certain magazines that have being playing on the Capcom UK SFIV machine demanded that they would give the game a exclusive placement in the mag only as long as no one got to play the game publicly before their magazine runs!

    The review also down plays the popularity of the amusement scene and only talks about “…how great the game will be when it comes to console”!

    If this is the case I think Capcom were VERY stupid to anger the player base, and could be on very thin ice. This smells like the GameSpot mess – another nail in consumer console coverage.

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