The MTV game blog (yeah, they haven’t been just about the music for years) has some advice on buying SFIV
if you’re in the market for the game, which boils down to ‘wait for the console version’ since Capcom hasn’t been interested in really getting the game out to arcades as they have used it more as a PR piece at events. According to Capcom, there are four things you need to do to get one, which are: 1) Spend a lot of money, 2) Buy in Bulk 3) Live In Japan 4) Wait.
As you probably already know, I don’t see eye-to-eye with Capcom on this – especially if they want to see the game released in the US then why are they the ones putting up all these hurdles? If it’s too expensive then they can lower the price which would make distributors feel better about getting the game as they are the ones who will typically buy in bulk. Distributors do know that demand is high for SFIV but that is damaged by the high price for a game which will have a console version out in less than six months and where the operator is forced to buy two units if they want it as a 2p game(which isn’t mentioned in the MTV article). Conventional wisdom in this industry says that getting your ROI off of this will be extremely difficult under these circumstances established by Capcom. Telling people to live in Japan or continue to wait just shows how serious they aren’t about this – just take a look at my recent coverage of ArcSys looking to get BlazBlue into arcades (which happens to run on the same hardware as SFIV) and when you compare the two, it doesn’t leave you with much respect for how Capcom is handling this. I’m sure I’m not making any friends at Capcom by constantly pointing these things out but I think it is necessary to do so until they change their attitude about the arcade scene and it’s important that you are informed about it as well.
Understand your downer on Capcom over their international policy, but I would like to give an alternative spin.
Capcom JP has depended on their satellite operations for the information on the interest in AC. Those executives dropped the ball and wrote back their JP bosses that there was no arcade interest. Then when the interest got out of control they rushed round to try and find a way to cover their ignorance.
This rush has meant that no planning can be made on the price (as they will have to air freight the systems in rather than the normal sea crossing), and they will also have to ship modified JP cabinets and boards, rather than work with a US distributor on a territory specific kit release (Tekken Tag, etc).
JP worked out there was a danger that a lack of support internationally could backlash their planned February console release so they have tried to throw marketing money at the problem to try and smooth the waters – but have also made sure the US and UK executives know how badly they dropped the ball.
So I would place most of the blame on the shoulders of the US and UK Capcom team rather than the Capcom JP team. There is also another issue that the arcade trade in each area is doing little to make itself look good by ignoring the public interest in a game that could fill their cash box and stop them moaning about the state of the industry.