UPDATED: New Ultra SFIV for Japanese Arcades; Konami Testing Waters For A Return Of Pro Evolution Soccer?

UPDATED – Enough has come to light since the story broke that I’ve added a few new items and corrections below. Updates in green.

Two stories to share with you tonight that we’re entirely expected. First the big one people are talking about, the future of Street Fighter IV.

Capcom has announced that they have a new version of Street Fighter IV in the works which adds more than just re-balancing but also new characters and some other features. Being announced at EVO2013, the new update now called Ultra street Fighter IV will be made available to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 units. But it also will be available to NESiCAxLIVE arcade units in Japan, all for $15. The story at 4Gamer.net gets into a lot of the details, including some about the Japanese release, including some stressing that this new version of the game will be Japan-only. While I’m sure that could change at some point, if it did I’m sure any US release would be as far away from $15 as possible. A trailer for the new version is also available:

This next story is where we have to start off with a couple of “it’s been a while” phrases. It’s been a while since Konami has bothered with any arcade releases in Western civilization. It’s been a while since any football/soccer arcade game has been released in the region too. The last time Konami floated a football/soccer game was back in 2011 which was under the name of Winning Eleven, being destined just for Japan. Either way, this comes as a little bit of a surprise, link sent our way via Peter Drennan.

On a polling website called Valued Opinions, a survey appeared from Konami looking for customer input on whether they should release a Pro Evolution Soccer Arcade machine. It gives a full rundown of the proposed features and even a cabinet mock-up(I checked with Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report and he states the cabinet looks similar to one used in an Electrocoin flyer back in 20037; he also points out that Konami Europe was hacked earlier this week and because of that hack, feels that the survey is could be bogus). Here are the images as they appeared on VO which were captured by Peter and shared on the Winning Eleven forums. UPDATE: The original post was removed from the forums. Peter tells me it was a mod and who knows why. Some forums remove threads over trivial things, some remove them for other reasons. We still have the images, so take a look and judge for yourself; I am also following up on a lead with Konami about it:

If legit, I haven’t had much luck in finding someone at Konami that would be in a position to confirm or deny such a thing. It’s important to point out that if legit it also is just a feeler, not an absolute confirmation that the game will be released. I know we have many readers in Europe, where Winning Eleven/PES or WCCF have been done, so it would be good to hear your thoughts on this in the comments!