Fighting the Tatsunoko vs. Capcom licensing monster, more sticks being built

Could an untranslated port of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom be made available for download onto the Wii shop channel? — Tryken

Seth: The challenges for the game remain more legal than technical. We'd be very happy to bring it to you guys if we had the right laser to slay the evil licensing monster immediately.

Trust that we're fighting him, but he's like, tough.

When can we expect the Tournament Edition Mad Catz sticks and Collector's Edition of SFIV to be restocked?

Sven: I actually spoke with Mad Catz this evening. I assure you, they're manufacturing as quickly as they can, but it's not a product that can be churned out by the thousands overnight. The factory has been open over the Chinese new year (which is somewhat unheard of). They are and will continue to air freight in units as they come off the line as frequently as they can.

I think in time, Mad Catz will be able to address the demand over the following weeks/months, but there's going to be a ton of people who can't get them at or around launch.

Unlike the TE sticks, on the Collector's Edition version of Street Fighter IV, when they're gone, they're gone.

There will never be more made.

We have more retail orders for them than we have goods. We made a LOT of them, but it was also a figure we hoped would not be sitting on retailers shelves more than a month after launch.

As it turns out, it's a figure that probably won't be sitting on shelves longer than the time it takes all pre-orders to be picked up.

Amazon is already sold out of its allocation of Collector Edition's. In the Capcom store we freed up another couple hundred units from some goods that were being held for events but I suspect they'll ALL be spoken for in the next day.

I promise you this: every CE everywhere will be presold at least a week before launch.

We warned people a few days ago this would happen if you didn't pre-order. Additionally, if you don't pre-order the regular version of the game, there is a very good chance you won't get it day one either based upon how our pre-orders are ramping in an unusual way. Demand is ramping (up to a) level that is not typical and while we have backup goods on order, they're not day one.

So long story short... preorder A version somewhere ASAP if you're expecting to play day one. No joke.

Sven, did you really expect anything less? Seriously. Street Fighter is the most popular and well known fighting franchise.

Sven: Actually, SF is NOT the best selling fighting franchise or at least hasn't been in 15 years. MK and the WWE titles have beaten it soundly for a long time. And at the end of the day, when we place our production orders, we place them based upon a bottom's up forecast from retail + some reasonable buffer to account for rise as we near release and some overage to provide near term reorder support.

Suffice to say, we had big numbers in to start. The numbers are getting bigger.

This is not a case of poor planning. This is a case of logical thresholds being exceeded in ways that are not typical. I can't say more than that.