Those hoping for new sprite-based fighting games from Capcom, like their old school titles, had some water thrown on their fire recently on the Unity-Boards, as company V.P. Christian Svensson stated it would be very difficult to get those titles green lit. Capcom's artist's of old put to shame the current crop, those artists took an artisan approach to their work. If those artist had even some of the technology that Capcom's has today at it's disposal, they could create far superior work than what we see currently from Capcom.
Svensson: Rose Tinted Glasses Alert!
I love our old work, but I'm sorry, I strongly disagree with your assessment here. I believe we have more skilled artists working in the company today than we ever have, working with tools and tech the guys in the 90s couldn't even imagine at the time. The difference now is that they tend not to be 2D artists which makes this really an apples and oranges comparison. If the guys from the 90's had access to the tech of today, they aren't going to be writing better shaders or rigging models on clever skeletons running amazing animations. It's not and would never be their skillset. Likewise, our current guys aren't likely up to the task of doing 12K frames of hand drawn pixel art animation.
[Editor's note, the original poster asked if we'd ever see sprites again.]
And to answer the [original poster], we did MM9 and MM10 in old school sprite form. As others have pointed out SSF2T HD Remix got made.
If you're asking if we're going to be doing from the ground up new 2D sprite based fighting games? I'd think it would be an extremely difficult sell to the organization. It's an increasingly niche sub-category even within fighting and indeed it's not an area where any company has an abundance of talent for such a project anymore.
Will Super Street 3D be available to buy on the 3DS Shop when it launches in May this year? — Linkyshinks
Svensson: We're still getting up to speed on the estore programs and parameters. My current understanding is that anything available on the eStore will in some way shape or form have to be a different game than what's offered at retail according to NOA's communications with us.
So to answer that question, we have no plans at this time to make a "different" version of SSFIV for the eStore so for the foreseeable future, retail is the only place it will be. Please go pre-order (I a little afraid that we may not have manufactured enough units for the initial launch). 8)
Ono said that the English and Japanese versions of Super Street Fighter IV would only come with the English voices due to "cartridge limitations." — Gojiguy
Seth Killian: The cartridge limitation is that we were only able to have one set of voices. Of course in Japan, that can be the Japanese voices, but we weren't able to have BOTH Japanese and English voices to allow people to choose, unfortunately.
3DS carts can be up to 8 Gigs in size if need be. What's the memory capacity on the carts Capcom have chosen to use? — Linkyshinks
Svensson: We have chosen to use the largest possible cart made available to us today by Nintendo.
I think the perfect roster for a future SF4 game would be to add 28 more slots to what's already available in Arcade Edition.
Svensson: OMG, 28 more slots?
My head hurts just thinking about it.
If 28 more slots were added, someone would complain that the roster would be too large.
Also that fact that there are people that do NOT want to see characters in future SF titles (ex. Me not wanting to see Remy)
So perfect can and will only be a matter of opinion.
i dont mean to knock mvc3's graphics, but could you have imagined Udon vs Marvel? like artist wise on 2d sprites? it would have been soooo sick.
Umm Sven, just say what you want to say. "We want more $$$". Capcom gives us what we ask for, just not what we REALLY want you know?
(A company wants to make money, betrays their truest fans,
More news at 11!)
Complaints about 2D sprites?!?! Get a haircut, you hippies. It's 2011.
#7
"Umm Sven, just say what you want to say. "We want more $$$". Capcom gives us what we ask for, just not what we REALLY want you know?"
No, you mistranslated that. What he REALLY wanted to say is "If we make a 2D game, no one will buy it, the company would lose lots of money, and the entire franchise would die."
Of course they want money. Money is what allows them to MAKE fighting games.
Or maybe you'd prefer them to make games for free.
#8
"(A company wants to make money, betrays their truest fans,
More news at 11!)"
Breaking news! If a company has no money, they can't make fighting games!
But BlazeBlue still sells EXCEPTIONALLY well & KOF13 gets played in japanese arcades more often than not....
Does'nt matter though , once SF3 3rd Strike for PSN comes out , its a wrap for the SF4 series. (For me atleast.)
2D > 3D
We will be back to 2D some day. Mark my words.
If SF5 want to blow up minds one day and kill MvC3 visual style. Go into the 2D with something new and unique mixed to it. 2D gives you the oportunity to come up with every kind of idea and make it possible.
3D has nothing new to offer anymore after MvC3.
@3 and @5
You also have to consider that Sprite based fighting games are more popular in Japan than the US which is more intuned to 3D games than 2D. This is why Tekken, Soul Calibur and soon to be MK9 does well; They are far mor attractive, simple and easy to understand. If that wasn't the case SFIV would have been sprite based and it was a hard sell in Japan at first.
Also 3D during the late 90's was the future, you started seeing many 2D sprite fighters go into 3D in some form. Look at MvC2, all 3D backgrounds and reused 2D characters. 2D animation is hard and costly. At least with 3D characters you can make specific adjustments once the hard work is done. Even Blazblue uses some 3D background models.
@7 and @8
I don't know how old you guys are but if you go out into the "real world" and get a job im sure if you ask any company their mission statement, somewhere down that statement is gonna have something to do with "make more money than everyone" and "Attract and satsisfy more customers." In so many words. You can't get something for nothing so GET A JOB AND DEAL WITH IT!
@20
Still you forget how sf2hd had huge issues to overcome during its developpment .
And that mpvc2 s just an upscale remaster with online added .
You can't argue that no 2d game has come close to sf3 and sf2hd's level of animation . Not even Blazblue wich still massively used 3d . Nor kofXII with got as close as it could at the cost of the rest of the game and with the smallest roster of its history .
We all would prefer snazzy and vibrant full HD 2d art properly animated for our 2d fighting games .
But let's be honest , with now engine that can come close enough to 2d animation for a lesser cost , you wont see capcom go back to 2d .
Not if you ever hope to see a proper Darkstalkers game , wich i do .
@25
We have an elitest here people.
He thinks he's human 001.
@22
So true my stealthy friend.
I really don't like Svensson. He only comments on things negatively, and never even attempts to use candy coating, which belies his actual position at Capcom. It really is insulting to people like Seth that put forward such a huge effort to create an image among the fans that the company is there for them.
Why this guy still has his job is beyond me. After he called out Ono-san for trolling, that's all he became known for! He doesn't even contribute to the actual games - he's a business guy. Well, guess what Sven? These guys write your paychecks. Keep biting the hand that feeds you, and you will not be able to eat anymore.
3rd wasn't accessible, it sold very poorly (at least in the US).
Capcom knows what their games make, if 2D was just as good, they'd be making both. My guess is 3D fighters (with 2D gameplay) offer a good balance of eye candy with old school classic feel that the best fighters offered. Don't know much about BB, but it doesn't seem popular in the US.
(14, 23, you both missed it.
Anyway, to the people saying, 'isn't KOF still popular? Blazblue?' Try and find announcements about them on non-dedicated sites. It also doesn't help the most recent KOF made the mistakes SFIII did.
For instance, I've seen almost no press on SSFIV: AE edition on 'general' gaming news outlets. Sure, it's not officially announced yet, but I hope you get my point
As a side note, Ono has been asking for Darkstalkers for ages, along with presumably "not enough" fan support. They're playing their hands very carefully; trying not to saturate the market.)
lol @ people mixing 2D or 3D with the Marketing of a product.
Yeah Third Strike didn't sell well compared to recent games because it was 2D. That was the reason, nothing else. (not)
People really have no idea of the Marketing jump that the gaming industry and Capcom itself made from Third Strike days, to now.
Dozens of events promoting the game, the internet hype with character reveals... Even Ono having a twitter changed everything. And all that is reflected on how well the game sells. It has nothing to do with 2D or 3D.
@26.....we have a dumbass here people...i am human idiot...arent u?
Making something 2D instead of 3D is NOT a simple decision.
I work for an unspecified game company myself and it really is disheartening to see fans talk about the devs like they're money-grubbing a*holes instead of a group of passionate developers who spent YEARS making one title. We/They spend years thinking of how YOU will enjoy it, they know that what they want is irrelevant since they are not the consumer. A lot of people in the U.S. simply expect 3D from their 360 and PS3 games, they equate 2D with being for cheaper games, which is why Capcom is fine making XBLA and PSN titles 2D.
I'm in a pretty low position at my company, so I probably wouldn't get any royalties if the game sells more, but even I would advocate for just about anything that would increase sales without harming the quality. When more people buy a product, it becomes more popular, a large online community forms, and you have a better chance of having your franchise live to see a sequel instead of watching it die from a few bad decisions.
It's not about the money. The skills used to make games can be used at other tech companies that dish out higher salaries, nobody joins this industry to get rich. We want to make a great product that's played by as many people as possible, that's why many of us got into this industry :)
In other words capcom is being lazy now.we use to have good spritea animated and even better gameplay. Now we got ok 3d models with hd and screwed up gameplay. I would rather have more characters than mem wasting 3d models n less charaters and worse gameplay. Atleast hit us with a new psn fighter thats 2d n good with online play
Nice to see him pulling the 'rose-tinted glasses/nostalgia' card. It's not like I haven't seen countless people do the same thing on forums across the internet whenever somebody argues that something was better in the past. It's impossible for anything to be better than it is right now according to armchair philosophers all over the internet. The only difference is that this guy gets paid to do it.
Capcom's artists used to be second to none from a design perspective. That's why the majority of the Capcom characters in MvC3 are from the '80s or '90s. Look at all of the iconic fighting game characters that they created in the 4 or 5 year window that started with SF2 and ended with Alpha 2. Now look at the 5 characters they created for SF4. Notice a difference?
At least he admitted that Capcom's current artists aren't talented enough to do sprites. That was the one honest statement in the whole response.
we dont need any sprite made game(unless its DLC). feels like a waste of money on my systems cuz it looks just like old stuff, just redrawn. no intense graphics or anything and thats what most people expected when we bought our consoles. dont get me wrong. imma old school gamer myself and i like games like bb and such, but for those games to be sellin at $60 is just crazy. new sprite made games should be around at least $30.
BK, that would never happen considering that sprite-based games would cost much more than the current 3d-model games. It costs a lot of money to pay people to individually draw the sprites frame by frame. SNK actually said they were doing sprite-based animation as a labor of love for their fanbase and even though KOFXII was balls, it looked good and didn't doom them. KOFXIII is out and it gets some good play in Japan, but it would never sell here because of the SF > every other fighting game ever bias that is so prevalent in the states.
Always like to hear from Sven... good stuff.
I wonder what era Seth was talking about. If it was Alpha/MVC2, then I agree, if not, then art is better today. (I liked the anime style drawings.) The characters had better personality expressed in their artwork.
However, SF4 art is very good imo, with the STRONG EXCEPTION of KEN who looks flat out stupid both in looks and stance compared in SF4 compared to previous games (he-man anyone?). However, if we are talking about the intro/endings... well, I'll just exclude those for comparisons sake, because the art for those suck in SF4+, but I am guessing that is for budget reasons.
In other words, even the pros don't want to put the blood, sweat, and tears into 2-d's animation's painstaking process anymore.
(And trust me I know, I'm literally taking a break from the 300 or so drawings I just finished for my latest project)
But damn-with all that money and people they could at least TRY :-(-all the followthrough on Makoto's clothing in 3S is amazing compared to her SSFIV model.
sucks that 2D will never come back but looking at mvc3 i can say that if done right 3D can look pretty damn slick so i dont care nemore what CAPCOM does with their future fighting games. Darkstalkers however MUST BE IN 2D to satisfy me
@39
you right. its just hard for me to spend $60 on something that was used during ps1 time and before that. otherwise whats the point of having all this HD and blue ray for. i expect upgrades from games (if done right) like what capcom did with street fighter just to remind me how old im gettin from NES time to now. kinda ruins the moment if nothing changes.
Heh, the funny part is, the guy that actually made the 3RD strike sprites, which by FAR are the best sprites capcom has ever made, made the SF4 models.
And well, I don't really think 2D is better then 3D, nor the other way around. But before people start saying stuff about sprites. Just know that in some cases people actually will make sprites off 3D models, Ghost Trick for instance (which is the 2nd best sprites Capcom has ever made).
Lol, it's true what he said. The sprite based games were amazing, but they were also a very niche portion of games. No doubt more concentrated and for that probably better...but we know Capcom cares more about accessibility (money).
The focus today is on slick animation, as a result the art style doesn't "have" to be outstanding.
As for the future SF4 game....just give us Rolento/Alex. ;)