An internal interview Capcom Japan did with Street Fighter series producer, Yoshinori Ono, reveals that the North Americans account for about 60% of the playerbase for the SF franchise. This is followed by Europe at 30%, and Japan and Asia at 10%.What is the thing you struggle with most as producer?
Ono: I am always torn between my belief in what is fun and the constant anxiety about whether the game we’re making will actually be fun. These two feelings stay with me until the very end of the development process. I am well aware of the "birth pangs" that go with the development, so I want to do my best to keep our creators motivated while giving them as much advice as I can. Maintaining a healthy balance is really tough.
The fact that these two series have matured and been around for years means that fan expectations are really high. When we first announce "Street Fighter X Tekken," we received some harsh feedback from a few Tekken fans, with people saying “any version of Tekken made by Capcom is bound to be boring" or "Capcom's games are always trash". But we're putting all our efforts into producing a quality game. I got the feeling that all these fans changed their minds once they had chance to play the demo at the game shows.
Mentioned by Rafael2487 and Sunsetbeach.
Wow I had no ideas the figures were that skewed. Only 10% Asian players? Interesting.
The only thing that upsets me is that in all of the trailers thus far, the Capcom-side has been getting their asses handed to them on a silver platter by the Tekken fighters. It...doesn't really build anticipation when one side is dominating like that.
@1
I find that comment of yours to be extremely hypocritical. People have been saying that Tiers should ALWAYS be judged from the very highest level of gameplay. And that tiers should never be considered from the lower levels of gameplay because lower levels of gameplay are not good representations of what potentials the respective characters have.
The producers are mainly doing this rebalance patch because they feel that certain characters have many advantages over others when it comes to the HIGHEST level of gameplay.
Ono on SFXT: "We hope this game sets a spark to fighting games and allows us to exploit past assets of this great genre. I believe we can expand our contents into areas such as anime and movies, as well as online gaming. We're fully committed to ensuring that the Street Fighter series retains its place as one of Capcom’s leading franchises. Stay tuned for more great things to come from this series!"
Dude I so want to see a new feature length, full production SF anime. That would be amazing. Although SF2 the animated movie would be difficult to top. So gdlk.
@1 and @10
These comments are pretty ridiculous. Let me remind you that the main reason that they are nerfing Yun is because Yun is S-Tier when it comes to the very highest level of gameplay. That is that Yun is S-Tier only when they look at the highest level of Japanese Gameplay.
If people looks at the casual players of North America, then Capcom should be nerfing Guile and nerfing Sagat. Also buffing the Twins and Fei Long.
I play regularly at an Arcade Place that has SSF4-AE. And what I always hear is "Guile Wins" and "Sagat Wins."
When it comes to the casual gamers in North America, the majority of the matches are won by Guile and Sagat in SSF4-AE. When looking at the track records for casual gamers in North America, The Twins and Fei Long win only a very small minority of matches.
Reason for that is because Yun, Yang, and Fei takes a decent level of execution, spacing, and such in order to win. Tht Twins and Fei Long are not auto-pilot to victories.
Guile and Sagat, on the other hand, can easily win by spamming projectiles. Especially when it comes to the casual level of gameplay where people are not so good at getting around fast-recovery projectiles.
First off: they killed all hype, and hope for that game when they announced the 3rd comeback mechanic.
And @1 and everyone agreeing with him, the majority of players doesn't mean sh*t, when most of them don't know what they are doing. You can't ask people who aren't good at the game, to balance it. You would end up with ryu and ken being overwhelmingly the best, and most of the characters, would be flat out ignored. The majority doesn't know sh*t when it comes to balancing, you want the highest level of players to judge the game, because they know the game well enough, to tell right away, whether a characters changes, are going to help, or whether they are sufficient. I can't believe there are really people here who think that we deserve the right to balance the game...... This country hasn't even learned how to play Yang properly, we have no business testing anything.
@16
Very well said.
I play at an Arcade bar in US at a regular basis, and I have to say that I am OVERWHELMINGLY THANKFUL that Capcom is not hiring the players at my Arcade Bar to be testing AE-2012.
The reason why Capcom is asking Japanese to test the game is because they want to keep SSF4 as "Super STREET Fighter 4."
Asking the 60% of North American users to be testing the game will turn "Super STREET Fighter 4" into "Super SCRUB Fighter 4"
LOL @ people complaining how Capcom listens to Japan more than us.
If they listened to America then Guile, Balrog, Bison, Blanka and Gief would get nerfed to hell. Seth and Viper would lose their tools.
Seriously, when most people say "Yang isn't that bad" then why are you suprised Capcom doesn't acknowledge us?
Oh, and 1 more thing. That 60%? They play at home, maybe 10% of THAT goes to arcades on a regular basis to play. There is no way we are getting a console release of the location tests, so tell me why we should be the ones testing again, when Japan has far more high level players, and far more players who actually go to arcades, every day, and play with other people. Americans play online, and you're not getting an online release of the beta changes.
if ono would listen to people and take off the gem system or make it optional not to pay with it like people ask for then people would change their mind about SF X T
@22
'Us NA players are so stupid we...'
So essentially you just called yourself stupid. Way to go, bud.
@13
I agree with guile but sagat is harder for sure. His execution is as simple as they come but you gotta know what your doing. Now Bison is a character that really needs to a learning curve in 2012. I like his character and would play him if he wasn't so easy to use. fyi im not a sagat player. Viper, Seth, Gen, Fei, and Yun for me.
you guys fail to notice that more than half of the PS3 users have alternate accounts... I know people who have 4 accounts for SF4 only to test different chars in ranked. that boosts the numbers.
Capcom games always trash? People are needlessly hostile with Ono... have you ever taken a look at his Twitter? People are abusive and then demand (not ask) for things.
People should be nicer :D.
lol at acting like japan knows about balance because if they do these changes so far have been trash.
Also would like to point out that over in the SRK rebalance thread they translated what some japanese wanted for balance lets just say this C. Viper would be so nerfed it would be on Sean's level.
Oh yeah lol at thinking winning with Guile is easy see how far that gets you in an actual tournament.
Capcom should balance the game for the highest level only; and even then they should be very careful about each and every change. Starcraft remained competitive because Blizzard really thought about each change very carefully. Hopefully SF can become competitive along those lines (even though there is so much more to balance).
In the future Daigo should also be very careful as to what he says regarding the characters. As you can see, he really started the whole USA anti-Yun army.
There are zero high-level Yun players in the USA: which makes up 60% of the player base - and yet Yun is considered overpowered; scrub tier; and broken by 59.9% of these players. Where are they getting these ideas? lol, surely not through results of tournaments, online play, or anything competitive!
Thankfully, Capcom realizes how scrubby and whiny the US is, and is using Japanese input instead.
Imagine Japan being out of the picture for AE edition... Would Yang and Yun be getting buffs?
Meants to say, a lot of these comments are really really stupid.
Japan Vs USA huh? Its gang warfare, this time its online and not red or blue. Either way as GAMERS we should know enough to not stoop to being so petty....WHO CARES!!! I got bills to pay, women to swoon, ex-wives to avoid...and all the while im online playing a game. Well not when I "swooning".
But these conversation always degrade into the most petty of things.....
Refer to this for game balancing it's pretty much an audio form of what #16 said but with more examples, it starts at 11:11.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hctq5Z...
I have a feeling consoles and online games have spoiled the FGC and have made NA players worst isntead of better. Online is a terrible place to get good at high levels due to lag and the inability for many states to play online with other pros across the country due to that lag.
It's not that we don't have the potential to do better, we just don't have the resources. Japan is not some magical city that is good at games simply because; they are human like us but they have access to everything they need do to the small community they have in a small country, thats why the perentage of SF players there is small. But that small percent is hella good.
Until every person in the FGC gets serious and starts building a stronger community and stop trolling and bashing on eachother, we will NEVER get good enough to compete nationally.
@11
im with you on that, i hope they come out with another movie of sf, and not many will agree with me but i want a st x tk movie, wether it be 2d or 3d i dont know which i prefer on this one...
i just hope if they make a new movie, anime or what have you, they make it good...and balanced.....i cant stress that enough, i dont want kazuya or jin throwing ryu off of cliffs.....i dont want to see a one sided match because of promotional use :/
@39
"Until every person in the FGC gets serious and starts building a stronger community and stop trolling and bashing on each other, we will NEVER get good enough to compete nationally."
Probably the best post on this site. To bad that's not happening because people enjoy being dicks.
@Grimmjow316
You main Zangief on PSN??
WOOOOOWWW. Tekken fans need to STFU SF does way better in game sells and gameplay system. Im more worried about the tekken version. Seems like thier gonna blow major DACK!! SF characters dont belong in the tekken world or maybe we'll see a mkvsdc again. Side step to avoid projectiles etc or straight punchs. Tk might be f#cked i think
K then I have you added so send me a msg I usually play at night due to my job any other time my bro is playing.
If NA is such an important market then put some ggpo/gdlk netcode or something in your products...
If the half decade old 360/PS3 is hindering that then change the platform to PC where succesful cometitive gaming dwells.
yea yea I know they would never do that :(
@13
The majority of games won by Guile XD
It's very hard to tell about which level of skill or scrubbyness you're talking about but on a very low level it's the throw "mixup" that gives people a hard time. The die by being thrown or, in reverse, being wakeup srk'ed. And what kind of characters have a braindead easy mixup game involving throws? The divekick characters like the twins or Rufus for example. So even on an low level everyone knows how to dive kick an the easy presuure that results is nowhere close to the zoning und antiair skills you need to be successful with Guile in match against half of the cast that can easily get close to Guile and cross him up and bait flashkicks till he's dead.
Can we all just play games for what they are instead of bashing on every thing that companies do.
and these 10% (even less when it's only japan) get the only voice when it comes to rebalancing? that's kind of unfair.