Do you plan on selling additional characters as downloadable content?

We want to avoid doing that. The reason is pretty simple. It’s like someone playing chess, but selling them the bishop separately. So you would have one guy would be without a bishop and one guy would have one. For the sake of the balance of the game we would like everyone on the disc. That being said, we are thinking of doing something as downloadable content. Maybe some things distributed for free. Maybe some things for sale, but they won’t be characters.

For the PC version of Street Fighter IV will you be able to play against Xbox 360 owners? Or will Street Fighter IV only have PC vs. PC and Xbox 360 vs. Xbox 360 play?

We haven’t decided on that yet. It’s certainly something we’re thinking about. A lot of it is going to come down to how LIVE on PC works. They recently announced gold membership for LIVE on PC will be free whereas on Xbox it still costs money. We want to avoid any perception of being unfair and giving PC users preferential treatment or anything like that. This is something we’re thinking about, but not something I can answer right now. It really hasn’t been decided.

Right now we know Street Fighter IV will come out on three home platforms, but have you thought about the Wii at all?

The more people that ask about it, the more likely we are to move in that direction. The very existence of Street Fighter IV was based on people asking about it for so long. If we get a lot of requests it will be something we will think about. It might be difficult to reproduce the graphics exactly as they are, but the gameplay should be completely intact. It’s something we can think about.

All of these efforts attempt to address the issue of input response in a network environment where it typically takes 5 or more frames before joystick input can be transmitted and confirmed from other players. The traditional solution is to keep all clients in a multiplayer game completely synchronized, and to introduce artificial lag to the joystick response to cover latency.

As fans in the online fighting community have aptly identified, input lag is not good for reproducing a true arcade experience.

The solution we use for HD Remix is to eliminate input lag and let players issue moves immediately. We deal with de-synchronization after the fact by identifying conflicts and rewinding the game back to the point where the two clients diverged. This is commonly referred to as a ‘rollback' technique.

GameSpy: I was reminded of Guy from the Street Fighter Alpha series while playing with El Fuerte. Have you gotten that impression a lot?

Yoshinori Ono: That's definitely not your imagination. We actually thought about Guy when we were making this character. The thing with the Alpha series is that overall it's a very fast game. Much faster than Street Fighter II, right? So Guy had all these cool moves, but the game was so fast that it wasn't really easy to use him to his full potential. The idea behind El Fuerte, in a slower game, is to let you use moves similar to what Guy has in his toolbox, but allow you to use them strategically.

Capcom has a very aggressive digital distribution strategy at play. We still have the highest revenue generating XBLA title on 360 (Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting). We're still the only publisher to simultaneously put out our digital titles on XBLA and PSN.

I suspect we'll soon be the only publisher doing digital distribution across XBLA, PSN and PC with the releases of Bionic Commando Rearmed and Age of Booty (formerly Plunder). Mega Man 9's recent announcement made some waves as our first Wiiware title (and first title to appear on all three first party services). Suffice it to say, our product roadmap in the digital space stretches far off into the future.

“It’s really early to be thinking about that [Street Fighter 5] because “IV” just came out in the arcades,” he said. “I don’t really think anyone at Capcom is thinking about “V” just yet. What we might see happen, depending on feedback from the arcade and what players think of this version of “IV,” we may or may not see upgrades to “IV” before we ever take the next big step to “V.” It’s really is just too early to tell, to be honest.”

“In a perfect world, to me, I still think it would be cool as hell to see Ryu from “Street Fighter” and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat,” said Boon. “I just think it would be cool. To me, “Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter vs. Tekken vs. Virtua Fighter” would be the coolest in the world.”

“The reality is you’re going to have [the other development teams] on the other side of the world,” he continued. “So, who makes it? Who does what? It would be awesome. And who knows what they’re gonna say if this is big. Or someone’s mind is going to open — “Tekken vs. Marvel”? Maybe “Tekken vs. Virtua Fighter.” They’ll just say, screw you, “Mortal Kombat”! [laughs]”

During Comic-Con, Marvel Studios president of production Kevin Feige was asked by IGN if a new Marvel vs Capcom title will soon see the light of day, and he replied, "Yes. And maybe sooner than you think."

Of course, there is no way that Feige's statement above could be a confirmation of a new working title, as much as we hope it was. The last Marvel and Capcom character brawl, which started with X-Men vs Street Fighter in 1998 (US), was the coin-op favorite Marvel vs. Capcom 2 in 2000.

• Crimson Viper 1
• Crimson Viper 2
• Zangief in a Haggar costume
• Ryu without a shirt

1. Crash while joining games has been fixed.

2. Headsets no longer transmit constantly. (Please note: on some Arcade Sticks, the connection to your headset can be a little wonky, so if you're hearing static, check your connections!)

3. Ken’s strong Shoryuken no longer juggles.

4. Ken’s fierce Shoryuken now only juggles for a maximum of 3 hits.

5. Ken’s roundhouse Hurricane Kick now leaves him slightly farther away from the opponent on hit.

6. Default round number has changed to 5 for Ranked and Tournament matches.

7. Win/Loss data now shows up in Player Matches.

8. Game Speed has been fixed to match the original arcade game.

9. Game no longer crashes when trying to select Akuma by the old code.

10. Super Finishes now display correctly in 4:3 mode.

11. Game no longer crashes when signing out during a Tournament.

12. New netcode to reduce lag generate by packet loss.

13. New rewind code that mitigates latency by smoothing out what people see on screen.

The Shadaloo "Crime Syndicate" pack comprises of a t-shirt and fitted cap (made by Estate LA) which will lead up to the main Shadaloo Collection in later Fall 2008. There are two color variations for this quick pre-collection drop; red/royal blue and black. The Vega (Mr. Bison) red/royal blue version will be exclusively released at Comic Con. Both the caps and the t-shirts are limited to 200 pieces worldwide. Expect the black t-shirt and fitted caps to be available soon at Triumvir retailers and in their online store.

Just wanted to drop everyone a line that we're working on a patch and it will have several fixes for the open beta. I'll be dropping details shortly, but the overall experience in the beta will be vastly improved.