Are these the faces of next-gen fighting? (Click to enlarge)

Okay, I’ve made no attempt to hide my distaste for countdown timers and announcements of when announcements would be made, but yet again another high profile developer has done both. And for me at least, failed to deliver on ANY of the hype. It all started with an announcement that Monster Hunter 3 (originally scheduled to be a PS3-exclusive) jumped ship completely and was going to the Wii. Capcom’s Senior Directory of Strategy *cough, cough* then said “Let’s see how they feel at the end of next week about us.” on the Capcom forums in response to fans that felt Capcom had slighted them. Then, on October 12, Capcom started a countdown timer. The countdown date seemed to coincide with comments made previously. Then GameSpot leaked the news that Bionic Commando was being remade (Yay??) and people were all like “Is that it? It’s coming to multiple platforms, is that why PS3 owners would change their mind about Capcom?” No, apparently it’s not. Games Radar (possibly broke the embargo; the article has since been deleted but is available here) and leaked the games: Steet Fighter 4, Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice, Lost Planet (PS3), Dark Void, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD (XBLA), and Wii Love Golf. Still no confirmation which of those was supposed to make PS3 owners happy.

Then the countdown timer ended. The announcement was for Street Fighter 4. No platforms announced, no in-game footage, no indicated release date (or even year). So I’m left scratching my head. Was Lost Planet for the PS3 the thing that was supposed to make us rethink how we feel? I know how I feel. The word is indifferent. I never played Street Fighter or the umpteen variations that came between it and Street Fighter 4, I doubt that’ll change now. So two of those announcements aren’t of interest to me. I didn’t play Lost Planet on the 360 to speak of, so why would I be excited to get an updated version of that? Dark Void? It’s an unknown entity and coming to unannounced platforms. I can’t judge one way or the other, but again… how was this supposed to change the way I feel? I guess I’m more critical on the Charlie Foxtrot that is Capcom PR this week than anything else.

The countdown timer ended this morning. The end of the countdown brought the release of a Street Fighter 4 concept video (that’s the best I can describe it). It doesn’t appear to be gameplay footage and there’s no real information about the game at all. One might assume from the video that we should expect it to be a 3D fighter with stylized cell-shaded graphics, but that’s a huge stretch at best.

The only glimmer of hope I’m holding onto is the fact that the week’s not over yet and the original quote mentioned “the end of next week”. 1UP has said the embargo goes through until the end of the week so maybe there will still be some redeeming info released over this. But in my opinion, this was a very poorly thought out PR move and based by the comments on NeoGAF you either need to change undewear or Capcom is now dead to you. I wonder if that was the intended effect? M to the E to the capital H.

Here’s hoping to the “after embargo ends” news redeeming this waste of attention for the first half of the week. Capcom, you’re a well known and respected developer. You should know better.

[To view the Street Fighter 4 trailer and leave comments in our forum click here]

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