Report: Piracy to blame for no Super Street Fighter IV for PC

Posted Sep 22nd 2010 12:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Fighting

PC gamers were extremely happy that Capcom decided to port Street Fighter IV to the PC in 2009. So naturally some folks thought that Capcom would do the same for Super Street Fighter IV which adds 10 new characters to the 25 that come from the original. However, if a Japanese web site is to be believed, a PC port is not coming anytime soon.

In a chat with 4gamer.net (and translated by Gamasutra) the game's producer producer Yoshinori Ono stated that while a port of the game would be easy Capcom doesn't want to release the game on the PC due to the high degree of piracy. He also indicated that Capcom could change its mind if it could find a DRM solution for the title. What about using Steam? Oddly, Ono said that's not an option either since Capcom feels it would be unfair for people who can't purchase games via Steam. Ummmm ... Capcom does know that Steam is pretty much the biggest PC game download service there is, right?

Tags: Capcom, street-fighter-iv, street-fighter-iv-pc, super-street-fighter-iv

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Why does everyone complain about PC piracy? I don't have exact numbers but It is no secret that the Xbox 360 has quite a large number of Pirate followers who JTAG and don't buy Xbox 360 games. So Why doesn't the Xbox 360 get penalized? Yet everyone complains so much about the PC piracy Issue. As it currently stands The PC, Nintendo DS, PSP, Xbox 360 all have piracy issues. And It is just getting started on the PS3.
So CAPCOM will you stop making games completely because of Piracy? I am tired of hearing that weak excuse. Piracy will exist as long as computers are on the face of this earth..... no DRM will ever change that.
Posted at 12:25PM on Sep 22nd 2010 by Eroded Fallacy

@Eroded Fallacy, piracy in and of itself is not and has never been an issue. It's piracy relative to sales. That's all that matters or will ever matter.

For instance, say you make a game which cost $10m to make and it sells 25 million, and has 10 million pirated copies. That's a ridiculous number of pirated copies, but 25 million would also net you about $120m. That's $110m profit. With that much coming in, the piracy figure just isn't all that relevant.

Now let's say you make a game that costs $10m and it sells two million, and has 10 million pirated copies. It makes $10m, leaving you with no profit.

In both cases, each game had 10 million pirated copies, but for one game piracy was perceived as a serious issue while for the other it was not much of a concern.

So it comes back to sales. The console versions (of SSF4) are gonna sell in the high hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions, while the PC version is more likely to sell in the high tens or low hundreds of thousands.

That's why you never see Valve or Blizzard complain about piracy. In fact, they do the opposite, but their games get pirated just as much as any other. They just manage to sell 4+ million units, usually higher than most other pc games by a factor of 4-10.

So, sure, the consoles might have as much or even more piracy than on the PCs, but console game x will also sell way, way more on the consoles, in addition to the piracy.

There are other issues to consider, such as a pirated copy not being a lost sale, as many PC gamers pirate games in lieu of a demo, or to see if they like it before they buy, and many other things like that, but the fact remains that console games just sell way more, which is what truly matters.

Piracy is only a relevant figure when compared with unit sales.Posted at 12:46PM on Sep 22nd 2010 by antisocialfatman

*cough* Impulse: reactor *cough*
*cough* Impulse: Reactor *cough*
*cough* Impulse: F***ING REACTOR!!!!!!!!!! .... *cough*Posted at 3:32PM on Sep 22nd 2010 by Fakeassname

1.8 million copies of PCSF4 were pirated....

How many PC gamers bought the game?

Posted at 7:00PM on Jan 27th 2011 by HYUNG LEE

don't you mean: "how many people wanted to buy it but didn't because it was on GFWL and they knew that it would be pointless because you will never find anyone online to fight with that service?"Posted at 3:36PM on Sep 22nd 2010 by Fakeassname

Like anyone wanted a lame console game on the PC anyways. Get over yourselves Capcom. They just didn't want to put the time and effort in to port it when it wouldn't have sold anyway. Nothing to do with piracy. Posted at 5:42PM on Sep 22nd 2010 by Gomer

Good !!

One less ported piece of crap on the market.

come on, SF4 didnt even have mouse support.Posted at 8:44PM on Sep 22nd 2010 by StoOopiD

Capcom will never use steamworks as was said. Theyre actually waiting for the next update of Games for Windows - LIVE. SSFIV is easy for them to port for PC even RE5 DLC but for now they have to pause for a reason.

Piracy was never been an excuse but if the piracy rate is HIGH!? that would be another story..Posted at 11:53AM on Sep 23rd 2010 by GFWL4.0

any way the game is too slow on almost every PC where I tested

http://bit.ly/9Y8N7aPosted at 10:03AM on Oct 24th 2010 by Noxprime