The original Street Fighter IV received an excellent port to the PC back in the summer of 2009. So what’s keeping its even-better successor from coming to the same platform?
Pictured: Pirates, snapping Capcom's neck... or did they? It’s not that Super would be a particularly tricky port to personal computers; on the contrary, Street Fighter IV was designed for Taito's Type X2 board, which uses Windows-centric DirectX software, so a PC port wouldn’t be a tricky or time-intensive job for Capcom to undertake. Ono also points out that the original PC version of Street Fighter IV enjoyed “strong sales” worldwide. So, what’s keeping Super off of the PC?
== TEASER ==According to Ono’s interview with 4gamer, piracy is the ”sole” reason the Street Fighter PC ship has sunk, revealing that the PC version of Street Fighter 4 was the most pirated version of the game. If Super was ever going to head to computers in the future, Ono said, the game would need to be bundled with serious copy protection schemes to justify the port. Ono claims that releasing a Steam-only PC port of Super Street Fighter IV isn’t reasonable either; while the move may insure copy protection and hamper piracy, Ono claims that making the title Steam-only is “unfair” to those consumers who use digital distribution hubs other than Valve’s service.
Cody may be a criminal, but not even he can play Street Fighter online without authenticating it. However, it’s Ono’s talk of piracy where that story gets a little bit fishy. I don’t doubt that the PC version of Street Fighter IV was the most pirated version of the game. I do doubt, however, that a pirated version of Street Fighter IV would do anyone much good, pirate or otherwise. After all, the original PC version of Street Fighter IV does have integrated copy protection; in the US, Street Fighter IV is a Games For Windows - Live supported game. If you want to play Street Fighter IV online or save your progress on the PC version of the game, you needed to first authenticate the game online through GFWL, and that includes copies of the game purchased through Steam. Capcom’s Senior Director of Strategic Planning and Research Christian Svensson explained why a pirated PC copy of Street Fighter iV won’t do players much good in a post on the Capcom.Unity forums back in June of 2009.
A pirated version( of Street Fighter IV) won't authenticate on GFWL and thus you can't save your game/progress or play online/hit a leaderboard. At best, the pirated versions are very fully featured demos.
It’s entirely possible that the GFWL authentication was cracked, and that pirates were able to get the full suite of Street Fighter IV content, or that the major piracy occurred outside of the United States, in countries where the game did not ship with GFWL support. But if GFWL authentication is required to add the online play to the game—and make Street Fighter IV a meaningful product on the PC—then why not just do that again? It’s doesn’t look like Capcom and Microsoft are on bad terms when it comes to GFWL support; the upcoming PC version of Dead Rising 2 will require PC players to authenticate the game through Microsoft’s service. And GFWL support hasn’t stopped plenty of other games from appearing for sale on Steam or Direct2Drive.
Or maybe it's not some conspiracy! Maybe it's just that the top Capcom brass can't justify putting Super Street Fighter IV out on a platform where the game can be played for free, even if playing the single player ladder on a profile that can't be saved isn't the optimal way to play that game. At any rate, for now PC game players looking to trade focus attacks will have to do so on the console versions of the game.
The original Street Fighter IV received an excellent port to the PC back in the summer of 2009. So what’s keeping its even-better successor from coming to the same platform?
Pictured: Pirates, snapping Capcom's neck... or did they? It’s not that Super would be a particularly tricky port to personal computers; on the contrary, Street Fighter IV was designed for Taito's Type X2 board, which uses Windows-centric DirectX software, so a PC port wouldn’t be a tricky or time-intensive job for Capcom to undertake. Ono also points out that the original PC version of Street Fighter IV enjoyed “strong sales” worldwide. So, what’s keeping Super off of the PC?
== TEASER ==According to Ono’s interview with 4gamer, piracy is the ”sole” reason the Street Fighter PC ship has sunk, revealing that the PC version of Street Fighter 4 was the most pirated version of the game. If Super was ever going to head to computers in the future, Ono said, the game would need to be bundled with serious copy protection schemes to justify the port. Ono claims that releasing a Steam-only PC port of Super Street Fighter IV isn’t reasonable either; while the move may insure copy protection and hamper piracy, Ono claims that making the title Steam-only is “unfair” to those consumers who use digital distribution hubs other than Valve’s service.
Cody may be a criminal, but not even he can play Street Fighter online without authenticating it. However, it’s Ono’s talk of piracy where that story gets a little bit fishy. I don’t doubt that the PC version of Street Fighter IV was the most pirated version of the game. I do doubt, however, that a pirated version of Street Fighter IV would do anyone much good, pirate or otherwise. After all, the original PC version of Street Fighter IV does have integrated copy protection; in the US, Street Fighter IV is a Games For Windows - Live supported game. If you want to play Street Fighter IV online or save your progress on the PC version of the game, you needed to first authenticate the game online through GFWL, and that includes copies of the game purchased through Steam. Capcom’s Senior Director of Strategic Planning and Research Christian Svensson explained why a pirated PC copy of Street Fighter iV won’t do players much good in a post on the Capcom.Unity forums back in June of 2009.
A pirated version( of Street Fighter IV) won't authenticate on GFWL and thus you can't save your game/progress or play online/hit a leaderboard. At best, the pirated versions are very fully featured demos.
It’s entirely possible that the GFWL authentication was cracked, and that pirates were able to get the full suite of Street Fighter IV content, or that the major piracy occurred outside of the United States, in countries where the game did not ship with GFWL support. But if GFWL authentication is required to add the online play to the game—and make Street Fighter IV a meaningful product on the PC—then why not just do that again? It’s doesn’t look like Capcom and Microsoft are on bad terms when it comes to GFWL support; the upcoming PC version of Dead Rising 2 will require PC players to authenticate the game through Microsoft’s service. And GFWL support hasn’t stopped plenty of other games from appearing for sale on Steam or Direct2Drive.
Or maybe it's not some conspiracy! Maybe it's just that the top Capcom brass can't justify putting Super Street Fighter IV out on a platform where the game can be played for free, even if playing the single player ladder on a profile that can't be saved isn't the optimal way to play that game. At any rate, for now PC game players looking to trade focus attacks will have to do so on the console versions of the game.
Nicely written and researched article - a lot more in depth than a lot of the other outlets which just took the piracy quote and ran that as the story.
Also, surely some sales better than no sales? They'd be almost guaranteed some sort of a return and with a push for more truly multiplatform games from Capcom with more PC releases, this seems like an odd move.
It's true that putting out a Steam-only copy would be unfair to those not on Steam...but not releasing it at all on PC is just being unfair to ALL PC gamers. So what's really worse, in the end?
SF4 was on clearance at most outlets selling the game fairly soon after it came out on PC. I saw it for the same price as the Steam sale of $9.99, which makes me think that it didn't really sell all that well on PC anyway, which is a shame since it is the superior version of the game.
This. There are a multitude of reasons that PC gaming is in trouble, including higher upfront costs, increased weird bugginess, and the increased nerd factor of the whole enterprise.
Piracy might have a minor effect, but to say it is the "sole reason" is absolute hokum, especially in a MULTIPLAYER GAME.
Piracy is largely to blame, but there are certainly other factors playing into the decision not to make a PC port. The target audience has already been tapped and the time and cost to optimize the game for PC just isn't worth it. It's better to have no port than a shitty one that's just a shell of the real game.
Meh, a lot of companies wont say anything about a PC port so people dont wait it out for a PC version.
Also I dont get how its more fair for none of the PC gamers to get it instead of just some via steam. Not to mention its not like its not a large burden..
The piracy thing is weird in this case. He said it was cheap to make a PC version, that it had strong sales, and it actually made them a pretty good profit despite the piracy. So with that in mind, why would the piracy deter him if it wasn't actually enough to deter sales?
And GFWL is worse than you know, Kessler. For new games it's fixed, I think, but for the last couple years GFWL games actually SHARED cd keys. I knew more people than I care to admit who pirated the game and then bought a super cheap GFWL game and played SF4 with all its features without paying a dime to Capcom. That probably hurt them, a lot. FASA got paid, though. The fact that this was even possible puts a lot of blame on Microrosft and their incredibly shoddy service. It's a big part of the reason why so many developers left GFWL after only one or two games on it.
@kessler games for windows live isn't that great.... you could use any games key to active the online in SF4.... meaning you could buy a cheap copy of shadowland (£2) and use the key you got with that to activate the game and let you play online
What a load of shit argument. If the revenue obtained from selling a PC version of SSFIV outweigh the costs of producing it (and that the labor and capital cannot be put to use somewhere where profit will be higher than this case) then there is no justifiable reason not to release it on the PC, regardless of the piracy bogeyman that developers like to throw out as an excuse so often. Whatever, doesn't matter to me, Capcom can suck it, I'll stick to western developers who still release their shit on PC, even if that means choosing Activision over Crapcom.
Piracy isn't the issue. It's never the issue. That's just the main excuse the goes around with why they don't want to port to the PC anymore. If pirates are gonna pirate the game then that just shows that they were never going to buy the game in the first place.
Also, if piracy is such an issue then don't sell the game on the 360 either. The reason why I say that is because the 360 is the 2nd most pirated gaming system. We all know that a lot of people mod their 360's with either a flashed DVD drive or they Jtag it.
With the PS3, the only thing that comes close is the USB jailbreak. There's only two problems with that. If you updated to 3.42 or above then your crap out of luck and there's no PS3 games posted online. Therefore leading to the PS3 being the most protected system out there. This is not something to put down any console and this is not a rant stating that such-and-such console is better than the rest. Just stating a fact.
It still will be released on the PC once people port the arcade version. Capcom's decision only makes so that the only way to play Super Street Fighter 4 will be to pirate it. Capcom is not only hurting their fanbase but themselves as well.
Having it only on Steam would be unfair to other PC players who don't want to use Steam. So instead no one gets the game on the PC. Yeah, that's much more fair...
It's plainly obvious that pirates got around GFLW authentication by hosting their own servers for match-making. Just like World of Warcraft and Warcraft 3 the pirates would be able to reverse engineer the server component of the product and run it themselves. The Capcom answer makes perfect sense. Pirated versions of the game can be played online.
I really love the "well we could put it on steam but that wouldn't be fair to everyone so I guess no PC version." That's like saying "well, we only have enough lifeboats for half of us, so I guess everyone has to die...you know, fairness."
" Ono claims that making the title Steam-only is “unfair” to those consumers who use digital distribution hubs other than Valve’s service."
What PC gamer doesn't have Steam? Steam is great. It's a great program, helps stop piracy, and regularly has amazing sales. C'mon Capcom just put the original Street Fighter 4 on Steam for $10 one week and you'll see how many people would buy it. There is interest.
Steet Fighter 4 also sold very well according to Ono. If it sold well and a port would be extremely easy to make I can't understand why they won't do it. Ok, so it gets pirated but if sales are strong that's money in your pocket. Instead of getting a decent profit, they got none.
First of all, something being Steam only isn't unfair to anyone but dumb people who don't like Steam.
Secondly, the most distressing piece of news in this article is that Dead Rising 2 will ship with the cancerous Games for Windows Live. That shit sucks.
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