The Street Fighter IV Box (That You Won't Hold This Year)

I can't speak for these other philistines we work with, but Jeff and I have made no secret about how excited we are for Street Fighter IV. But between the dearth of available arcade machines--due to a lack of domestic release and the ludicrous costs associated with importing Japanese units--and Capcom's crushing admission that the console versions won't be out until sometime next year, it's been hard for me to keep my excitement from turning to heartbreak. (Then again, we hear the SF State campus arcade has a machine at $0.75 a play, so maybe we'll be taking a little field trip in the near future. Anybody checked that out?)

At least now we have something to fawn over. Capcom's Unity blog made the wait a little harder this morning by unveiling the box art for both versions, which, you may remember, will be totally identical. No platform-specific characters. Props to Capcom on that one. Oh yeah, the art.

I say to Capcom thanks, but no thanks on that awful box art. If I wanted Photoshop difference clouds over my artwork, I would do it myself.

The only arade machines you'll find where i live are in bars and then we are taling about OLD arcade machines.
My only alternative then waiting on the Home version is to have a field trip of roughly 4000km

That is some terrible box-art.

Got to agree with MrJared on the artwork.  Not impressed at all.  Even in SFII for the SNES they would show some kinda action.  Completely missing in IV unless you count  the posing mildly threatening.

instead of just putting Chun-Li  on the front cover, they should've just put a collage of characters on the cover. that would've been more appealing becuase Chun-Li was never a major role in the SF franchise

I have been playing SF IV at SoCal since last month - may go again later this week. As for the box art, it seems fine, but it would be cool if they released covers for each character being front and center like Chun-Li (The Europe box art is better too).

How about something like this? Is Akuma even in Street Fighter 4?

Oh come on, the box art isn't that bad. If anything, I wouldn't have liked a simple collage of characters. Too cliche in my opinion. I will admit this cover doesn't exactly jump out at you either. We all know who the stars of SF are to the general public: Ken and Ryu. Perhaps a simple ink-style painting of the two locked in a fight would have been better.

I'd bet that there will be seperate covers for each of the characters. Collect them all at fifty quid a go! 

dtran1212 said:
"Chun-Li was never a major role in the SF franchise"

whaaaat?!!!!

I'm excited for the game. Though I was never that huge of a Street Fight fan (Darkstalkers!), I will be picking this up and also some Hori sticks in the next year. I would've gotten some sticks when SCIV came out, but I realized too many games were coming out. But hopefully I get that promotion I'm interviewing for.

Nothing wrong with the box-art. It's Ryu and Ken fighting for Chun Li's affection. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Dude, there's one at SF state. I am so there!!!!!!!!

I don't think the cover looks poor or bad at all. I simply don't see what all the fanboys are crying about. Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li are probably the most well known SF characters... though Blanka is also very recognizable. Not to mention a needed primary color to offset the blues, and red.

EDIT: Also the 360 version looks slightly more horizontally centered than the PS3 art.

The box art is okay, but I wish it was better. It doesn't really scream "DUDE! STREET FIGHTER IS BACK! BUY THIS"! I had no idea they added that subtitle to the Street Fighter movie, but considering that Kristen Kreuk is playing Chun Li, I'm totally okay with it. However, it does give me the feeling that the movie will play a much heavier focus on Chun Li and will probably kinda suck, but... dude... Kristen Kreuk...

I dont care if the cover art was just Street Fighter IV written in Times New Roman I want it this year!

Meh.  Looks bad.  Whatevs, still looks like a good game.

It's not a bad cover art; It's a questionable cover art. Chun Li's alright, but the huge emphasis on her is really off-setting. I think it would have benefited if Ryu and Ken were MUCH bigger and placed facing each other on the left and right sides.

I don't remember anyone making such a fuss when Zangief was the cover boy for SFA3.

I could care less about box art. Get the game on consoles already!

I believe the artists over at Capcom could make a much, much better box art. But hey, whatever right?

THE BOX ART SHOULD HAVE ALL THE CHARACTERS ON IT!!!!! AND CRAZY PAINT BRUSH EFFECTS!!!

Hot chicks sell, this is nothing new. It makes sense even if we don't like it. Ivy is on the Soul Caliber 4 cover. I quite like the cover but I agree with the person that suggested they should have covers with each character, I'd like to have Blanka on mine.

Any ideas about special editions or LEs?

That's disappointing.

Box art kinda sucks imo. Would have prefered something more INSANE AND ART-SPLOTCHY, like the first trailer was.

Hey, its that game based on that movie with the one from Smallville in it, can't wait to play it!

Chun Li was my best character in II and also my favorite, but I have to admit that this "pimpage" is getting a little out of hand, but, hey, at least she's fully clothed (for now).

Shit sucks, use the arcade poster instead - anything but that box art.

I wish there were more fighting games these days. The art is..okay, but I could definitely be better. I hope they don't think it needs a female on the cover to sell.. Soul Calibur as tainted fighting games in that aspect.

I'm still hoping we get this before xmas, I don't even care what the cover looks like. Although its not bad, I agree it should have been Ryu vs. Ken.

What's up with publishers and putting out shit boxarts? Honestly, I don't know what it is, but come on... the arcade poster looks a thousand times better than this.

I wonder if publishers are even in touch the people who want to buy their games with the way they market them, because it looks like a bunch of morons are doing the work.

For fucks sake, when people think of STREET FIGHTER, what do they think off? Ken and Ryu, not Chung-Li, unless you're a hentai.

The only SFIV marchines are either way up north(San Jose, San Fransisco) or down south(LA). Just one more thing to add to the list of why living in the Central Valley sucks.

My official stokeness for SFIV on a scale of 1 to 10 is currently at fucking drooling.

Now that I've seen the arcade poster, a retouched version of that would have looked better... but the people trying to say that the current one looks BAD are seeing it through biased eyes. The official box art looks _fine_, if a little too blue in the sky for how dark the ground art is.

Geez, just because Chun-Li is front and center on the box art, suddenly Capcom is pandering?  Since when was it somehow dirty to put a popular female character on box art?  It looks fine to me.

Capcom just wants to remind everybody that Street Fighter has chicks with smoking hot bodies too.  Just like all the other fighting games out there.

I love Chun-Li because she has been my favourite fighter thruought the whole series and i love the colors that are on the cover. idk i geuss its just how thw blue blends in with teh clouds to make that feel to the game that makes this series so awesome to me! =)

The cover art looks pretty weak but I plan to pick this up. Not because I'm a big fan of fighting games (I tend to be really bad at them) but because I really want to support such a daft initiative to resurrect a dead genre and franchise. Good job Capcom, hope it pays off.

Oh man, many an hour was spent on the SSFIIt 3D0 version by me. Can't wait for the HD version.

Meh. At least they have enough time to change it.

I would prefer someone else on the cover to Chun-Li, although the picture of Ryu on my European version looks a bit down-syndromed. Meh, the cover will just have to go in the shelf right quick and the disc in my 360 so I don't have to look at them.

Just to let everyone know, over on the Kotaku .com site, they are saying that the box art is ugly...


...And because of this, Kotaku has lost 50,000 credibility points...

But yeah, this Box art is real nice...

I don't really like the box art...I like the style but I'm not a fan of the character blown up on the front.  Then again I'm not really into that series at all so maybe that character holds more meaning for somebody who is.

Chun Li is also pimped (in a good way, mind you, filthy minds *tsk tsk*) in Megaman 9. She's the news anchor person in the intro!

There's one at my local arcade... then again I'm in Hong Kong... I guess that doesn't help,

Boo!!! She's not in the shower!

Pretty bad cover. That said, at least there's no IGN watermark on it.

Ive played this quite alot already. I would still say 3st is the better game, but maybe I just have to give sf4 alittle more time (or wait for the inevitable upgrade).