In an interview with IGN Ono says that you won't have to unlock any characters, they'll all be there from the off-set! WOOOOO. Don't know why I'm pumped but yeah.

I don't know if I like this. I always felt like unlocking characters was part of the fun. I can't see Jump Ultimate Stars taking up nearly as much of my time had I not had to spend dozens of hours getting the gems to unlock those characters. 

While I don't mind unlocking characters, I did mind having to do a raindance on a full moon with all perfects just to get the last couple of characters.

Thank frigging god! That was a pretty tedious thing to have to go through and I don't think it really has a place in online fighters.
 
I think we will still have to unlock the different colors, though:
"There are other ways to keep people playing, other things to unlock – it doesn't have to be characters [...]" 

I don't mind unlocking colors or...
 
COSTUMES!
 
Seriously, I do hope they make costumes the thing to unlock, rather than trying to make money off of them. 
 
(I didn't buy the costume pack, and nobody should.)

" @AgentJ: Character unlocking is horrible and time-consuming, not to mention a hassle for tournament organizers everywhere. "

I think it depends on what the criterion is for unlocking in just about any game.  If it feels like a natural progression from being a novice to knowing what you're doing, and that's what unlocks stuff, OK.  If you have to do really, really hard stuff, the reward should be good, but I don't think basic gameplay and actual CHARACTERS should be shut off because of this.

" @AgentJ: If there was an option for it, who would not select that option? (stupid question, I guess you wouldn't) As long as there weren't achievements associated with unlocking characters I wouldn't mind toggling that option, but if there were of course I'd have to go beat the game with everyone and get exactly 17 perfects and 240 first attacks. PFFT.  There were plenty of unlockables in SFIV, the characters were arguably the easiest to get. You should try getting all the titles and icons, pretty ridiculous. "

Just look at how Soul Calibur 4 does things.
 
Yes, they do make you unlock the characters, it is a much easier process than SFIV. But most of the time I've spent on the game was to unlock the various customization options. I guess Tekken, VF5 would be other games that have this as a way to give incentive to players to play longer

I think SFIV had similar items to collect, though in a lesser degree. And didn't necessarily need to have the rather annoying character unlock process. I don't think SSFIV needs to have customizable items on the characters. But I think they can created a lot of challenges and goals that pertain to color unlocks, taunts, which they have done, and costume unlocks, which they have not done.
 
Costumes are wholly unnecessary, as I haven't found the need or want to purchase them, but it would be great incentive to make me play the game some more. (Not that the lack there of, ever stopped me) 
 
I think it doesn't even need to be 1 challenge or 1 fight to unlock them.
 
How about a multiple requirements?
 

For example...
 
To unlock Ryu's alternate costume. 
 
1. Finish story mode on medium or higher.

2. Win X amount of times.
 
3. Perform X amount of Ultras.  
 

 Then again this is probably far and beyond what companies are willing to do I suppose.

Having to unlock characters is so damn outdated, they should just all be there from the get go.

" I don't know if I like this. I always felt like unlocking characters was part of the fun. "

I hate unlocking shit, and doing tedious shit to unlock it. Why do you think I haven't unlocked any characters in Street Fighter IV?

Thank god. I haven't liked unlocking characters in a fighting game since Soulcalibur on Dreamcast, and the only reason I liked it there is because I was thirteen or something. Also, the music was boss.

This is very good. My regular SFIV save data got corrupted (and thus, I lost all the characters), and I really didn't want to play through arcade mode with everyone just to unlock Seth again. 
 
Unlocking works in a game like Smash Bros, where part of the fun is finding out who was put into the roster, but in a game where the entire roster is revealed beforehand it doesn't work.

" This is very good. My regular SFIV save data got corrupted (and thus, I lost all the characters), and I really didn't want to play through arcade mode with everyone just to unlock Seth again.   Unlocking works in a game like Smash Bros, where part of the fun is finding out who was put into the roster, but in a game where the entire roster is revealed beforehand it doesn't work. "

" @animateria: I'd personally rather just pay a couple bucks for another shoto costume pack than beat arcade mode with all the shotos numerous times meeting requirements. Maybe I'm just jaded at this point but I would absolutely love this game to have no unlockables at all, so I could just have everything and begin playing. "

There goes alot of the replay value.

Nothing worse than bringing a predominantly multiplayer game home, grabing a few controllers each and having question marks where characters should be, or an incomplete setlist. We just want to play, not have to come back tomorrow when it's all open.

" @AgentJ: Character unlocking is horrible and time-consuming, not to mention a hassle for tournament organizers everywhere. "

" You never do stop with these fucking endless SFIV threads do you? "

Sweet. I won't have to waste another 15-30 minutes just to unlock Gouken again.

" There goes alot of the replay value. "

Either way, people will moan. People dislike having to unlock characters, but when you can't (as in the MVC2 port) people bitch about having nothing to do. -_- I'll enjoy not having to unlock the characters. Pain in the ass, not fun, and a waste of time.

" Either way, people will moan. People dislike having to unlock characters, but when you can't (as in the MVC2 port) people bitch about having nothing to do. -_- I'll enjoy not having to unlock the characters. Pain in the ass, not fun, and a waste of time. "

" Either way, people will moan. People dislike having to unlock characters, but when you can't (as in the MVC2 port) people bitch about having nothing to do. -_- I'll enjoy not having to unlock the characters. Pain in the ass, not fun, and a waste of time. "

Unlocking characters is stupid and archaic, glad they see that. If they wanna throw in goofy bonus uniforms or something, that's a much better thing to unlock. If "hardcore" players need to prove how awesome they are by doing X task, give them a fancy gold uniform or whatever the hell. But I payed to play with all the characters so give em to me.

While I did have some fun and it extended the time I spent playing arcade mode to unlock characters, I have no problem with them being unlocked from the get go. I hope in Super you'll have to do something like complete the arcade mode on hardest differculty with a character to unlock an alternative costume for them, I think that would be cool. It would mean you're serious about a character enough to go through with the bother. I sure hope they don't make costumes DLC again. I didn't buy the costumes in SFIV as I took a stance to do my little bit against these sort of things in games.
 
I was fine with doing the trials to unlock the colours and taunts, that was alot of fun to do.

The online aspect let me play more than 4,500 games online bwahahahah! (replay value). Without online.. well I got used to it so I wouldn't be playing as much without online ^^;

" There goes alot of the replay value. "

" You never do stop with these fucking endless SFIV threads do you? "

Unlocking characters has always been a chore in any fighting game.

"Unlocking characters has always been a chore in any fighting game. "

" @ColumnBreaker said:

"Unlocking characters has always been a chore in any fighting game. "

But in some games it actually is warranted, like in Super Smash. "

Reminds me of all the songs being unlocked at the beginning of The Beatles Rock Band.
I like the concept in both games.

" You never do stop with these fucking endless SFIV threads do you? "

as a tekken player, i approve this 100%

@HitmanAgent47 said:

"@lordofultima: I don't go online for multiplayer games these days. I guess I like unlocking things and getting value out of the game.  Maybe they should give you an option of you want the characters unlocked or not. "

So, you don't play actual people in Street Fighter? That seems a bit counter-productive, seeing as the A.I. cheats and is awful at the same time.

"

@HitmanAgent47 said:

"@lordofultima: I don't go online for multiplayer games these days. I guess I like unlocking things and getting value out of the game.  Maybe they should give you an option of you want the characters unlocked or not. "

So, you don't play actual people in Street Fighter? That seems a bit counter-productive, seeing as the A.I. cheats and is awful at the same time.

"

Thank god. Anyone who says unlocking characters is "fun" or give any other reason why it should exist are wrong.

I always found unlocking characters as a badge of honor (or probably more like ability to endure tedium).  I'm not crushed that it'll be gone, but I was never bothered by it that much.

Good, character unlocking is old hat, there's little pleasure to be gained from it. Gamers just wanna play from the get go, so they should let them.

" This is very good. My regular SFIV save data got corrupted (and thus, I lost all the characters), and I really didn't want to play through arcade mode with everyone just to unlock Seth again.   Unlocking works in a game like Smash Bros, where part of the fun is finding out who was put into the roster, but in a game where the entire roster is revealed beforehand it doesn't work. "