CAPTIVATE 08: Street Fighter IV coming to consoles with new content, online play

As you likely already know, Capcom has finally revealed that the Street Fighter IV will indeed be home to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. While Capcom only had near-final arcade builds playable at the event, producer Yoshinori Ono was able to confirm that the title would contain a number of extras not found in the arcade, including online play and fully animated prologues and endings for each character.

Ono was hesitant to get into details on the online play, stating that it's still too early in development to commit to specifics. He was able to confirm standard versus modes as a given, and mentioned that they had "other ideas" floating around. Any sort of SF IV online mini-game is out of the question, though; Ono was very clear that any modes would have to stay true to the essence of the franchise.

When asked about downloadable content as a viable means of updating the title as opposed to iterations (i.e., Street Fighter IV Ultra Mega Turbo), he recognized it as something that "makes sense," but noted that it was way too early to make any sort of real commitment.

The arcade version of the title is just about to gold, and Ono reckons it will make its way to arcades throughout Europe and Japan this summer. (Release within the United States will be rare, due to lack of arcade presence.) The timeframe for the console release is a little hazy, but Ono stated that the team wouldn't be getting a vacation once the arcade version of the game was in the can.

Work 'em till they bleed, Ono ... Santa needs to bring me SF IV this year. 

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