14 DAY TRIAL // Videogame publisher Capcom made a surprise announcement during which it said that some of the most eagerly awaited videogames that it was set to release are now delayed to the fiscal year 2010, which means that they will only be launched at some point after April next year.
This also means that the company will no longer be seeing an increase in revenue this year but that it will be seeing a year over year decline of almost 30%, to a low of about 711 million dollars.
The most important games that are pushed back are Monster Hunter Tri, which is set to arrive in North America and in Europe, Lost Planet 2, Super Street Fighter IV and Dead Rising 2. Capcom is saying that they will all be released in fiscal 2010 but also that their dates will be “spread,” possibly meaning that some will only be launched late in the year or even early in 2011.
The biggest disappointment is for the fighting game community, which was looking forward to seeing what changes the developers at Capcom made to the Street Fighter IV formula in the Super standalone release. We already know that ten new fighters will be introduced: T. Hawk, Dee Jay, Juri, Adon, Cody, Guy, Ibuki, Makoto, Dudley, Hakan and another unknown fighter called Shadow. But Capcom has not yet said what changes will be made to the actual gameplay of the fighting game.
Another blow is the pushback of Monster Hunter Tri. Capcom has been very eager to talk about how the social nature of the game and its combat mechanics, which is being released on the Nintendo Wii, will capture the imagination of Western gamers as it has done with those in Japan, allowing the publisher to get its product to a larger audience.