14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer Capcom might have been the leader of a fighting game revival for the last few years but the company believes that going forward it will be hard to mine the past looking for more 2D classic that can be remade for downloadable service in the future.
Christian Svensson, who is the senior vice president of strategic planning and business development at Capcom, told forum users that, “The consumer expectation bar has moved considerably. The costs of doing a project like that today, with the attention to detail and features that Street Fighter 3: Online Edition had, it would be difficult for sales forecasts to shoulder.”
The developer says that we would like to see more old games remade with support for High Definition graphics and with better online support but the development process can be complex.
Speaking about the relaunched Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Svensson added, “I’m happy with the outcome (critically, community wise, sales wise) but it was a really hard tightrope to walk and some points in development were really scary. Like when we threw away about 2,500 frames of animation in various stages of completion because we weren’t happy with them and started again.”
The problem with remaking classic fighting game installments is that fans would like to get the same experience from them now as they did in the past and it is hard to deliver mechanics that can rival with the power of nostalgia.
At the moment Capcom is looking to the future and is working on a massive cross over with Namco Bandai, which will see a March release for Street Fighter x Tekken on the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, the PC and the PlayStation Vita.
Some gamers have blamed the company for the fact that it chooses to remake some classic titles rather than focus all its resources on new products.