Street Fighter x Tekken x Street Fighter Catch All.

New trailer showing off some of the tag features, as well as 4 new characters:

http://shoryuken.com/2011/08/15/game...

Hugo's no surprise after Poison was confirmed. Kuma was already revealed in a teaser. Ibuki is a good addition as always. I never played Raven much in Tekken, but I read he was a crazy combo character in Tekken 5. I haven't ever seen him show up in tournaments though.

Still hyped, this looks like fun. After the burn that is Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 though, I'm not going to buy this on day 1. I'll wait for the inevitable Hyper Street Fighter x Tekken.

More gameplay:

Wow, no updates posted since August? I hope I don't have the wrong thread...

Lots of new character reveals! Holy cow, this is looking better and better. I may rethink my day 1 purchase decision now that I can do a combo of Jin (and possibly Devil Jin) and Juri.

and gameplay:

My early childhood was ruled by Street Fighter, in my teens I got into MK and Killer Instinct...then I found solace in Tekken. This is definitely a title I'm interested in, BUT, I'm holding out for Tekken x Street Fighter, as I've grown accustomed to 3D fighting. I'd be lost without my sidestepping.

Dark Xiaoyu? Is that a thing?

That's the Pandora system, you can sacrifice your second character to give your current character a power boost. If you don't win in the time limit though, you lose immediately.

Watching some of the most recent videos for this game, I am officially exited. A great character line up, mixing stuff up a bit with the gem system, adding a crazy four player (at once!) mode, the complete package looks like a formula for fun. Maybe not the best fighter from a tournament level perspective - although I haven't read much from that scene about it yet - it looks like something I can fire up with friends and have a good time.

Are people getting the Capcom version, the Namco version, or both? I'm still not sold. The last two fighters I picked up I have barely played. Part of that probably has to do with moving my 360 to the main living room instead of the basement but part has to do with getting burned out on the amount of practice required.

Capcom version is coming out first. The Namco version hasen't even released any media yet.

As for me, I'm just kind of going to wait and see. It looks like a lot of fun but judging by how little utility I've gotten out of MvC3, it's going to be a tough sell.

What Oily said, which means this really ought to be split off into a Street Fighter x Tekken Catch All, but that can wait for release.

Lupus, the Gem system has the tournament scene worried right now. Capcom has said it'll be fine, but there hasn't been enough playtesting yet to see how it'll actually play out. Gems can give you a significant advantage, particularly for a really skilled player, so this might not be the next Super SF4. That said, tourneys could just ban gems entirely.

I'm teetering on the edge of buying, but I've barely touched U. MvC 3 so that makes me think twice. If we got the band back together, as Lupus suggested in the SF4 thread, then I'd be more than willing to buy. For playing on my own/online, I can probably wait.

I have mixed emotions about this game. It should be fun, no doubt. But as a fan of both Street Fighter and Tekken, judging from the clips I've seen, this game does not feel like Street Fighter or Tekken. I feel the game doesn't stay true to either franchise. Different engine? It feels more like MvC than anything. I would have rather that the tag system be more like Tekken Tag Tournament and not so much MvC. But I'll reserve final judgement of course until I actually play the game. After all, I don't see how it could work any other way than the way they seem to have done it.

The problem isn't the gem system.

The problem is that different retailers offer different gems and then they'll release new gems as DLC.

You need to think really carefully about whether you should be buying this game at all.

1Dgaf wrote:

The problem isn't the gem system.

The problem is that different retailers offer different gems and then they'll release new gems as DLC.

You need to think really carefully about whether you should be buying this game at all.

Is that the problem from a tournament perspective? Tournaments are always played on closed, controlled systems with specific builds of the game that have everything unlocked/locked. How do the retailer specific gem bonuses affect this?

Why do you advised careful consideration? I mean, basic good consumer behavior aside, what about this game makes you concerned?

Tournament play is going to represent, I imagine, a reasonably small amount of time spent on the game. Most people will be playing online and what restrictions on gems then?

What makes me concerned about the game is, to pinch your line, the lack of good will and concern for consumers. When you have an MP game that sells advantages - whether it's weapons, gems or ways to multiply one's score - you have an example of a dev that, arguably, no longer cares about good games design or, really, its customers.

When I criticise a game, when I find odd decisions in it, I ask myself 'What gameplay purpose could this decision have?'. When you get into stuff like gems, it's very difficult to ask that question because 'designing a good game' - something which provides the best experience for the user - isn't the most important factor anymore.

I've talked about this a lot on the podcast I do with Lupus and others. It's something I do wish people took more seriously.

1Dgaf wrote:

You need to think really carefully about whether you should be buying this game at all.

1Dgaf wrote:

Tournament play is going to represent, I imagine, a reasonably small amount of time spent on the game. Most people will be playing online and what restrictions on gems then?

What makes me concerned about the game is, to pinch your line, the lack of good will and concern for consumers. When you have an MP game that sells advantages - whether it's weapons, gems or ways to multiply one's score - you have an example of a dev that, arguably, no longer cares about good games design or, really, its customers.

When I criticise a game, when I find odd decisions in it, I ask myself 'What gameplay purpose could this decision have?'. When you get into stuff like gems, it's very difficult to ask that question because 'designing a good game' - something which provides the best experience for the user - isn't the most important factor anymore.

I've talked about this a lot on the podcast I do with Lupus and others. It's something I do wish people took more seriously.

I disagree I am not a fan of retailer bonuses and wish they wouldn't exist but I don't think that shows they don't care about consumers or they are not making it a fun game or a game that's designed for the users because this has a great number of characters, seemingly a really good online modes with replays and specatator modes. Maybe I am wrong but I am not seeing the lack of care for the customer from capcom since it seems like a really feature complete game.

1Dgaf wrote:

Tournament play is going to represent, I imagine, a reasonably small amount of time spent on the game. Most people will be playing online and what restrictions on gems then?

Yes, but Lupus' question was specifically about the tournament scene, and that's the question I was responding to.

1Dgaf wrote:

What makes me concerned about the game is, to pinch your line, the lack of good will and concern for consumers. When you have an MP game that sells advantages - whether it's weapons, gems or ways to multiply one's score - you have an example of a dev that, arguably, no longer cares about good games design or, really, its customers.

When I criticise a game, when I find odd decisions in it, I ask myself 'What gameplay purpose could this decision have?'. When you get into stuff like gems, it's very difficult to ask that question because 'designing a good game' - something which provides the best experience for the user - isn't the most important factor anymore.

I've talked about this a lot on the podcast I do with Lupus and others. It's something I do wish people took more seriously.

Gotcha, and I agree, it doesn't seem to serve any good gameplay element. It is also hard to defend Capcom in the arena of customer care when they are releasing multiple fighting games per year, and rapidly abandoning support for older ones when the new ones come out. Personally I'm stuck somewhere between anger and pleasure, because I don't like having a rapid stream of new titles shoved down my throat, but I do like all the new content that gets added. It's impossible to look at something like Ultimate MvC 3 and argue that it is not an insane amount of content for a budget price, but it's also impossible to say that it's all about the customer when the game came out less than a year after it's predecessor.

This is all sounding like a good argument for just going back to the Super SF4 nights we used to have.

Ahrez

I'm guilty of interpreting Lupus' line about 'not great from a tournament perspective' in a way that benefited my position.

I'm a bit confused about your comment on UMVC3. Are you saying that UVMC3 represents great value for a budget price? Because its release pissed me off and, on a related note, cemented my decision to not buy a game guide again.

EDIT:

Lothar

If the company is doing something that makes purchasing decisions more difficult and annoys customers - of which you are one - then just how carefully are they considering the consumer?

It's a bit of a contradiction to say 'I don't like what they're doing' and 'But I think they care about consumers'.

UMvC3 is a great value at a bargain price*

[size=1]*assuming you didn't buy MvC3, which we nearly all did, thus making that new $40 disc $25 more expensive than it should have been.[/size]

Also, for context, I was very excited when I first heard about gems in the game. It's such a clever idea. Then I read what was going on and felt deflated.

I haven't read about the gems other than here. If there are gems in the game that give advantages to people who don't have them I'll be angry about that. I don't buy much for games that require additional pay. I don't buy games (in general) that have micro-transactions. I never buy games for the 360 that have them. If the gems give advantages to people who pay more I'll wait for Namco's.

Regarding Capcom's decision to have gems and making them dlc and having them tip the balance of play toward those willing to pay. I don't think this means they don't care about customers. I do think it means they care more about money than the customers experience. I hate micro-transactions and think they are an especially poor design choice for full priced games.

Right now the gems are just pre-order bonuses, and probably will be DLC in the future. I haven't heard anything about micro-transactions surrounding gems, nor anything about there being tons of gem DLC.

1Dgaf: Yes, I do mean that Ultimate MvC 3, as a product, is a fantastic value for its price. $40 for 12 more characters, refined online modes, fixes to major components of the system (X-Factor), and huge balance changes. It's release window was a huge kick in the balls, I posted some pretty venomous things about it myself, and I'm still not pleased that Capcom chose to release it a mere 9 months after vanilla MvC 3. But it still adds a ton of good things to an already great game, and at a fair price.

oilypenguin wrote:

UMvC3 is a great value at a bargain price*

[size=1]*assuming you didn't buy MvC3, which we nearly all did, thus making that new $40 disc $25 more expensive than it should have been.[/size]

I don't follow your logic. Are you saying that U. MvC 3 should have been $15 DLC like AE was, when AE only added 4 new characters and U. MvC 3 adds 12? That doesn't make any sense.

I'm not saying anybody should be pleased about U. MvC 3, by all means be pissed if it pisses you off. I still think Capcom made some serious mistakes, and they could have had much better reception for U. MvC 3 had they handled it differently. It is the reason I'm hesitant to just buy SF x Tekken, but that doesn't make it a bad product.

UVMC3 balance and system changes should have been free via download. They could have charged for the characters.

From your description, they patched the game and charged you for the pleasure.

EDIT:

Also, it's not good value. At today's exchange rate buying from Amazon UK costs $44.2704.

Others have claimed that it's good value because of the price Capcom have previously charged for DLC characters, but that argument is spurious.

See Ariely's Predictably Irrational for how our perception of price has little to do with the value of a product.

EDIT:

I bought the SSFIV DLC for Yun and Yang. I enjoy the game, but in retrospect my purchase wasn't wise. However I had an emotional attachment to Yun with overrode my critical thinking.

OK, let's say they did that, let's say they patched in the system changes and just charged individually for the characters like they did Jill and Shuma-Gorath. Jill and Shuma are $5 a pop, so that's $60 if I wanted to get all 12 new characters in U. MvC 3. Now we're at $20 more than what they actually charged.

Let's go a step further, say they didn't sell them individually, but instead charged for bundles ala Arcade Edition. $15 nets you 4 new characters. Now it's $45 for all of the new characters, still $5 up from what they actually charged.

I completely disagree that Capcom patched the game and charged me for the pleasure, I think that's your resentment talking. Capcom had a choice between patching the game and releasing tons of DLC characters, or releasing a new boxed product, and they went with the latter. The end result is that the consumer gets more new content per dollar spent than they would have in any other scenario Capcom has tried.

EDIT: How is that argument any more spurious than your claim that they could have charged for the characters as DLC? It's all speculation on what *could* have been. You can't make claims that someone else has a spurious argument when your side of the debate is equally based on speculation.

In the end it comes down to whether or not you liked what was on offer, and obviously you did not. Per your emotional attachment statement for AE, U. MvC 3 offered a lot to me that overrode my anger at how Capcom handled the release. From my point of view I got 12 new characters, all of whom are very interesting and bring something new to the game, at a lower price tag than what prior DLC characters had been going for.

It is resentment and it's righteous indignation. Both are accurate and fair.

I don't think it makes much sense to say "Capcom charged X for this, so it must be better value now they're charging Y", because you're not comparing it to costs for other DLC in the market.

More importantly, Ariely talks about 'anchoring', where the first time a person considers buying a product - say a television - for some reason each TV they see after that will be compared in price to the first one. So if they consider buying an expensive TV, each subsequent one will seem like a great deal, even if the first is over priced.

Our perception of value is f*cked up. I suspect we've all convinced ourselves that a company selling an expensive product at a 'good' price is a deal, but it's bonkers reasoning and has nothing to do with the product at hand.

EDIT:

My assertion - and maybe I didn't phrase it right - is that your reasoning over the value of the product is spurious. I've been meaning to mention Ariely on the show for a long time. I'll make sure to next time we record.

EDIT:

I probably sound like I'm trolling, but I'm not.

I believe you're not trolling, nor am I. I'm trying to present a compelling argument for why U. MvC 3 was a good product that was terribly marketed and presented.

OK, then let's compare to other DLC in the market. Each Mortal Kombat DLC character is $5, or you can get all 4 in a pack for $15. Each BlazBlue CS DLC character is $7, with no option for a bundle deal. Darth Vader for SoulCalibur 4 is $5. I believe those are all the fighting games on the market right now that have DLC characters in them, so using them as a representative sample, the going rate for a single DLC character is $5. It is also safe to assume that if Capcom has charged $5 for characters in the past, then that is likely what they will charge in the future, so it is not reasonable to assume that had the U. MvC 3 characters been available as DLC that they would have been less than $5 (or 4 for $15).

I don't think value anchoring enters into this. There's no cheaper option and only a few more expensive options (BlazBlue CS) to compare to. As consumers there is only one charged amount for a DLC character, and that's $5. If at some point the price for DLC characters becomes $2.50, then anchoring will be a factor. As it stands, I think this is too new a market to say that is a factor.

My counter-assertion is that my reasoning is not spurious, because I took all this into account. Given that there's not enough competition for anchoring to be a significant factor, and there's only one price point for any available DLC character, then the most significant factor must be personal value. Hence, to me U. MvC 3 is a great value, because I get more characters per dollar spent than if I were to buy any other DLC characters, for any other fighting game currently on the market. This value equation will be altered per person depending on their interest level in the offered characters, just as it is always altered by personal values in any purchase of anything.

There's also added value in the new disk. Having all the old game in the new disk with added features makes for a fantastic deal for new buyers, so Capcom, after giving the old players the game, is trying to rope in new players, who can freely play with any of the old buyers who "updated." This is more value for the old players than DLC, because DLC shrinks your audience, whereas the "new CD" model that Capcom is doing has the chance to expand the market and playerbase.

I think the gems, as with any DLC such as new characters, will be a balance between providing value without breaking the game. If they can manage to sell stuff without giving a game breaking advantage, more power to them. Ultimately, if things do swing in that direction, I think the general market will punish them. Sure, they might sell some DLC in the short term, but I'd be significantly less likely to buy any of their future products.

edit: As an aside, I have to admit one of the reasons I'm excited about this title is the hope that they'll get it right the first time and not be releasing a Super Street Figher x Tekken 9 months later.

I remembered something yesterday - I didn't buy SSFIV. I got a promo copy from a friend. That's why I bought SSFIV AE, since I reasoned it was my payment for SSFIV. I don't think I'd have bought otherwise.

Although I didn't mention it earlier, thinking of numbers before a purchase can affect how much we'd be willing to pay something. Broadly speaking, the higher the number the more we'd be willing to pay. Even if we want to buy a kettle and we were thinking about a basketball score.

I see your commercial reasoning Ahrez, but I still think it's ... If not flawed, then short-sighted. I don't just judge a product on how much value I'm getting from it, but how I think the company is treating me and what I want the games market to be.

If a company releases a flawed product, I'd like them to fix the one I bought at no cost. If they do this, they will earn my respect and get my money. I don't agree with fixes being combined with new products, which then makes me regret my purchase and sour my relationship with the company.

And, to comment on Lupus' point, how does one define 'not breaking stuff'? Are we talking balance in a single game? Over a hundred games? After one has had time to unlock a 'free' weapon that is a counter to the paid one?

You want to sell cosmetic stuff, stages, costumes, extra songs, go ahead. Don't f*ck with anything that affects the multiplayer experience.

EDIT:

I'll rent SF x Tekken so I look forward to some games.

There's a difference between short-sighted and acting in self-denial. Not purchasing U. MvC 3 myself was not going to alter the way Capcom does business, because the market has proven to them that it will support their kind of behavior. All I would have been doing was denying myself the enjoyment I wanted to gain from the product.

That said, there's an obvious pattern here, one that points at Capcom not having moved past their SF2 days. This means I won't be buying their new products on day 1, to avoid facing another decision like U. MvC 3.

I don't have a rental account anymore, and see no reason to activate one for just SF x Tekken. If someone posts here that it's the best thing since Juri in Super SF4, then I'll have a second look.

The market has shown it will support their behaviour because the market is full of people that say:

"Not purchasing U. MvC 3 myself was not going to alter the way Capcom does business, because the market has proven to them that it will support their kind of behavior. All I would have been doing was denying myself the enjoyment I wanted to gain from the product."