Capcom has delayed the release of Super Street Fighter IV, Lost Planet 2, and Monster Hunter 3 (Europe and North America) for financial considerations. The games were set to be released in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter, which ends on March 31, 2010. Instead, the games will be released during its next fiscal year to spread out earnings, which is great for shareholders but sucky for gamers.
Idealistically, I hope the additional time allows for more polish and features to creep in. From a financial standpoint, the move makes total sense. I’m actually surprised the industry didn’t see more release manipulation in 2009 considering that the entire world knew that the economy was dire and wasn’t getting better any time soon.
I’m a little bummed that Super Street Fighter IV won’t be available to me in March, but something tells me that I’ll have my hands full with a little game from Square Enix. Any of you disappointed by the delays?
:( I was really looking forward to LP2 in the spring. At least this means my wallet will feel better and hopefully they will announce something about the PC version. (like making it a Windows Live title)
I really am looking forward to Super Street Fighter IV, and as much as I love Capcom, I hope they take the extra time in development as a reason to raise the price point. I would buy it at $60 dollars anyway but it was nice to hear that a company wasn't going to charge us too much for DLC, Yes ODST I am looking at you.
When are people going to come to the realization that delays are the greatest thing that can happen to gamers. And no, I'm not talking about "Duke Nukem Forever" delays (Thank you, TheJediRevan for the link to the article, BTW), I'm talking about "it's coming out next year" (and it really does) delay.
Delays allow for gamers to play more games before the game they want comes out. Because all of these games that were supposed to come out this year (2009) have been delayed until 2010, it gives me time to play more games from 2009 (and before) that I otherwise would not have played had they come out on time. There are already too many great games to play that I welcome delays so that I have more time to play.
Second, I think that gamers (and people in general) could use some training in the fine art of patience. Patience, after all, is a virtue. Yes, I know you want to play Modern Warfare 5 right now, but you're just going to have to wait until 2014 to play it. There is nothing you can do about it (unless you are on the development team, in which case: hurry the hell up!). Since there is nothing you can do to affect the outcome of a game coming out on time, you might as well surrender to the fact that it will come out when it comes out despite your feelings. In which case, why bother getting so worked up about something that is beyond your control. Let it go and direct your energy to doing something that is within your control… like cleaning out your rain gutters or something. I mean, c'mon, seriously, when was the last time you cleaned them? There's probably a colony of squirrels living in the pipes right now.
Lastly, delaying a game will only give the developers more time to polish the game and/or publishers more time to finalize their marketing strategy and global logistics to make sure that everything goes smoothly. How many games have you played where you think to yourself: "Gee, if they only had a few more months to clean those texture pop-ins or smooth out the frame rate, this game would be better"? Polish at the tail-end of the development cycle can be the line between great game and not-so-great game. Besides, it’s in the publisher’s best interest to get the game out the door as quickly as possible. The return on their investment diminishes for every day that the game is withheld, so to hold the game must mean that there has to be a really good reason for it, because no company wants to delay profits. So if the people who have money on the line with a title can wait, so can you.
-M