On The Fence: Street Fighter X Tekken

I'm having a hard time getting excited about Street Fighter X Tekken as we get mere weeks away from release. Reading that was probably a shocker to those who know me personally.

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the cast selection thus far, the gems system looks like a promising way to promote depth and exploration and the combo system looks exciting. I guess it's not really the game so much as Capcom that has me weary about the whole thing.

While I think Street Fighter X Tekken will be fun in the beginning, I think Capcom has their eyes on making it a money pit. They've discovered once again thanks to the success of updates such as Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 that they can safely squeeze extra dough out of the fighting game community as needed.

I know Yoshinori Ono has stated that another disc update for SFxTK is unlikely but can you really believe him? Many people regard his online activity as master internet trolling to say the least. While I don't necessarily agree, he has been known to be pretty misleading.

I was okay with the Sony versions of the game getting a few extra characters, but when I read that the Playstation Vita version was being delayed in order to add an additional 12 characters, that just screams to me that there will be a "Super Street Fighter X Tekken" down the line for the console ports. On top of this we have Gems DLC, alternate costumes and who knows what else we'll have to shell out for to keep our copies up to date (a majority of which is probably already on the disc I might add).

Thanks to the Super and Arcade Edition updates, as well as costumes, my investment in the Street Fighter IV series alone is probably....well, I don't really want to think about what I've spent on that series. And I don't want to do it again.

Sure you can say just don't get the updates. But if you want to keep up with the tournament scene you pretty much have to pay up. Heck, even just being an online warrior exclusively demands that you pay for any possible updates just to stay with the main population of the game.

Now I'm usually for the expansion of a game that I love. It keeps things fresh and the user base interested. My problem with Capcom is that they're pushing their expansions a bit too fast. I don't want to pay for a 20 dollar expansion a mere 6 months after the initial release. You have to let a game stew with it's community for a while first. One of the more annoying things about fighting games now are changes made to characters because of the "theory" that they're broken rather than giving time to see if their so called "broken-ness" holds out in the long run. I'm looking at you Mortal Kombat.

Of course I may be jumping the gun a bit. I'm just thinking long term and also looking at Capcom's recent track record. I felt like Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was more greed related than giving service to the hardcore fans. I feel like what they added could have been done with DLC rather than a new disc. Who's to say a future update to SFxTK will be "too much for DLC" and we'll be forced to buy another 39.99 disc?

Speculation aside, only time will tell just what sort of an investment this new series will be. I will say that my hands have a much firmer grip on my wallet this time, Capcom.