When Super Street Fighter IV was originally revealed, it was not slated for arcades. But Street Fighter and arcades are inseparable, people said. Those people were right.
Earlier this March, Super Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono told Kotaku that the company had no plans for an arcade release because Capcom felt that there was not enough support among arcade owners for a release. For an arcade release to happen, Capcom would need to receive thousands of orders.
"What changed," Ono told Kotaku in April, " was that I was in the middle of lobbying various branches of Capcom for the capital to release the game to arcades" in March.
Then the orders starting coming in as well, he said at the time. "Now it looks like we can make enough money off of the release to warrant an arcade version."
And this is what it looks like.
A Street Fighter title that does not get an arcade release just doesn't seem like a full-on, proper Street Fighter. SSFIV is a proper, full-on Street Fighter without the release. It hitting arcades sweetens the deal.
All right, here we go [Twitpic Thanks, Justin!]