Street Fighter Film Flops, Capcom Shrugs

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, like the previous Street Fighter Movie, is on its way to taking a drubbing from movie critics and a beating at the box Office. In its weekend debut, the film managed to barely break into the top ten for ticket sales, edged out by Coraline and Paul Blart. In its first weekend in theatres here in the United States, the movie raked in $4.721 million, according to numbers from ComingSoon.com

Meanwhile across town in an abandoned warehouse.. Capcom’s top PR man, Chris Kramer, shrugged off the ticket numbers and the critics’ opinions on the movie in an interview with GameDaily.

“Critics were unkind to the first Street Fighter movie as well, but that film has been ridiculously profitable for Capcom over the last decade, says Kramer. “The original SF movie still generates millions of dollars in royalties for Capcom every year, thanks to cable, foreign distribution, home video, DVD and Blu-ray sales.”

While that may be true it still would have been better if the movie was actually something worth watching. But maybe we were all hoping for too much. I mean, what should we have expected from a movie called “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li?” I hope the next movie based on a Capcom franchise will have a decent screenwriter attached to it, because a well written film + millions of Street Fighter fans = bank.

Microsoft Announces Limited Edition Resident Evil 360

Y’know, it’s been a while since Microsoft has released limited edition 360 to the public. In fact, the last one was green and orange Halo edition 360 a couple of years back. Rumors started popping up a few weeks ago that Microsoft was looking at dishing out another limited 360 edition in honor of the upcoming release of Resident Evil 5. Today, Microsoft confirmed those rumors, detailing the new package.

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Street Fighter IV Ships 2M Copies

The unveiling of Lost Planet 2 wasn’t the only big news coming out of Capcom today. You might have heard of a little game called Street Fighter IV, which was released in the U.S. and Europe last week. Well, Capcom and retailers kinda wanted to make sure you didn’t miss it, if you decided to check it out in store shelves.

According to a statement released this morning by Capcom’s corporate office, the latest entry to the popular fighting game franchise has shipped more than 2 million units worldwide since its release. That accounts for the market in Japan, which sold out within its first week, as well as the markets in both the North America and Europe. Now, that doesn’t mean 2 million copies have been sold, only that they’ve been shipped out to retailers. However, based on the hype behind the game is any indication, people are snapping up the game at a record setting pace.

Personally? I think Capcom owes at least half of those sales to Kyle Orland’s review of the game here at Crispy. Of course, maybe that’s just our own hype machine fueling up.

Capcom Hit with Major YTD Losses

In case you haven’t noticed from all the headlines lately, it’s that time of the year when companies have to report on their progress for the third financial quarter of the year. The most recent game company to step up to the firing line was Capcom, who released details of its year-to-date financials to investors late yesterday. The results were pretty rough, with the company reporting an overall loss of net income totaling a whopping 95 percent. However, things aren’t as bad as they seem, and the company expects to change things by the end of the financial year.

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Street Fighter Invades Little Big Planet

Back when LittleBigPlanet was first launched, fans were going crazy over the ridiculously cute little Sackboys. Then Sony got the bright idea to do a little crossover work, offering up exclusive God of War and Heavenly Sword versions of the LBP mascot to people who pre-ordered the game. Then came word that third party publishers were getting in on the action, with the announcement that Square Enix’s Final Fantasy baddie Sephiroth and Konami’s Metal Gear Solid badass Solid Snake would also be joining the LittleBigPlanet lineup. Now it’s been confirmed today that the fighters from Capcom’s Street Fighter will soon be duking it out in Sackboy form.

Confirming earlier rumors, PlayStation.Blog announced that gamers will be able to celebrate the release of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (try saying that three times fast) with the release of a new costume pack for LittleBigPlanet. The pack will contain all the pieces needed to deck out your Sackboy as World Tournament fighters Ryu, Chun Li, Guile, or Zangief. The costumes will be available on the PlayStation Store starting this Thursday at a price of $1.99 each, or fans can download all four costumes in the Street Fighter Costume Pack for $5.99.

Now all we’ve got to do is sit back and wait for the inevitable LBP videos of Kratos and Chun Li double dating with Ryu and Nariko, while Zangief and Old Snake reminisce about the good ol’ days of gaming.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Released

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is now available on PlayStation Network for $14.99 and November 26, 2008 for Xbox Live Arcade for 1200 MS points. In addition, Capcom’s direct-to-download music album of hip-hop tracks inspired by the Street Fighter series, Street Fighter Underground Remix, is now live. It features the artists such as DJ Qbert, Hieroglyphics, Redman, Oh No, DJ Toure, Mistah FAB and ZION I. Each artist has produced a Street Fighter tribute track that will be free of charge and exclusive to the PlayStation Network. You can check out the tracks by visiting www.myspace.com/capcomunity.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix utilizes the original code from the arcade beat ‘em up hit, while upgrading the graphics with new artwork and high resolution 1080p images. All of the character animation and stage background art has been completely redrawn by Udon Entertainment, the company responsible for the US Street Fighter series of comics. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix includes both online and offline competition for one or two players.

Naturally, the game features all the familiar stages and fighters from the original, along with a few new features to give the game even more appeal with the next-gen gamer crowd. Look for it on PSN today.

Crispy Gamer E3 Round-Up: Day One

Here is all the coverage from the first day of the E3 Media & Business Summit, in no particular order:

- Feature - Halo Wars

- Feature - Tomb Raider Underworld

- Feature - Street Fighter IV

- Feature - Silent Hill: Homecoming

- Feature - Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

- Screenshots - Fallout 3

- Crispy Staff Blogs

- News- Day 1 Coverage