Keeping it Fresh

GameSpy: That would be very cruel! Could you tell our readers about something exciting in Street Fighter IV they can look forward to if they're fans of the original roster?
Yoshinori Ono: Good question, there's a two-layered answer. To be frank, everyone in Street Fighter IV has some new moves. They're not super moves or special moves, necessarily. Just pushing the joystick forward and hitting the punch or kick button may result in a new punch or kick, or something like that.

Basically, when we started making this game, it was only natural that the creative people involved in the game wanted to do all sorts of new stuff. They wanted to give this character a new special move, or this character a new super move, et cetera. Really, it was up to me to say, "chill out guys! Let's get them to feel like Street Fighter II, and then we can add the icing on the cake."

To put it bluntly, when people play this game, they may grumble at first saying, "hey, this is just like Street Fighter II, what gives?" That's actually a great compliment to us, it means we did our job right. The great thing is, when they keep playing, and get a little farther in, they realize, "wait a minute, this is like Street Fighter II but if I push forward I can get a new kick. So I guess Street Fighter IV does have some new stuff in it!"

There's a hidden layer of new moves, but not big and flashy special moves. Everyone has something new going for them in Street Fighter IV, while retaining the feel of SF II.
The Global Arcade

GameSpy: Street Fighter II was always a social experience for me. It was about playing side-by-side with friends, whether that was in the arcade or at home. How do you feel today's focus on online gaming, over Xbox Live or PSN, affects how people play fighting games? Can Street Fighter IV do today over the Internet what Street Fighter II did in arcades?
Yoshinori Ono: The unfortunate reality of it is that it's probably impossible to replicate the feel and the atmosphere of the arcade experience, no matter how good the online functionality is. You're not going to be in a room with other people, and you won't have the smoke and the smells and the sounds of an arcade. That's just impossible.

But what we can do, with our online system, and with all the features we can put in, is to give people a new experience rather than just shove everything on the disc and say, "hey look, it's exactly like the arcade game!" We're going to take that a step further. It's going to be just like the arcade game, but there'll also be this, this, and this.

Regarding the online play, we obviously want people to play online and enjoy it. No matter how good the programmers are here at Capcom, we can't break the laws of physics. The electricity running across those lines only goes so fast. So there's always going to be a bit of something that's missing, it's not going to be the same as playing next to someone at the arcade. But we can try to make up for the lag and potential latency by really fine-tuning so that you don't notice it, and kind of disguise it. We'll also add new features to the home version that you can't do in an arcade, and would only make sense in a home version. We can't exactly replicate the at-the-arcade experience, but hopefully we can replace it with something that's just as compelling and just as fun for everyone. That's what we're working towards.