Capcom, Sony, and Console E-sports: Going all-in with Street Fighter V

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Street Fighter V Announcement ? Capcom and Sony?s long-term plan

 

At the Capcom Pro Tour finale in 2014, Evil Geniuses? Momochi ended up being crowned the victor and taking home the grand-prize of $30,000, but that was far from the headline at this event.  What stole the show was the first showmatch of Street Fighter V and the announcement for Capcom Cup 2015 featuring a total prize pool of $500,000 thanks to a partnership with Sony.

 

It seemed out of left field that Sony would invest so much into an e-sports tour for a game that has relatively low viewership compared to other top e-sports, but let?s look at some recent announcements from Sony and Capcom:

• Back in June of 2014, Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimoto commented on the possibility of Street Fighter V implementing a ?pay-to-win? feature. While these claims were quickly refuted by the producer Ono it shows that interest in monetizing the game after release is already a top priority in the company?s mind once again.

• Street Fighter V is announced as a console-exclusive title to the PS4, allowing cross-platform play with PC players.

• Ultra Street Fighter IV, while available on both the PS3 and Xbox 360, will be coming exclusively to the PS4 and not the Xbox One sometime next year.

• In October of this year, Sony debuted an e-sports platform through PS4 and PSN titled ?Playstation Official League? in Spain, with plans to extend to Italy and Portugal.

Considering the partnership between Sony and Capcom particularly on the Street Fighter series and the fact that Sony is making a definitive push into what is being called ?console e-sports?, this is no longer just about a partnership for console-exclusive titles.  It?s about creating an overall better e-sports platform and experience than its competitor.  It?s about growing an active and passionate online community that only Sony console owners can enjoy along with PC gamers, and they see the potential to do that in a household name like the Street Fighter series.

 

The company being stiff-armed out of this party is Microsoft and their Xbox One.  It would not make much sense for Capcom to partner with Sony and agree to shut out a huge portion of their console sales on Xbox One and player base on Xbox Live unless it was for a very good reason.  Likewise, Sony would not be actively involved in investing money into e-sports for a particular title unless it had big plans for the series.  The discussions have likely gone beyond hitting big sales numbers upon initial release to talks about monetizing the game after release on things like new costumes, levels, and tournaments that will be funneled through Sony?s new e-sports platform.  One can only hope that pay-to-win is truly off the table.

 

Capcom and Sony have plenty more to partner over than just Street Fighter V in terms of titles, but when it comes to e-sports, the Street Fighter series is about as stable and well-known as any other game in history.  They both have recognized this and are willing to hoist the series from the large pool of fighting games available and support it in all ways possible to try and create something ?as big as League of Legends.?  Whether that?s a possibility is yet to be seen, but the groundwork is certainly laid out so far to support this vision.

 

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[nosense]

I fellow the Fgc\fighting games tournament scene and this is a bad investment (not sf5 but the fighting game community).

[trooper11]

Very interesting article.

I already felt that Sony swooping in and buying up this game was a bigger deal than some wanted to think. Sony is trying to tap into a small, but very vocal community. Yes, there is a lot of risk, but I would hazard a guess that its cheaper for Sony to buy SFV exclusivity and invest in tournments to get the vocal community on their side than it would be to say create a AAA new ip from scratch, even with the risk.

MS has been slowly working with the FGC via Killer Instinct, which has been doing pretty well. Each major tournament has shown more interest viewership wise and sponsorship wise for prizes that attract more players. Of course SFV is a much bigger name and force in the FGC, so Sony was able to leap ahead with one move. It'll be very intersting to see how this progesses over the next year or so leading up to SFV's release.