Street Fighter x Tekken announced for 360 PS3, Street Fighter III Online Edition coming too

Capcom’s been hinting at something big for a few weeks now, suggesting that a major new game announcement would take place during Comic-Con. And, just a little bit ago, both Capcom and Namco took the stage to formally announce (and reveal a trailer of) Street Fighter x Tekken, a full-on crossover event between to the two storied franchises.

Moments after the reveal, Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono dropped the biggest bombshell – the game was far enough along to show a brief gameplay session! The match showed Ryu and Kazuya squaring off, each using their signature moves and combos. Kazuya was done up SFIV style, so the game will assuredly look and feel like a Capcom title. I did notice it looked a bit more juggle friendly than vanilla SFIV, which makes sense, as these Versus games try to tweak the gameplay so it blends both franchises.

The most striking difference will be some kind of “tag” mode that echoes Marvel vs Capcom. In the Ryu/Kazuya match, Ryu was able to tag Chun Li in, fire off her Ultra combo to stagger Kazuya, then juggle him into Ryu’s Ultra. It’s not as over the top as the Marvel games though, so SFIV purists needn’t worry about insane tag-in tag-out stuff. At least not based on the match from today.

Release date? “Not for a while,” with Ono suggesting we enjoy Marvel vs Capcom 3 first (that’d put it in a Fall 2011 window at the earliest). There was a trailer as well, which we’ll try to get up soon. Namco then revealed it's working on Tekken vs Street Fighter, though no further details were given. I assume this means, since SFxT is a Capcom game done up like SFIV, that TxSF will be a Namco game done up like Tekken 6. Wonder how closely they'll release them?

Also coming is Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition, which was only teased with a logo. Ono said there will be new features, but by and large expect a dead-on recreation of the most beautifully animated Street Fighter game in existence. Also expect this one a bit later on – probably after MvC3 as well. Maybe summer 2011? Ono said the four million people who bought SFIV and Super SFIV practically saved his job, so the least he could do was bring SFIII back to them.

Other, smaller Street Fighter news: New costumes coming this fall, including Chun Li's classic Alpha wear. Also saw new stuff for Adon, Blanka, Rufus, Dhalism and others. New characters were also teased, with Ono saying he'd talk more about two new additions to the roster during this fall's Tokyo Game Show. Our money's on Rolento, for one.

There will also be official Capcom tournments this year that utilize the newly released Tournament DLC for Super SFIV. The winners of these competitions wil receieve one-of-a-kind titles that appear during versus matches (personally, I'll stick with good ol' Chillaxin).

More as it happens!

July 24, 2010