Capcom: Street Fighter IV PS3 costumes are limited because of Sony

If you're playing Street Fighter IV over Xbox Live and your competitor purchased a special costume that you haven't, you'll still see it. But if you're playing on PS3, that's not the case, and according to Capcom, it's Sony's decision.

Owners of the Xbox 360 version of Super Street Fighter IV have a feature called "costume catalogue," which allows them to download a file that opens access to all of the downloadable costumes for every character. But the PS3 has no such feature.

Microsoft was apparently willing to pay for the bandwidth required for this feature, but Sony wasn't. That's what Capcom says, anyway.

"On XBL, those costs were covered by Microsoft. As a result, the data is distributed to everyone, so even if you have not bought the new costumes, you can still see them if you're fighting against someone that has because you still received the new data required to display them," said Capcom community manager Seth Killian in a recentpost on theCapcom forums.

However, "For Sony, those significant costs are not covered. As a result, you only get the new costume data when you actually buy the costumes. Those that don't buy the costumes can't see them, because the new costume data isn't present on your machine, and so you only see costumes you already have the data to represent."

Basic deductive reasoning reveals the obvious cause of this discrepancy. The cost to Sony and Microsoft varies by region, but that's not a big deal to Microsoft since its most loyal userbase is right here in the US. Sony, on the other hand, has a large connected community in places all over the world, in many countries where it dominates over the Xbox 360. And, of course, XBL requires a subscription fee, which helps Microsoft cover expenses like this, while Sony does not.

But then again, if you're a true Street Fighter fan, you should just buy all the costumes anyway, right?

[Source:Event Hubs]

Jan 5, 2011