GDN: When this game was first announced, it was suggested that players hold onto their original Street Fighter IV discs; the implication was there would be some incentive to do so. Can you tell us more about what this might be?

Capcom: Unfortunately, not yet.

GDN: Can you tell us more about the new play modes, such as Team Battle, Tournament mode, and so on? Any other modes you’d like to comment on?

Capcom: My favorite is definitely “Endless Battle” which is basically what people had been asking for with the request for lobbies. Up to 8 people can get together in an online room and queue up to play, in the winner-stays, loser to the back of the line style of the arcade. If you’re waiting to play, you can still watch the match currently being fought, and talk about it with the other spectators, so it stays fun. Other than that, I plan to spend a lot of time in the Replay Channel, where you can watch (and record!) other matches being played online, share favorites with friends, etc.

GDN: Will there be any support for DLC, such as downloading new characters, music, stages, or so on? There have been previous statements that some DLC from the original game will carry over to Super SF IV, can you comment on this?

Capcom: The only plans for additional content right now are for extra character costumes and a free “Tournament Mode” update. As for the original game, if you bought costumes for your SFIV characters, you’ll still have them in Super SFIV.

GDN: What about balance changes? Obviously a full list is beyond the scope of this interview, but are there any broad improvements to game play that Capcom is aiming for? Or any specific examples you can share?

Capcom: You hear a lot of people talking about “you gotta nerf this” or “so-and-so needs more of this” but you’re better off thinking about Street Fighter gameplay as an ecosystem than as a bunch of independent parts. If you think about problems in isolation, you might be able to solve them for specific situations, but in practice it more often ends up like when they brought in a specific toad to Australia to control a particular pest, but then the toads ended up spreading everywhere and became the problem themselves. You really need to look at the whole picture together to achieve balance, rather than a specific trait of one character in isolation.

The other thing to consider is good old fun. While you can nerf everyone and achieve balance pretty easily, you also want these characters to be larger-than-life-awesome, and entertaining to play. In general the effort has been to give every character more options without trying to take away specific techniques (“balance up” rather than “nerf”). That said, dominant characters like Sagat will do less damage, so while he has more tricks to hit you with, they won’t hurt quite as bad.

GDN: Will you be integrating any ’character versus character’ specific content in versus matches? For example, special intros, dialog, or music when certain characters fight one another in matches outside of the single-player/story mode?

Capcom: The special character showdowns are specific to the single-player mode in SSFIV. We’ve had a lot of them in some past titles (like Capcom vs. SNK 2), and while they’re fun the first few times you see them, after a while they can seem to just slow down the action. It’s like “let’s get to it!” and you want the match to start.

GDN: Returning to the new characters, can you tell us more about their new English voices? Who voiced them, any stand-out examples of their previous work, and so on?

Capcom: I wasn’t directly involved with any of the voice work, so I don’t have much to offer there. I will say the new voices have grown on me pretty quickly.

GDN: Can you share any information on a release date, price, and so on?

Capcom: The game arrives on April 27th, 2010. The price is $39.99, and when you look at everything the package includes, I think it’s one of the best values in gaming.

GDN: Anything else you’d like to share about Super Street Fighter IV?

Capcom: It’s really just a ton of fun. It’s everything good about the original SFIV, plus a ton of extra content, most of which was driven directly by fan requests. It’s basically a love letter from the team to the people that made the Street Fighter comeback possible, so I hope everyone has as much fun with it as I have.

Interviewer’s Conclusion: My apologies if your question wasn’t answered. Some of them, while interesting, were too narrow in focus for an interview of this scope. If you asked questions like "How was Honda’s Ultra 1 changed in this version" or "can you give us frame data for Cammy", ultimately the closest you’ll get to a reply on those sorts of things is Seth’s mention of exploration being part of the fun. Others had already been brought up in several previous interviews; for example we already know Sagat’s going to get toned down some in Super SF IV (a topic that has come up so often, Seth mentioned it without me even asking). Nonetheless, hopefully there are some tidbits in here that interest both more casual fighting fans and tournament enthusiasts.