Darkstalkers 4, CVS3 "a ways off"

Fighting game fans hoping for new games in the Darkstalkers and Capcom vs. SNK series are in for a long wait, Capcom said.

Why? Time and resources, explained Capcom's US VP Christian Svensson on the Japanese company's forum (reported by Eventhubs).

"Right now we're focused on Street Fighter X Tekken, SSFIV: 3D Edition, Street Fighter 3 Third Strike Online edition, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and maybe something else somewhere..." he said.

"That's more than enough fighting products for an audience to digest in the near term without overly cannibalising each other.

"We also only have so many development resources. Not just any team can make a credible fighting game and we have loads of requests for lots of titles that we don't have the resources to make.

"While we listen very closely to fan requests, any product decisions have to overlay positively against strategic objectives and be prioritised against product viability.

"It takes years to make a game (that's multiple years), even an HD Remix, so while we may get to them some day, that day is still likely to be a ways off."

Fighting game fans have long called on Capcom to create a new Darkstalkers game. In September Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono told Eurogamer it's his "ultimate dream" to do so.

But it will only happen, Ono said, if fans keep banging on about it.

"This is all up to the readers. They have to create the buzz. They have to tell us," he pleaded.

"The fans can make noise. Anything about Darkstalkers - they can write about it, or whenever there is a random blog ranking of what you want the most – if we see Darkstalkers that would help."

Darkstalkers characters are, of course, set to appear in MVC3. Felicia and Morrigan are already confirmed as playable characters, and more may follow.