Sometimes, sanity actually does win out. After Capcom revealed their plans for DRM on the PC version of SSFIV:AE, fans of the game were, unsurprisingly, not thrilled. Now, it seems, the company has listened to those fans.

Here’s a blog post from today that was put up over on the Capcom Unity blog:

Last week, when I put up a blog about all of the great new features and thoughtful PC-specific design considerations that were added to Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition PC, many folks ignored the goodness therein and zeroed in on the implementation of the offline mode and its limitations.

This in turn gave rise to threads on our boards and others, which in turn spawned stories at several web outlets lamenting our approach for protecting the content. To try and make this discussion more constructive, I engaged our fans in the Ask Capcom forum on how best to improve the situation.

The argument that legitimate users would have a worse experience than pirates was the loudest and most convincing. We certainly dont want that to be the case and that was never our intention.

So weve heard you loud and clear and heres what were going to do about it:

Shortly after launch (it might even be at launch, but well see how submission timing and approval goes) we will roll out a small title update that will completely remove the character limitations for offline mode. That is to say, once youve updated, you will be able to use all 39 characters when not connected to the Internet to practice your combo timings, have some fun with a friend on a laptop, or whatever while offline.

As one would logically expect, to get any of the benefits of the online services (online multiplayer, replay sharing/watching, achievements, etc.) you must be online and logged in.

With that hurdle hopefully now cleared, I hope that we can make Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition the most successful fighting game ever on PC. Id certainly like to continue to grow our audience on the largest platform in the world.

Thanks again for your passion, input and support.

/hadouken

Christian Svensson

Corporate Officer/Senior Vice-President