Street Fighter II Coming to XBox Live Arcade

During the Microsoft CES keynote, Peter Moore announced that Street Fighter 2 is coming the Xbox 360 via the Xbox Live Arcade. That’s right, the game that re-ignited the arcade scene a decade ago will be making its way to every XBox 360. SFII along with more than 20 other titles would be available on the Marketplace by March.

Capcom today clarified that the version of the series to be offered will be the Hyper Fighting edition. In addition to several offline modes and numerous leaderboards and achievements, the game takes advantage of the new online features of Xbox 360.

Among several online game options is an exclusive mode called Quarter Match, which introduces a new way of reliving the arcade experience at home. Here you can place a virtual quarter on a match in order to lay claim to the next spot in line against the reigning champion. While players wait they will be able to watch the match in spectator mode. This mode will also support voice chat as well. Competitors can highlight each other’s quarters to check out their gamer tag data or add them as friends, and before entering the game lobby, users can choose either the competitive or casual option which determines whether stats are tracked or not.

360 users can connect to Xbox Live and access Xbox Live Arcade to download a free, feature-limited version of the game which offers two playable characters for one match. The full version will feature all eight original characters as well as the four boss fighters. Sure, I would have preferred a version with the New Warriors like Cammy, but this is still hot stuff.

It’s about time we see some newer arcade games coming to XBLA. I wonder what the chances are that if the game is afordable if it will renew more of an interest in other 2D fighters. With all the other arcade classics being 400 points ($5) I don’t see why this one should be any different.

Additional Links:
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