Month: November 2017

As part of Capcom’s second financial presentation for 2017, the company has reported that it has shipped 900,000 units of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite worldwide while Street Fighter V has now shipped a total of 1.9 million units — just shy of Capcom’s initial 2 million target which it hoped to reach back in March 2016.

When you consider that MvC:I is not as well-known as Street Fighter, the huge amount of negative press surrounding the title and its smaller budget compared to Street Fighter V, 900,00 shipped units is by no means a complete disaster. Sales have slowed to a crawl following its initial two weeks of release though, so I doubt it will reach its 2 million shipped units target by March 2018.

As for Street Fighter V, it has now shipped as many units as Super Street Fighter IV — with the release of Arcade Edition this coming January hoping to push that figure even higher. I suppose reaching your initial sales target almost two years after launch is better than not reaching it at all. Ultra Street Fighter II however, has done better than forecast, with Capcom shipping 500,000 units worldwide. Capcom refused to comment on whether Switch-exclusive games are in the works, instead stating that the console is “important as one outlet for multi-platform games.” Fingers crossed for MvC:I on the Switch then.

You can find all the hard facts and figures via Capcom’s official website. There are no juicy details hidden within the presentation though, besides Capcom’s continued devotion to esports via the Capcom Pro Tour.

Sources: Takashi Mochizuki; Capcom

The IOC (International Olympic Committee, a.k.a. The Supreme Authority of the Olympic Movement) came out of their Olympic Summit in Lausanne, CHE with a surprise announcement directly related to gamers: “esports” should absolutely be considered a sport.

Does that mean sponsored esports pros should prepare themselves for 2018’s Pyeongchang Olympics? Well — not quite.

According to the official report from Olympic.org, while the committee officially recognizes the training and intensity of high level esports, there’s still a few hurdles left to clear for a spot at the Olympics:

• In order to be recognised by the IOC as a sport, the content of “esports” must not infringe on the Olympic values.
• A further requirement for recognition by the IOC must be the existence of an organization guaranteeing compliance with the rules and regulations of the Olympic Movement (anti-doping, betting, manipulation, etc.).

While bullet point #1 is largely philosophical in nature (you can check out the Olympic Values here), it’s the lack of a true governing body that’s keeping gaming away from gold medals. Specifically, a governing body recognized by the GAISF (Global Association of International Sports Federations), which the IOC works closely with. The IOC made it pretty clear what needs to happen next:

The Summit asked the IOC together with GAISF in a dialogue with the gaming industry and players to explore this area further and to come back to the Olympic Movement stakeholders in due course.

Considering that there’s quite a few companies now that run their own international leagues and tours (Namco, Capcom, NetherRealm, etc), the next arms race in the FGC might just be a race to GAISF recognition.

Source: IOC