So, everyone and their uncle is getting hype over Oda’s comment that both companies are interested in a sequel.  The thing is, it shouldn’t be taken seriously, right now, but, for the future, it’s a good sign.

So many outlets picked up this one remark during an interview at Gamescom that Oda himself had to post something, and it’s telling:

Gamescom???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

— Yasuyuki Oda ”KOFXV in store now!” (@snk_oda) September 1, 2022

Hey well, maybe Google translation is not so great, but compared to ten years ago, it’s pretty good, so I’m pretty confident that Oda is saying that Capcom might get a little annoyed about it as it’s only an “interest” and nothing more.

However, we’ve seen that Capcom and SNK have become closer, I definitely won’t comment on how there may or may not be a link due to someone’s departure and how some employees are ex-colleagues, but we can definitely see SNK and Capcom are actually interacting in a friendly way, and it’s frankly heartening to see.

When I saw that SNK and Capcom were side by side at EVO, I wondered if the atmosphere would be tense or friendly, but it’s not like the other game companies were far away anyway, NR and ASW were just across the way.  And then we saw the poster collaboration, which everyone knows by now, which was awesome, but the real hawkeyes would have seen the two companies having dinner together.

Osaka Fighting Games Forever! #Evo2022 pic.twitter.com/vWy943vLpB

— Yasuyuki Oda ”KOFXV in store now!” (@snk_oda) August 7, 2022

So there well should be some truth to the “interest” but there’s just some things we should consider before we start waiting for the Ash vs Guile dream match:

Remember that, from various employee accounts, CVS was born from a drought, not a want.  Capcom and the fighting game scene was getting dry.  There was a need to do something really crazy to bring customers back.  There is no business sense in bringing in other IPs that are cooler or better than yours.  You need to protect your IPs.  CVS is always a risk for both parties, players could gravitate towards SF or KOF, and while the two companies might seem friendly and are made of ex-colleagues, they still have bills to pay and they won’t be happy if either playerbase just runs off to the other side.  Right now, Capcom is about to launch SF6 and there’s no way they would be silly enough to launch another title that would dilute the focus, they have invested way too much!  SNK would benefit more as we are now into season 2 and casual player interest is waning. CVS3 would keep players busy and their IP in their minds as they prepare MOW2.  However, right now it seems that Oda is fully charged up to get one of his life’s ambitions done – MOW2 – and just personally I think they should focus fully on that.  There is Samsho and KOF15 dlc also going on in the background.  CVS or SVC is a huge project and we don’t even know if one company would produce the title, or if we would have both versions, and that gets a bit messy.  CVS needs to be a celebration of both IPs and that’s when game balance becomes a thorny issue.

It’s interesting that if we look at the collaboration titles, I remember some glaring points: In CVS, Kyo felt like he had no range on his aragami, while in SVC Ryu’s fireballs felt too slow and Guile just felt wrong.  In CVS, Blanka, Cammy and Sagat ruled, while in SVC, it was Zero, Red Arremer and Geese.  Were these designed on purpose?  Why not the flagships?  Geese is the only thing that made sense there.  It would have been funny if SNK agreed to make two Capcom characters top tier but was allowed to choose who, that way they used two characters that usually wouldn’t be found in fighting games, so technically not a risk of players wanting to find those characters in SF.

Well, who knows really what’s going on.  I just remember MOTM being the most fun one and I used a team of Geese and Dictator, and it was doing both IPs justice.  SF6 has open world, it’s almost sure MOW2 will also have this, including mini games.  I expect that will keep players very busy.  CVS3 might just be too much right now, or even in 2023 or 2024, and if that is just a fighting game, well, that’s another question. Still, I hope to see CVS3 within the next five years, but it really depends on what the two companies and the scene is going through.  Who knows if Battle Royale games will completely take over or a new trend will arrive?  What would be the most profitable decision that gets the bills paid, makes the fans and the shareholders happy?   The future is a fickle beast and investment is a risk.  All the logic aside, I just want to see CVS3 asap lol but with some sort of balance so that Kyo vs Ryu can happen, fair and square.

Have you been reading the last chapter of Glass in the Snow?  You might get another idea of what’s going on…

oh and speaking of collabs, we beat Devil Jin, what a stream… CVS is nice, but when’s SVT?