Capcom Tells BBB Pair-Play For Xbox 360 Was Never Advertised

We've been riding Capcom's shady arse the past month on every single issue regarding their anti-consumer measure of disc-locked content. Well, it gets worse.

Capcom has officially responded to the second set of Better Business Bureau complaints regarding the missing co-op feature for the Xbox 360, and they say that it was never advertised to begin with.

Before you read the whole statement from Capcom I'd suggest you equip your Flameproof Jockstrap because the following comments from the company will infuriate legitimate consumers like nothing else ever before.

Originally, Capcom came under fire for the Street Fighter X Tekken disc-locked content, to which they replied to the Better Business Bureau that there is no distinction between downloadable content and disc-locked content, other than the mechanism of delivery. From a business standpoint this is true but from a gamer's standpoint it's called wallet-raping.

Well, now, Capcom has responded to several complaints to the Better Business Bureau about the lack of pair-play (which enables two people locally to play online with or against other people) in Street Fighter X Tekken. Consumers who filed the complaints asked to remain anonymous and their requested resolution from Capcom was to patch in the pair-play in a future update for the Xbox 360. You can read Capcom's entire response below to Better Business Bureau Complaint Case #57218419...

Hope those flameproof jockstraps are amped up to level 5, it almost feels like it's about to reach 9,000 degrees in here with all the rage.

I love how Capcom tries to bribe their way out with a limited, timed-coupon to get 30% off a future Capcom title. That's like being prison raped and then when you ask for an apology the guys who do it throw you a few napkins instead. Real classy.

Anyways, let's get one thing perfectly clear: the co-op was advertised in their official fact sheet, which was covered in detail over at every gaming website out there, you can check out a detailed look at the fact sheet over at the Sixth Axis (amongst dozens of other places) where it specifically states, back on September 14th, 2011...

The fact sheets were released for all the respective platforms, indicating that four separate players could compete in online or offline modes specifically for the Xbox 360 and PS3. This is in addition to the traditional tag-team mode which also supports up to four-players in offline or online modes. The problem is that it's just not for the Xbox 360 or PC version of the game. That's right, Capcom revealed that the PC version is a direct port from the Xbox 360 and would not be receiving pair-play either nor will there be a patch to include pair-play for either the Xbox 360 or PC version of Street Fighter X Tekken, which senior vice president Christian Svensson confirmed, as reported by Shoryuken. What's worse is that the PC version isn't due out until May, yet it still won't be receiving pair-play.

What's more is that before Capcom said that they ran out of time and resources, they previously, explicitly stated that pair-play was a feature that could not be done on the Xbox 360 due to restrictions by Microsoft. This is despite the fact that years earlier, way back on the original Xbox, Bungie managed pair-play with the 2004 release of Halo 2, allowing up to four-players via splitscreen to compete online using the pair-play feature. This mode is still available in Halo games today, along with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2 and just about every other online-enabled game with split-screen or co-op features.

Heck, smaller studios like Trendy Entertainment included the pair-play co-op in the multiplatform game Dungeon Defenders, enabling up to four-players to compete locally while also playing online. What's more is that indie developer Dragon Divide even managed to include a co-op pair-play function into their Xbox Live Indie Game, Alpha Squad, which recently came out. How on Earth does a company worth $1 billion USD not have time or resources to implement a feature a developer on a shoe-string budget managed to include into a no-name XBLIG game (no offense to Dragon Divide)?

What's crazy is that Microsoft explicitly made sure the software design architecture for the Xbox 360 was easy enough for anyone to get their games up and running on the console with ease, especially with XNA. Microsoft even used the tagline that if you can make a game for PC you can make a game for the Xbox 360. So it makes zero sense how the pair-play feature was somehow absent when, as mentioned, even developers on shoestring budgets are able to include it in their games.

Now this leaves Capcom in a ridiculous conundrum: 1) If the pair-play really did require extra time and resources, then why wasn't this feature finished before they finished the DLC, considering that pair-play is attached to a core mechanic of the game? There's no excuse why DLC was a priority over a core gameplay mechanic. 2) If they really did run out of time and resources then it verifies what was stated before, that all the DLC was finished long before the game went gold and they simply hex-walled it and called it a day. This means they cut features out of the main game to re-sell as DLC.

In closing, a forum board member going by the name of Furious George had this interesting quote to sum up Capcom's brazen approach to blatantly disregarding consumers, saying...

If you'd like to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau about this reprehensible business tactic, which basically pisses on the etiquette of consumer trust, feel free to visit the Official BBB Website.