Capcom comments on Street Fighter Xbox recall

TOKYO--After days of silence punctuated only by terse "no comment" e-mails, an official statement on the recall of the Xbox version of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection has come from Capcom's offices in Osaka, Japan. The company line is that the game, which was discovered to be free of region coding upon its release last week in Japan, suffers from a music bug. Specifically, the stage background music for the character Hugo doesn't play correctly when the game is set to "Original" sound mode.

The lack of region coding on the game disc means that it will play on any Xbox system--whether Japanese, US, or European--with full Xbox Live compatibility. Since the game is not due out in North America until February, this news was enticing to hardcore fans.

The plot thickens from here on out, however, because Capcom has requested that anyone who purchased the game contact its customer support hotline. The company will exchange the "flawed" disc for the fixed version of it. However, according to the company, the fixed version of the game will not be ready until at least one month from now.

It seems unusual for a company to pull all copies of a game from shelves by mounting a nationwide recall attempt for what seems to be a noncritical issue. Will the "fixed" version of the title implement a regional lock? Users will no doubt find out one month from now. In the meantime, it seems as if would-be importers will not get the chance to get their hands on copies of the game for some time.

Capcom will make an announcement when the new discs are ready for shipment to users and retailers. GameSpot will continue to follow this story.