UPDATE: IGN reports that Capcom has actively chosen to decline giving a statement when they asked the developer why Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics was not coming to Xbox.
The original article follows below.
Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics was just announced, with one mildly surprising platform skip. The reason for that platform skip, as it turned out, is even more surprising.
As Capcom confirmed after its official announcement in the Nintendo Direct, Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics is coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Windows, via Steam. As many fans were understandably upset to find out, the game is not coming to Xbox.
We do need to make it clear that Xbox owners are right to expect to get this rerelease. They originally received Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes as a standalone release in 2009. The XBLA version was the same as the PSN version, developed by Backbone Entertainment and based on the arcade and Dreamcast version, as opposed to the PlayStation 2 version.
Subsequently, Xbox has been receiving the recent batch of classic Capcom game collections. That includes both Mega Man X Legacy Collections, Capcom Beat ‘ Em Up Bundle, Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection, and Capcom Fighting Collection. This was just the latest of those collections, so what was the hold up this time?
As it turns out, the issue may not be with Capcom, but Microsoft themselves. As Windows Central has confirmed through their sources, Microsoft dropped support for Capcom’s game engine called MT Framework.
MT Framework has been around since 2006, and was widely used by Capcom as their main game engine of choice across the last three console generations. Obviously, Capcom has moved on to more capable engines, briefly dallying with Unreal before adopting their impressive RE Engine. MT Framework has proven to still be useful in making games that won’t require lower specs, including collections of their older games.
All the games that we have mentioned above were all built on MT Framework. All of them aside from Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics were all published on Xbox One as well. However, because Xbox dropped that support in 2022, it would be prohibitively expensive for Capcom to keep bringing MT Framework games to Xbox moving forward. It’s not impossible, but the extra effort just doesn’t make it worthwhile for Capcom.
It’s certainly an ironic turn of events, as one can argue that Microsoft is right to drop support and that it is Capcom who should be moving on. But where we are now, Microsoft has to prove that they can bring in the long elusive Japanese games to their platform.
As Twitter user Jawmuncher has pointed out, Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics isn’t the only MT Framework game that’s skipped Xbox. As was the case in other situations, Microsoft will have to intervene to keep their fans happy by making it worth it for Capcom, one way (a big payout) or another (dev support).
