According to GameInformer, Capcom, the popular video game giant, has announced that Street Fighter IV will be available on the iPhone this month.

HADOUKEN!

I’m not quite sure what Capcom was thinking, but is it just me or won’t it be a bit too easy to maneuver Chun-Li’s spinning bird kick if you’re just tapping a few touch screen buttons? I can understand a company’s desire to keep up with the latest technology, but Street Fighter IV is one game I think should just stay on the X-Box & Playstation consoles. As designers, we often need to consider the implications of translating our designs onto different platforms, whether it may be a large billboard to a magazine ad or a computer screen to a mobile device. Print, web and multimedia can take on drastically different forms that we must accommodate for as each medium presents new constraints.

The first time I read the handbook of Street Fighter IV when my friend brought home a fresh new copy he so highly anticipated, I felt like I was reading an engineering manual (mind you’ve this was the first edition of Street Fighter I’ve ever tried). All those half turns and left triggers while holding A and B down at the same time greatly heightened my admiration for gamers. The video game that made characters like Ryu and Ken legendary is known for its precision, accuracy and timing. These are attributes that I don’t think can be so easily translated to an iphone.

My friend Ricky became so infatuated with the game that he bought one of those arcade gaming controllers which he uses to battle his friends- sometimes for 24 hours straight. I feel like for hardcore gamers like him, the iphone application of the game would just be a disgrace.

All I can say is: Don’t do it Capcom! But I suppose it might be too late…