When I read this item about Street Fighter IV being sold out in Japan on Capcom's blog (thanks Daniel from Facebook), I was pretty surprised.

Quote: Originally Posted by Capcom's Community Blog The numbers being quoted some places are off based on what I've been told, but the real story is that SFIV is not "selling well" but is in fact SOLD OUT in Japan. There ARE no more copies to sell on the store shelves.

I was especially confused because, for a game that is completely sold out and with no copies to sell anywhere, I had no problem picking up a copy yesterday from my local game shop. In fact, I saw a a full box of Street Fighter IV games. Well, I guess it is possible (although highly unlikely) that in the last 24 hours, every copy in the country was gobbled up. Being the skeptic that I am, I decided to spend 5 minutes investigating.

Yodobashi Camera
Xbox 360 (in-store check) / PS3 (in-store check)
Both versions are listed as in-stock online and in store. See all those blue circles when you check in-store stock? Yeah, that means "in-stock".

Amazon Japan
Xbox 360 / PS3
Both versions are in-stock.

Hate to rain on your parade Capcom, but no, not sold out in Japan. Not yet anyway.

UPDATE:
Yodobashi just updated their site...Xbox 360 version is sold out online.

UPDATE #2:
Not only is the game in-stock, I've yet to find a place that is sold out!

Tsutaya (Kameido), Enterking (Nishi Ojima), Yamada Denki (Kameido), Toys R Us (Kameido)










Update #3:
The Capcom blog post changed:

Original

Quote: Sales couldn't have been any higher because every single copy in the stores was been sold (!!!)

Revised

Quote: Sales couldn't have been any higher because every single day-one copy in the stores was been sold (!!!)

This revised statement is just as a preposterous as the original. How could Capcom know if every one of the thousands of stores in the entire country sold all their copies on day one? And, in less than 24 hours, all this information was conveyed back to SF IV's producer (during the SF IV event in LA) and all of Japan's stores were fully restocked.

Sure.

Also, during my travels today, I stopped by a few more stores, everyone of them had SF IV in-stock.

If someone with Japanese language ability was so inclined, it wouldn't be much of a problem to call up a few stores and ask if their stock was depleted on Thursday. At this point, I'm going to "rest my case" as, at the very least, I've shown that my blog's headline is far more accurate than Capcom's.

Anyway, I'm reasonably sure that this all comes down to the poster making the common mistake of not thinking before writing rather than a sinister attempt to mislead the gaming public.