Today during the Nintendo Direct we saw a ton of games announced. From a new Zelda to a new Mario and Luigi game. One game that brought a lot of excitement to gamers was the Marvel Vs Capcom Fighting Collection coming to all platforms! Well except one...Xbox.

Unfortunately for Xbox fans the collection is skipping the platform. Social media was quick to react (rationally with a clear mind of course!) with the reasons people think Marvel Vs Capcom is skipping Xbox. The game has Spider-Man in it so Sony said no Xbox! Capcom just doesn't support Xbox anymore! It won't sell on Xbox so they didn't bother! You know, the usual.

As much as everyone would love to blame Sony, that's not the reason. The idea that they decided not to make an Xbox port because it wouldn't sell appears to have some merit on a technicality, which I'll get to in a moment. But the idea that Capcom somehow doesn't support Xbox is kind of hilarious to me.

Every single new release (by this I mean not collections or ports) that Capcom makes comes to Xbox. They launched a game into game pass last year and are launching another one into the service next month. I don't know why people would jump to this conclusion when the evidence doesn't suggest it.

Xbox is getting more support than ever from Japanese game makers and it's great to see, Square Enix has announced a slew of games all coming to Xbox. Hideo Kojima has an Xbox exclusive coming. SEGA and Xbox have a great relationship and yes, Capcom has a great one with them as well. As disappointing as some of this news may be let's not over react.

So then what is the reason? After all this isn't the first time it's happened as the Monster Hunter Stories games are coming to all platforms except Xbox as well as have a few others. The "lack of sales" argument has some merit I suppose, but it's not the root issue. The issue appears to be support for a Capcom engine, specifically the MT Frameworks engine.

As first pointing out by X user Jawmuncher, it would appear a lot of these collection games are using the MT Frameworks engine, an engine that Capcom it would appear stopped supporting for the Xbox One in 2022. If you are wondering why the Xbox One and not the Xbox Series S/X it's because these games are actually being ported to last generation. It would appear the MT Frameworks Engine doesn't work with the PlayStation 5 either, hence the decision to port to last gen. The game will still be playable on the PlayStation 5, but it won't be a native port.

This suggestion has since been followed up on and corroborated by Windows Central's Jez Corden, who says his sources from Capcom have said this is indeed the case and that Capcom has "no pipeline for porting older games using the MT Framework engine to Xbox." Capcom hasn't made any official statement to myself or anyone else but it would seem to hold a lot of merit.

Now the easy answer would be to just get support for the engine back on Xbox so the game can be ported to the platform. This is where the lack of sales theory holds a tiny bit of weight as it would appear that getting the support back on Xbox would be too expensive compared to the return on investment they'd get. Before the console warriors have a field day with that though, these ports typically don't sell that well anyway and have a very niche market. The ROI is going to be minimal as it is. I suppose Xbox could step in and help figure it out with Capcom, but likely it's not worth it to either party.

Does this decision suck for Xbox fans wanting to play these games? Of course. I feel for them. But put the pitchforks down, Capcom still supports your platform.