@Dervish:
Not sure how accurate this is, but according to this chart it seems like it only sold around 140k copies: http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/465/darkstalkers-chronicle-the-chaos-tower/
If that's true, then that's…well, not that great. :<
No, it's not. I mean, it is a PSP title, but even so, the truth is Capcom just doesn't have a sense of who it is that would want a Darkstalkers.
Yeah, hardcore gamers have been clamoring for it for ages and the characters are popular, but who knows whether or not people would shell out for yet another fighting game when we've got MvC3, SSFIV, 3rd Strike Online, Mortal Kombat 9, Blazblue CS:II, another Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter vs Tekken, Tekken vs Street Fighter, Tekken Tag II, KoFXIII, and lord knows what else anyone else is going to do in the pipeline? Not to mention popular Japanese doujin fighters and shit we don't even get over here.
Inevitably, fighting games just require a different kind of support from the community to be viable. If you make a Devil May Cry game, it has to compete with other action adventure games. If you make a Darkstalkers, it has to compete with Street Fighter and the rest. And fighting games are _niche as HEL_L. When Blazblue came out, Guilty Gear immediately died. It's not like we're in a time of no fighting games like we've been for the past ten years. These games are fighting each other for our wallets - just like Street Fighter is fighting MvC3 right now.
I want Darkstalkers 4 so badly. Too badly. Fortunately - Ono does too.
But you can't at all get mad at Capcom if the number of people pulling for this game is a mere 100,000 folks, at the lowest possible estimate. It's the revival of a decades dead franchise. It's not like it's Megaman, where the franchise gets a game AT LEAST ever year and the character is a household name - and even Megaman Legends 3? A game people have clamored for for AGES? Even that isn't truly greenlit even now, because Capcom can't tell the difference between diehard fans like us and casual folks who will look at it, roll their eyes, and move on. They need to know there's real interest. And that's not on them: that's on us.
Do I know more people who would wet their pants over a new Darkstalkers than any of those other games I mentioned? Yes. But Darkstalkers wasn't even mega-popular back when it came out. I knew tons of people who had played it - but comparatively few that ever owned it. It's hard for Capcom to resurrect a franchise unless fans are beating down their doors for it.
Capcom can't make a multi-million dollar game for a few hundred thousand fans.