Perhaps another of Capcom’s worst-kept secret (next to Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom’s update featuring Frank West), Super Street Fighter IV is confirmed to be coming out, according to a recent Gamespot article. No, Capcom will still be nickeling and dimeing you by not making Super Street Fighter IV a downloadable add-on for Street Fighter IV. The new game will come on a separate disc. Their reason? Yoshinori Ono says that certain aspects of the game code weren’t laid out to support new Super SFIV features. To make up for this, there’s going to be a super secret bonus to those who own SFIV on disc when you get Super SFIV.

Anyway, on to the meat of the update: the new people ready to break your face in. EIGHT new playable characters, to be exact. For now, just be content with the first two revealed right now.

First up is T.Hawk, straight out of Super SF 2 Turbo. The huge Native American specializes in doing hawk dives and Typhoon Grapplingopponents for big damage; think Zangief with an anti-air and that’s T.Hawk in a nutshell. He’s also a pretty tough guy to use in Super Turbo. In Super SF IV, he’s bloody gigantic and stands neck-to-neck with Zangief. Yes, his Typhoon Grapple and Typhoon Super will look more painful than ever with new SFIV 3D special effects. Let’s hope that the designers take the tweaks used in Super Turbo HD Remix (nice recovery time with his Tomahawk Dive, high priority on his Tomahawk anti-air), because frankly, he’s more playable in that version.

Next in line is Juri, who hails from Korea and practices Tae Kwon Do and also seems to be a fast character. Yup, doesn’t sound like another Tae Kwon Do fighting game character we know from SNK. But I digress; she has an array of kicks at her disposal, but it’s all powered-up with the same purple spooky energy used by SF mainstays M.Bison/Dictator and Rose. My guess? Charge character with high-priority normal moves with good reach.

Other additions include tweaks in the offline and online features of the game. Offline meaning rebalanced characters (coughSagatcough) and probably new Ultras for returning characters. Online meaning a better matchmaking system and solving lag issues (plentiful, to be blunt). This also means that SFIV players won’t be able to play online with Super SFIV players due to the aforementioned code incompatibility.

Super SFIV is shaping up to be ready for early 2010. The question that’s burning on everyone’s mind is: who will be the remaining six five characters? Gill? Yun? Jamaican stereotype Dee Jay (edit: yeah, he’s in)? A new boss perhaps? Who knows? We’ll just let the forums go nuts with this guessing game.