Street Fighter V‘s March Update – which includes first DLC character Alex – will roll out to PlayStation 4 and PC in two parts with the first being available next week, March 28.
However, while all of the aforementioned content scheduled for the patch (detailed here) will be available by March 30, the ability to buy characters and costumes from the in-game shop feature with the Zenny currency – purchased with real money – has been delayed indefinitely until Capcom deems it ready to go live.
Concerning the reason for the delay, Capcom said on their Unity blog that:
One feature that will not be making it into the March update will be the Zenny (real money) functionality of the in-game shop. We have taken a long hard look at this part of the store, and after much review, have decided it is not ready to launch just yet. As Zenny is purchased with real money, we wanted to be extra careful and make sure it’s fully tested and optimized before launching it. There is currently no ETA on the Zenny store and we will release it as soon as it’s ready.
If you’ve already exhausted all of the singleplayer content Street Fighter V currently has to offer, chances are, you’ll already have enough Fight Money – currency earned through in-game activities – to purchase Alex when he goes live on the 30th, but Capcom’s aware that some won’t be able to afford him in such a way, and will therefore make him available through a ‘free-trial’ until the Zenny system is finished.
We realize that this causes an inconvenience to fans who want to purchase the DLC characters, such as Alex, but do not have enough Fight Money or own the Season Pass. To address this, we will be making Alex available for free as a trial period to all players, until the Zenny shop launches. This also will apply to any future DLC character that releases prior to the Zenny shop launching.
Additionally, players who have purchased the game’s season pass already will get a free stage to make up for the circumstances, as well as getting exclusive access to premium costumes until the Zenny shop launches.
As a special bonus to our Season Pass users, they will be the only ones who will be able to access the premium costumes of the DLC characters until the Zenny shop launches, and they also get to keep character access once the free trial period ends. Additionally, we will be giving all Season Pass users a free, brand new stage in the near future!
The release schedule for Street Fighter V‘s March Update is as follows.
March 28: Challenge Mode, Trials, online Rematches, Battle Lounge improvements, bug fixes and gameplay balances.
March 30: DLC character Alex and in-game shop launches (minus Zenny functionality)