One thing I couldn’t quite find much data on was how successful SFIII was financially for Capcom. I know that some people love it (I myself am starting to like it more than part 4 at this point), but I could find no data to support it was as successful as part 2 or part 4.
A fail i guess. There are no official sales and no versions for UE so a big fail, that’s why Capcom stopped fighting games for a long time after 3S, it was like Street Fighter was cursed at this time. It was just an commonplace other 2D fighting game for people, they didn’t even try a shot to SFIII.
i don’t have any data but most people think that sf3 was a commercial failure due to a high budget, obscure marketing outside of japan, competition from other games in a saturated fighting game market, decline of the arcade industry in the west in the mid and late 90s, and the uprising of 3D hardware and popularity of its games. a lot of players may also have not been happy about the roster being unfamiliar or whatever, but mostly bad timing and bad luck. i don’t think “people weren’t ready for parrying” or “the game is too hardcore,” even if true, would have affected commercial success that much.
In terms of being compared to SF2 and 4, the SF3 series was definitely a failure. By the time 3rd Strike was released, there were more graphically advanced games out there, not to mention arcades were starting to go downhill. That, and the first two SF3 games just being mediocre in general didn’t help much. The figurative bubble was popped for 2D fighting games in America, where everyone but the hardcore players left for bigger and better things. 3S was still moderately popular in Japan and is hanging in there, but it has never reached the success 2 and 4 had.
Many of the factors already mentioned here contributed to the misfire of SF3. It must also be mentioned that the credibility and popularity of the Street Fighter brand declined after a long string of updates and spin-offs. I think that even as SF3 was announced, SFEX and the SNES port of Alpha 2 were being announced concurrently. Instead of an event, it was just another Street Fighter, and a weird one at that.
The game not being popular in the USA when it launched doesn’t mean its a financial failure, there are other countries in existence like you know… the guys that made this game … Japan.
Since it has been released 13 years ago it has held its place as one of the most played arcade games in Japan almost every year. On top of that there are also the Dreamcast, PS2 and 3SOE sales to be considered, but I don’t think you can find the exact numbers for those versions.
So yeah, maybe its not the most financially successful fighting game released but it sure as hell isn’t a failure.
It was a failure. You can’t compare it to 3SOE sales because if what the OP is writing about is the evolution of Street Fighter, then there simply wasn’t any evolution when SF3 came out. Its release basically stopped fighting games as a whole because nobody really cared about it. People were then either still playing SF2, Alpha series or Tekken or something else.
The only companies that made fighting games after SF3 were the ones that didn’t cater to the US, so games like Samurai Shodown and KOF games were still being made.
Seriously, the last time the US cared about fighting games BEFORE SF4 was like MK2 and SF2, and that’s real.
i guess tekken, vf, soul calibur, guilty gear, etc. aren’t fighting games. and didn’t grow tremendously in the early 00s.
i’m pretty sure tekken and soul calibur have some of the largest sales in the US for fighting games.
underplayed and underappreciated. largest sales in the US for fighting games makes up about like 1% of gaming sales in general. that’s how much of an impact it made.
and yea brah, definitely thought there were 0 games before sf4. been playing mvc2 for about 6 years now
Obviously there weren’t ZERO fighting games out since SF4, but outside of 3D games like Tekken and Soul Calibur, 2D games haven’t sold all that well. This includes Guilty Gear, despite having a pretty big and dedicated fanbase. Popularity doesn’t always equal up to sales.
It seems a lot more people hate 3rd Strike than any other game and it’s not just a slight dislike. They absolutely detest the game and would wish death upon 3S players’ families. You either love the game or you hate it. Because of this, I don’t think 3rd Strike was a commercial success but it has a very loyal fan base of players (including myself) who will pump quarters and keep the game alive.
I really wish 3SOE had a better launch to bring in more new blood.
Well, the story about SFIII is very interesting i think, and see that the game is appreciated at its true value after all this time is something quite rare. Of course, it’s still a small community, but it’s not dead.
I don’t get it about the hate for 3rd Strike, and i don’t understand how you can hate the parrying too, and i’m not a fanboy.
Just compare SFA3 vs 3s, the first one was at some point successful, about 3s,I didnt know it existed,so when I heard about capcom making SFIV I told myself “when the hell SF3 happened?”
A lot of people didn’t know 3S existed, even me before knowing SFIV, i’m not ashamed to tell you that. I think it was not the same era for both games, and if you looks sales and sucess of different iterations of sf2 serie, sales decreased at each new version, same for Alpha serie and also, it just continue like that for 3rd Strike. A combination of circumstance?
Yea, this is almost exactly what I wrote in the article… The bit about obscure marketing is something I should probably add. Then again, I don’t think SF2 or 4 had any marketing for the arcade releases either.
