SF3 didn’t sell well because most of the fan favorite characters like Chun-li, Guile, etc etc. weren’t in the roster, when 3rd Strike brought Chun, it was too late, the damage was done. At the time Alpha series was also in the Arcades and the VS series, those games were more user friendly and had better cast. THAT is what made SF3 a failure in a nutshell.
SF4 sucess its not due to GRAPHICS, its because its easy to get into and most of the fan favorite cast are in it, it feels like SF2 sequel, more than SF3 did.
If 3rd Strike sold so well, why did it take constant pressuring from Ono for them to even think about making another Street Fighter? Because the series sold shit before that. Why did they not do it with 2D sprites? Hmm? Well, because 3D appeals to a broader audience. If you don’t think it was a major player in why SF4 sold well, you are just retarded.
I’m not debating why 3rd Strike didn’t sell well. We all know why it did. I’m talking about why Street Fighter 4 sold well. He was saying the name sold it and it didn’t sell 3rd Strike.
Honestly I think that graphics did help to sell SF4. A ton of casuals think 2D fighters are automatically worse than 3D fighters based solely on graphics, like they’re a relic of the past or something. SFIV being somewhat 2.5D probably helped convince them to buy it.
Street Fighter IV sold cause it had good timing w/ the rise of online fighting copuled w/ familiar characters. Capcom played their cards right and made a bundle. However the name doesn’t sell the game alone. There were plenty of failures in the road to cause Capcom to practically abandon the Street Fighter licence to the U.S…
BTW Tekken is more popular worldwide. Street Fighter is more popular in the U.S… It’s just how it is.
The thing with Tekken 6 is, it’s a true mainstream fighter that anyone can get into. It’s the kind of game where you can go to a party, and see some guys firing up a PS3 or an Xbox360 and loading up Tekken 6, and everyone either plays or watches others play, and it’s fun. SF4 is the only other fighting game out right now that I can say that about. That and DOA 3 and 4. BB is just some obscure japanese fighter no one cares about, same for Virtua Fighter 5, with VF having the added problem of being too fucking hard to play. It takes like a fucking month just to learn basic combo strings in that goddamned game. It has glorious gfx, but who cares when you gotta spend a month just to learn how to hit someone more than 2 times?
500k copies in NA? Would be awesome if true, but I some how doubt it seeing first month NPD numbers were around 45k per console if I remember right. Barely charted in its second month of release.
edit: assuming this is WW minus Europe…still kinda shocking considering how shitty console game sales are in Japan the last several years.
the thing with BB is that Aksys release nowhere near enough copies of the game since the first run were those limited edition versions. After those ran out, the game was pretty much scarce to find.