The FGC doesn’t function like the Triple-A gaming community. People don’t play SF because it happens to be on console X or console Y, but they’ll play console Y because it has SF. So, the go-to of “they’ll lose half their fanbase” shouldn’t be the case like it would be with the year-round big sellers.
50% of SF tourists, sure, but the core of people who want to play the game will move with the game. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person on here that wouldn’t buy a new-gen console until they saw which would support a certain game, or better support fighting games in general.
In addition, fighting game fans are dwindling. By locking it to one console, you’re consolidating the game’s community, which, for me, is positive and shows a commitment to the game’s post-launch longevity, since a drop in sales is a real risk, although I suspect the risk to be smaller than it first appears.
I know nothing about licensing and publishing, but publishing a game for a smaller than mainstream audience across multiple mediums is probably costly. Even the bigger games are often hesitant to dive in headfirst across platforms.
I bet if you factor in the casual sales lost on Xbox One, the already-Sony audience, the projected PC audience and then account for the potential of nomad gamers from Xbox One going to PC or PS4 for SF, you probably offset the risk of traffic lost from the gamers playing SF on Xbox One simply “because it’s there” with the money saved by not launching on multiple consoles.
It’s tough to work out if it’s Capcom’s decision or Sony’s or even (and, it’s possible) Microsoft’s. If it’s Capcom, they’re taking a serious dump on Microsoft that could affect their other titles, so I doubt they’d do it. If it’s Sony, then they’ve invested in a Street Fighter game, which will resonate strongly with SF fans, but we’re a pretty small fish for those guys, surely? Microsoft recently pressured Crytek into ending their Xbox 360 version of Warface, for reasons unknown. If they’ve become selective over certain things they publish then they may well have bounced it. Warface was a F2P and, if the new SF is taking on the Killer Instinct style F2P business model, that might be something that MS is no longer interested in, or finding lucrative.
Way too early to say though haha, speculation over.