We’ll just ignore Turbo Ken. He’s overrated anyway. Damn scrub character.
Inverse:
> Personally, I was really hoping 2d’s transition to HD graphics would help it out, but apparently, that’s just not the case. Bottom line, it’ll always be the gameplay.
I have to disagree here. I still maintain that there are two primary factors that a game needs to succeed:
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It needs to look as good as it possibly can. The graphics must either be competitive with other similar games or surpass them.
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It needs to be hyped to hell and back.
In most instances, gameplay is actually irrelevant. 
> The Nintendo DS outsells the PSP and offers more 2d gaming than 3d gaming, so it’s obviously not the medium that matters, but the games we play.
In terms of handhelds, I believe there are two issues at stake here:
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Price: DS has routinely been cheaper than PSP. Plus, it’s cheaper to make games for it, so developers can make more profit than they can on PSP on a game by game basis.
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Don’t underestimate the power of Pokemon! Seriously, Pokemon has been Nintendo’s not-so-secret weapon since it was first released. It was like they found a way to print money. If Pokemon hadn’t come along to save the GB’s ass (not that it was doing badly before Pokemon, but in the few years prior, it was mostly an afterthought), the GBA would have been released much sooner, and who knows what the current handheld landscape would look like.
Also, gaming expectations are simply different on a handheld I believe. No one plays a handheld game expecting state of the art graphics (that would merely be a bonus); the mostly want something they can jump into and out of quickly while taking public transportation or something.
> If we get a good complete KOF, with solid online and robust features, it’s hard for it not to succeed due to word of mouth and other factors.
It depends on your definition of “succeed”. I was thinking, with sufficient hype and everything in place, KoFXII might have sold about 250,000 copies total, or about what (PS2 only?) SF Anniversary collection did. KoF’s has never had a big presence outside of the arcade, and in many places outside Japan (i.e. not Mexico, South America, Singapore, or other places where videogame sales are barely acknowledged), they weren’t that big in the arcade either.
Because of the great cost of the game, however, I think KoFXII’s definition of “succeed” would had to have been substantially higher, i.e. SFIV/Tekken style numbers. And sadly, simply because of how the game looks, it was never going to pull those numbers (note: if SFIV was hand-drawn, or if it wasn’t hyped the way it was, it wouldn’t have sold those big numbers either).
> That simply was not the case with XII. It’s hard for it to get exposure, on top of also pleasing its already robust fanbase. It’s just an uphill fight, but I don’t think 2d, 2.5d or 3d have a hand in it at all… just prejudice to the series and a blind love for SFIV (Like Nokato noted), and sloppy programming.
I’m not sure if “blind love for SFIV” is necessarily accurate. More like “nostalgia for SF2”, which SFIV delivered in spades. But yes, there is prejudice against KoF, though I don’t think it’s from most players disliking it per se, but simply not caring because of no nostalgia factor and SNK only making sloppy or late ports of their games to systems that people actually owned. And of course, as has been acknowledged, there is a huge bias against hand-drawn games (on non-handheld systems that is). The bad netcode is just poisonous icing on an already questionably-concocted cake.
> Let’s hope the future of gaming has the variety we all need to stay interested in the hobby. :3
2D isn’t going anywhere. But barring occasional efforts by Arc System Works and SNK (assuming they don’t go under again), I think it’ll mostly be relegated to smaller doujin-style games like Arcana Heart, Melty Blood, Demon Bride, Vanguard Princess, etc. Bleh.