Capcom has finally admitted that it made a mistake releasing Street Fighter 5 before it was finished.
“It’s best to spend a little more time in developing and running a high-quality title that will perform well globally,” said Capcom chairman and CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto in his year-end summary.
“For example, some aspects of Street Fighter V needed more polish, such as the lack of content and server issues at launch,” he continued. “Accordingly, we feel it’s better to give a little more time to development than before, and have made slight adjustments to our portfolio.”
Let’s just go over that once more, “Street Fighter V needed more polish, such as the lack of content and server issues”. For a game that essentially lives or dies by its multiplayer, this is a pretty huge oversight to make. Street Fighter 5 famously launched with broken servers and a severe lack of content that completely overshadowed the strength of the core release. This has promoted Capcom to re-evaluate the way in which it will develops and handle future releases.
Especially as the issues have affected sales, with Tsujimoto noting that “profits may take one or two years longer to stack up than initially expected, however we will be firmly strengthening our brands”.
Street Fighter 5 sold 1.4 million units, which was short of the forecasted 2 million Capcom expected.
