is the game doing any good in the arcades?
Last time I checked the rankings it was #6, but that was a month ago. Where I am at least, it is not as popular as some of the other fighters. There is one arcade in downtown Kanazawa that got it a bit later than the rest. No one was playing it when it came in though. It sits next to Hyper SF2 and SF3 3rd Strike machines...the lady working there was talking to me when it first came in. She pointed to the SF2 machine (NOT the SF3 machine) and said "it's the sequel to that old game, so none of the younger crowd wants to play it." And she was right; every time I go there people are playing Melty Blood, Guilty Gear Accent Core, and Tekken 6. I heard there was a line to play the latest Melty Blood that just came out a few weeks ago. That's pretty crazy for this place.
There is a larger arcade with 8 linked SF4 machines though, and there are usually at least 4-6 people on, but that's it. It's the same few guys and no one else, and this place is always PACKED. It's pretty much been like this at every arcade I have gone to since the game came out, and that is around Kanazawa city and some arcades in neighboring prefectures. It's just not as popular as you'd think it would be. Last time I hit some Tokyo arcades, it was the same. Even around release. Obviously it's popular enough, but it's still kind of surprising it isn't doing better.
Capcom's
other "fighting game" series is much more popular, and no I am not talking about Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom (which I don't think is officially out yet anyway), I am talking about the seriesthey developed for Bandai- Gundam Vs.
I think SF4 is going to be more popular on consoles and also more popular when it hits consoles outside of Japan. But even though there is plenty new to the fighting system, when you play as the old characters, you cannot help but also get a "been there, done that" vibe from it, and I think that may be part of the problem. It's no secret that Capcom is trying to re-capture the SF2 magic once again, but it may also be alienating younger players in my opinion. The character designs just look dated.
But fighters in general are nowhere near as popular as they once were, despite the huge amount of releases/announcements that have been happening this past year. I can go to any arcade and find people playing music games, medal games, card games, and racing games (even FPS games like Half-Life 2 Survivor and this Gundam Pod game), but the fighting games sit mostly empty. It kills off a lot of the motivation I have to go to these places and play them, and again while I don't live in a big city like Tokyo or Osaka, every time I go to an arcade in Tokyo it doesn't seem to be much better. Years ago it was different. I still remember the massive lines waiting to play KOF Neowave when it first hit the Club Sega arcade in Akihabara in 2004. I haven't seen anything like that since. I hope SF4 does so well on consoles. I hope KOF XII does well on consoles. And I hope Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is the top-selling Wii game in December. Fingers crossed.
