[Sumac]

Originally Posted by Leo656

- You're talking more about "quality" of fighting games in the 2000s and I'm talking about popularity on home consoles and the parity that existed between the "Big Brand" fighting games at that time. It wasn't "just between MK and Tekken" because those other fighting game franchises still sold a lot of copies and generally got good-to-great reviews. Nobody's speaking to whether or not the quality of SoulCalibur slipped. It was still a very popular franchise that moved a lot of units. Even the DOA franchise, despite being console-exclusive, sold a lot of copies. It had a movie made. If it wasn't "popular", that couldn't have happened.

I don't argue that they were not popular. But they didn't had the same mindshare as MK in the West.
Yes, they've sold a lot, but compared to MK and Tekken they were in background..

Originally Posted by Leo656

So yeah, the only real "disagreement" here is that while I'm speaking to the parity between the Big Brand fighting games available to home users in the 2000s - the fact that multiple franchises consistently got great scores and sold millions of copies - you've spoken more to the fact that some of those franchises "got worse" as they went on and that only MK and Tekken were "any good" (in your opinion) after a while. But that's different, that isn't the same conversation. Even if SCIII and IV were "worse" than SCII, for example, they still sold a lot of units and the series was very popular. DOA managed to become very popular despite being console-exclusive. And so on and so forth. And you agreed with me that during the MKII era, the only competition on home consoles was SFII, which is literally what I said from the beginning.

Neither amount of sold copies or high praise from critics can guarantee good word of mouth or good legacy for the franchise. Like, high box-office of the movie doesn't mean it will receive sequels.

For example, SoulCalibur 2 was very successful and was considered one of the best fighting games of its time, but SC3, thanks to its bugs and glitches lost a lot of fans. SC4 lost a bit more, until SC5 basically Fatalitied series into oblivion. With each passing installment series was losing fans and people were less anticipating next titles.

DOA was popular, but since it was exclusive and made more and more accent on cute girls as opposed to fighting component its reputation also worsened a lot, both among competitive players and casuals.

And everything else at the time is not even worthy of mentioning.

Originally Posted by Leo656

This all started when Cubed implied - wrongly - that fighting games were "dead" or invisible in the 2000s.

He was not very wrong - fighting games were barely there in 00s, compared to powerhouse genre was throughout the 90s.

Originally Posted by Leo656

And I've been saying, "That's literally impossible considering all the units sold and awards given out in that genre during that decade across the board." The genre didn't "die", arcades did, and with fighting games being the most popular staple of arcades then naturally their spotlight was diminished somewhat as the way people played games in general started to shift. But they were by no means "invisible". They remained very, very popular and the general quality of the various games went Up, not Down. And if a brand like MK was no longer a dominant topic of conversation, it was due to parity between its brethren moreso than "lack of popularity."

I can't agree that they were "very" popular.
People remembered them, but it was definitely a far cry from the 90s. Not to mention how many titles had died out in the meantime or were put on hiatus.

Originally Posted by Leo656

It sure was! And that always bothered me. That would have potentially changed the entire landscape of fighting games, if there was a sincere and dedicated SF game out during that time. But Capcom decided to just "take a knee" for the whole decade and only push SF as part of the "vs. SNK" games.

I guess it actually worked out well for them, though. Since when SF did come back with SFIV, it made a huge splash and revitalized the whole genre in a way reminiscent of what SFII had done. I guess "absence made the heart grow fonder" for most people. Can't really argue with it, the results speak for themselves. But I was definitely wondering "Why no SF?" during that whole era when MK, Tekken and SoulCalibur were dominating the conversation. Looking back it makes that decade feel sort of "incomplete".

Capcom didn't know what to do with the series.
Their most ambitious 2D fighting game Street Fighter 3 had failed commercially and they didn't want to move main series into 3D, since they (rightfully) assumed fans won't approve of that move.

They attempted to make another entry into in 3D subseries, Street Fighter EX3, but like the rest of EX series it was not successful and nowadays barely remembered.

They also attempted to make a 3D "Capcom vs Capcom" game called Capcom Fighting All-Stars, but during test runs, people found that game unsatisfying and it was canceled and remains of its budget were used to make Capcom Fighting Evolution, which was horrible piece of garbage, which, of course, failed.

With fighting games being neither as profitable or popular in the 00s, Capcom felt like there was no point in wasting budget on its revival.

If it was not for stubbornness of Yoshinori Ono, this days quite hated by Street Fighter fans, who pushed extremely hard for Street Fighter revival, we would not see new SF for quite some time.