What Capcom Finally Admitted About Street Fighter 5's Rocky Launch

Fans have been pelting Capcom with criticisms about the lack of content present in Street Fighter V since it launched back in February, and Capcom has generally made excuses for it... until now. The company finally admitted what gamers knew all along.

Gamespot cherry picked the money quote from Capcom's recent financial earnings report, where CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto admitted that rushing Street Fighter V out of the door was not the best decision that the company could have made, stating...

So essentially, they're going to start doing what they should have been doing from the start?

Tsujimoto also admitted that spending “a little more time in developing” a high-quality title could help its global sales.

All of this comes after Street Fighter V underperformed in the first quarter out by 600,000 units. It was pegged to sell through at least 2 million units.

Capcom is now scrambling to make up the difference by claiming that they will dedicate resources to long term support. This comes after the game launched without an arcade mode or without proper single-player options aside from a Story Mode, and the online mode was mostly setup to cater to the competitive FGC (fighting game community).

The result was that Street Fighter V was optimized for eSports, but not so much for casual play. A lot of people feel as if Capcom rushing the game out of the gates was to ensure that it nabbed the top spot at this year's upcoming EVO in July. Well, they weren't wrong because Street Fighter V managed to break records with the amount of people registering to battle it out at this year's premier fighting game tournament, which brings together top-tier players from all over the world.

However, due to a lot of gamers feeling burned by Capcom with the release of the latest Street Fighter, it's tough to say how well the game will maintain sales on the tail end.

A rushed game may merit a publisher some hot sales in the short term, but those usually die off quick in the long term. According to Tsujimoto, he explained that investors may have to deal with the short term losses generated from games delayed for polish in order to reap long term sales.

The problem is that Street Fighter V's long term sales have been hurt due to the attempt to garner short term gain. It's going to be tough for Capcom to sell more DLC when their install base refuses to grow.

On the upside, many gamers do appreciate the core of the game's fighting mechanics. The Unreal Engine 4 handles the graphics and visual prestige like a champ. The online play – when it's working properly – has also provided players with some memorable moments, but the lack of content, paltry single-player modes and general limited replayability all for $60 has made enough gamers throw their hands up and walk away from Street Fighter V.