Street Fighter V will potentially break Street Fighter II’s sales record in 2022

Street Fighter V is within striking distance of outselling Street Fighter II according to sales figures released by Capcom on its Platinum Titles list. The most recent iteration of the Street Fighter franchise is finally closing in on the sales record set by arguably the most influential fighting game of all time.

According to Capcom’s Platinum Titles list, Street Fighter V now sits at number 9 in its best selling games of all time, with 6.20 million units. Street Fighter II, released 24 years before Street Fighter V has 6.30 million units sold. If current trends continue, Street Fighter V could surpass its older cousin this year. And before it it becomes obsolete with the release of Street Fighter 6.

Without doubt, Street Fighter II is the most important fighting game of all time, and one of the most influential games of any genre. Revolutionizing the way the fighting game genre developed, SF2 featured multi-button special moves that could be reliably input. It also introduced the combo mechanic, which is now standard in fighting games.

Single handedly revitalizing the arcade scene in the 1990s, Street Fighter II was also a home console success. It’s released dozens of versions including Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, Turbo, The New Challengers, Hyper Street Fighter II, and others. With ports to Super Nintendo, Mega Drive/Sega Genesis, Game Boy, GBA, Playstation 2, PS3, Xbox 360, and most recently, Nintendo Switch.

But that 6.3 million units figure only represents the original Street Fighter II: The World Warrior edition for the SNES. Street Fighter V has managed to come within 0.1 million sales units of SF2 across all its platforms. This makes Street Fighter V the only sequel to have come close to matching the runaway success of 2. For comparison, the base version of Street Fighter IV sold 3.4 million units on PS3 and Xbox 360.

This is great news for Capcom, who’ve clearly shifted their attention into making the recent iterations of Street Fighter more esports friendly. For a Street Fighter game in 2022 to come close to the popularity of Street Fighter II is incredible. And while we don’t foresee a movie reboot and arcade boom as the early 90s saw, Street Fighter 6 has a bright future.