Street Fighter 6 Producer Reveals How He Helped Save Capcom’s Iconic Fighting Game Franchise From ‘Dying’

Street Fighter 6 producer Shuhei Matsumoto revealed how dire things were for Capcom’s flagship fighting game franchise during the Street Fighter V era and explained how he and director Takayuki Nakayama worked together to save the series from death.

It’s no secret that Street Fighter V stumbled massively when it launched in February 2016. Many players felt that it was shipped out in an unfinished state, as it lacked basic elements like an arcade mode or story mode, on top of its incredibly unstable netplay.

Shuhei Matsumoto — who stepped in as producer for Street Fighter V near the end of its lifetime following Yoshinori Ono’s exit from Capcom in 2020 — alongside director Takayuki Nakayama, recognized that the franchise as a whole was in peril, and believed that the Street Fighter IP might actually fade into obscurity within the next decade if they didn’t act fast.

"When the two of us were talking during Street Fighter V, we realized …