I guess concretely speaking, the idea was inspired by Spartan X, which I worked on at Irem. I was sitting next to Okamoto and I asked him what he thought about it, and he said it looked very interesting. Then there was just this one moment where the idea for Street Fighter popped into my head and I drew it out on a piece of paper during the meeting. And I remember not really paying attention and jotting down some ideas on paper. Personally, as someone on the development side, I found it very hard to stay interested during these meetings, so I tended to daydream and think about games. One day at Capcom, we had a meeting between the development staff and the sales team, and this particular meeting happened to run very long - I think it was about two hours. ![]() I actually remember it very clearly, even now. A few years later, the series did exactly that, just not in the way Capcom intended. In 1987, before it picked up the baggage of 30 years of sequels that made it look clumsy in comparison, Street Fighter was cutting edge.įrom the start, Capcom positioned the Street Fighter series to be a breakthrough that would move the company in a new direction. Up to that point, Capcom had made its name on software that arcade operators could swap into existing cabinets, and Street Fighter was supposed to be the big flashy example that would convince those operators to pay twice as much for the full thing.Īs the crowd of distributors watched, they saw a game that fit the sales pitch, with large characters, creative mechanics, and custom controls. It wasn’t just a game but an initiative to sell an elaborate, expensive arcade cabinet. No Rocky Balboa, but Cravens lived in Philadelphia, so he took certain liberties with the venue choice.įor Capcom, Street Fighter was an experiment. Underneath sat Street Fighter, a new competitive fighting game with buttons that looked like punching bags and a boxer bearing a slight resemblance to Mike Tyson. After watching 12 rounds of fights, as reported by industry trade magazine RePlay, Cravens walked over to a game hidden beneath “brown butcher paper,” tore off the paper, and laid bare why everyone was in a gym. A popular figure known for his towering presence and reputation for showmanship, the tuxedo-clad Cravens was gearing up for his big moment. The company had rented out the Cambria Boxing Club, known for its appearance in Rocky, and staged an exhibition with local boxers, kickboxers, and a ring girl to entertain the crowd of rowdy onlookers.Įarlier that day, Capcom showed its action game Bionic Commando at the airport Marriott, but that wasn’t why everyone was in town.Īt Cambria, Capcom vice president of sales and marketing Bill Cravens worked the room. On May 12, 1987, Capcom gathered arcade distributors from across the U.S. The book, Like a Hurricane, is now on Kickstarter. Put together, it will tell the story of the first era of Street Fighter. ![]() ![]() The book will collect this series, our SF2 oral history from 2014, and extensive bonus content, including a foreword from SF2 planner Akira Nishitani and a theme song from SF2 composer Yoko Shimomura. We’ll be rolling these stories out over the next seven months - starting with this look at the original Street Fighter, and continuing later this year with features on Street Fighter EX, Street Fighter 3, and more.Īs part of this project, we’re working with publisher Read-Only Memory, which is crowdfunding a Street Fighter history book based on these stories.
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