Street Fighter II Turned 30 At The Weekend
© CapcomCapcom’s seminal Street Fighter II turned 30 last weekend – a fact that makes us feel very, very old indeed.
Originally launched in arcades on February 6th, 1991, the game triggered a flood of imitators throughout the early part of the decade, and spawned several ‘update’ variants in the form of Street Fighter II Champion Edition, Street Fighter II Turbo and Super Street Fighter II. It remains one of the most successful coin-op releases of all time, and the Street Fighter series continues to the present day, with the fifth mainline instalment arriving on the PS4 in 2016.
Following its stunning success in arcades in 1991, Street Fighter II became one of the most demanded home conversions of the period, eventually making its way to the SNES in 1992 and shifting 6.3 million copies in the process. The fact that the SNES got the game before its rival, the Mega Drive, was seen as a major coup in the battle between Nintendo and Sega in the early ’90s.
You can enjoy almost the entire Street Fighter saga on Switch via the excellent Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, which was released on the 30th birthday of the game that started it all, 1987’s Street Fighter.