Yep, the scope can be way higher, but Japanese devs and specially with key IPs like this one will be always very conservative. Plus a retarded 'fanbase' full of haters plus haters who are fans of the competition, who always bash the games whatever they do -specially the changes and additions- until the next one gets released and they start to bash the next one and to praise the previous one. With SF it has been the case since SF2 champion Edition.
I'm not concerned with haters and trolls when it comes to SF; that stuff you're talking about, as you indicate, it's been happening for decades. Just something which comes with the territory. I do agree that Japanese developers tend to be more conservative with "shaking up the formula" for established IP, which is unfortunate. At the same time, it means there's a foundation they can continue to solidify, which is crucial.
If Capcom don't want to push the creative envelope too much with SF6, at least bring back something like Power Stone, or try a new fighting/action IP where they can innovate on these ideas, if they're afraid of alienating the SF core base with them.
There are like 3M in PS Now. Let's be generous and assume there are 6M more in all the other cloud platforms combined (which I really think are 3-4M maximum). That's a total of 10M. Obviously only a small part of them will be interested on fighting game. Not even 1M would play SF6 out of the over 200M players that there are in PS4+XBO+low/mid PC. It doesn't make sense at all in terms of business.
If Sony go through with Spartacus and integrate some form of Now into PS+, on the PlayStation front, this problem immediately resolves itself. On Xbox, they already have Xcloud, though it's tied to GPU. That is still a decent number of people the game would be available to though. Then there are other game streaming services like Nvidia's, Stadia, Luna etc.
If a more casual player is ready to move on from 8th-gen but not quite willing to pony up for 9th-gen hardware yet, then they'll want to go play it through a subscription streaming service. If they want to take the game more seriously, they'll buy a current-gen system, and by the time SF6 releases they will be more readily available. It wouldn't matter too much if player base on 8th-gen hardware and low-end PCs via streaming is low, because that would just mean more of them preferred to play it natively on a PS5, Xbox Series, or decently spec'd PC.
Then there's the input lag of cloud gaming. It's a total unplayable joke for SF for anyone who wants to play it barely seriously. It doesn't makes sense at all in terms of gameplay, specially considering these players would also hurt the experience of the other ones.
Right, but the thing it the audience who'd prefer to play it via the cloud, don't care about input lag, because they probably don't care about the game in any serious capacity when it comes to competitive play. They just want to have fun and beat things up, so as long as it feels "good enough", they're content. The more competitive side of the base will opt to get a 9th-gen console or ensure their PC is good enough, to run the game natively.
As for those playing via cloud online against those on native solutions, the fix is simple: allow players to filter out device types to be matched up against. If you don't want to play against players who are on the cloud, just filter them out. Capcom could still provide incentives to encourage cross-platform play, but if the option is there then those truly bothered by the concept don't have to partake in it.
Making a game crossgen won't affect the experience. For the cases we already have, they prefer to play on PS4 because it has 1 frame less of input lag than when playing in next gen (something that I think will improve in the future).
That's more due to SFV's engine, not a limitation of PS5 hardware. The history of reducing the input buffer in SFV has been...interesting...to say the least.
Development isn't split between different gens: they make an scalable game for PC and for one version they choose some PC settings and for the other one they choose other settings. There's only a tiny platorm specific part regarding trophies and stuf like that.
I mean in terms of what the floor is; the 'floor' for the game on PC will absolutely be higher than PS4 and XBO base specs, that is a given. So if you're talking about which "floor" potentially holds the game back more, it's not going to be the PC. SF6 being scalable on PC would not impact PS5 and Xbox Series versions as much as it being scalable to PS4 & XBO spec.
They have a business, it would be stupid to skip the platforms where over 80% of their players will be at launch. It will be available on PS4, XBO and low/mid PCs.
But fighters in previous gens had no issue skipping over older systems within the 2-3 year window of a gen. Tekken Tag did it at launch on PS2, Soul Calibur did it at launch on Dreamcast, VF5 did it with 360, Tekken 6 did it, etc. All of those games ignored millions of people on the then-prior gen systems, but were okay in the long run for doing so.
At some point games have to start really cutting off the previous gen in order to drive adoption to the newer hardware. If 2023 isn't that year, then when is that year going to happen? Also keep in mind a SF6 supporting PS4 and XBO natively, will have to continue supporting them natively until at least 2028. At that point you absolutely can't say that 2012 hardware isn't holding the game back.
Many time ago I mentioned SF6 was going to release in February 2023. It's the same time between SF5 and 6 that happened between 4 and 5. And it's also the same time since PS5 release and the game than happened with SFV and PS4 and between SFIV and PS3.
But there are two differences between this generation transition and the previous ones: the first one is that budgets every generation go up: SF2 was made by around 20 devs, and over 20 studios did work on SFIV. This mean that nowadays they need to send way more and find more revenue sources, so this is why they go GaaS or try to release it in all the platforms they can.
The second is that the hardware is pretty similar but more powerful and the engines the same, so to make crossgen games is way cheaper and faster. So genres like this one where the next gen entries will be the same but with better visuals and shorter loading times will try crossgen at least until the next gen userbase becomes big enough.
I think this is just where I feel a lack of innovation in the genre, or at least the next Street Fighter, could come about. Fighting games have become increasingly niche every generation, outside of Smash Bros. Part of that reason might be due to so many sticking so close to a template that was perfected more or less by the mid-1990s'.
IMO there is so much more that can be done to innovate in the design space of fighting game genre, while staying true to its roots. Some of this depends on various types of content, others would focus on the structure of fighting mechanics themselves, etc. But if genre devs just keep having the perception that this type of innovation isn't something worth attempting, then overall I'm afraid the genre will continue to become more niche, the way shmups have.
And another thing that irritates me somewhat is the giant eSports angle the genre has been pushing into. There's been good stuff to come from that, but it's also cut some into the grassroots of the FGC scene. It's also IMO hampered some of the creative possibilities of fighters because things have to be "eSports-friendly" now. That won't just lead to certain types of overzealous censorship, but just some wackier ideas not making the cut because they may be perceived as too "crazy" or "unconventional" from the standard mold.
I know that doesn't directly address some of the things you just mentioned, but I wanted to share more of my own frustration with the genre as a whole and felt that was a decent enough opportunity to do so.
Yes, I think they can adapt to F2P following a similar monetization strategy in terms of unlockables and IAP that they had in SFV. Basically what you get now if you buy vanilla SFV (16 chars + all game modes) you'd get it for free.
This is something we can probably agree on as a whole; IIRC DoA6 tried a F2P model as well, but it was marred by a couple other controversies. SF6 aught to be able to avoid those, and make the model work very well.
Maybe also adding for each season another(s) season passes in addition to the one for characters. They could make a cosmetics season pass for costumes, colors and parts, and a stages & UI season pass.
And in addition to the F2P SKU they also could have a full priced one that would be basically the F2P version + the first 5 season passes for characters.
As long as they price those item-specific Season Passes right, I don't see the issue and it would offer more choice granularity for players and potentially more revenue for Capcom on the game. It could also encourage more unique purchasable content of various category types. Win-win for players and Capcom.
That said, a full-priced version of the game with F2P + 5 Seasons worth of characters, that'd either have to wait a few years, or if you're talking at launch, they'd only have Season 1 chars and maybe have redeem codes for Season 2 chars (but only with base costumes) and all Season 1 content.
It gets dicey when considering if they they should have the character roster be fully available for free (else they might risk splitting the player base, though competitive-minded players would end up buying the characters anyway most likely), and make all alternate outfits and cosmetics purchasable items, or do it more like SFV has with a base roster and extra characters coming in as additional purchases. SFV didn't have an issue with cosmetics so the first option could work well for 6, and they get to do item-themed Season Passes like for stages, themed costumes etc. as you've mentioned.
