Yoshinori Ono: We have no plans on bringing Street Fighter 5 to arcades at the moment
Wasn't there an announcement of Street Fighter 5 coming to the arcades over a year ago?
The announcement of Street Fighter 5 Arcade Edition was one that generated a lot of hype for the community. Despite the mention of "Arcade Edition" in the title, this is referring to the arcade mode in-game rather than an edition that will be present at the arcades.
4Gamer (a Japanese website) recently had an interview with Yoshinori Ono of Capcom. We've been collecting some interesting tidbits from this interview over the last couple of days.
One of the questions had 4Gamer asking Ono why this edition is called "Arcade Edition."
"Actually, I have a question I really want to ask you today, Mr. Ono," 4Gamer pondered. "How come this new version is called Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition? It's not like you're releasing it in arcades, is it?
Ono answered by confirming 4Gamer's theory. "Like you said, we have no plans on bringing it to arcades at the moment."
"We did add an arcade mode, so it kind of naturally went to Arcade Edition," continued Ono. "But, there's more to it than just that."
This is very interesting considering one of the versions of Street Fighter 4. Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition got its name because it first appeared in the arcades before the consoles.
Before Street Fighter 5 initially released, Ono at one point explained why that game wasn't getting an arcade release when Tekken 7 was. He specifically noted that "the Japanese arcade isn't what it used to be."
It seems that this might still be the case. However, you might remember a scenario in which it was actually announced last year that there will be an arcade release...
After the Toushinsai tournament festivities had ended, an announcement was made that King of Fighters 14 and Street Fighter 5 would be heading to the arcades. Given, it was only intended to be a PC station placed in arcades that allow arcade players to battle one other through the PC version of Street Fighter 5.
We've actually seen a setup like this before at a Walmart. Olivier "RB|Luffy" Hay at one point took a picture of a setup found inside of an arcade cabinet that was clearly intended to advertise the SF5 Red Bull campaign.
What do you make of all of this? Would you like to see an arcade release of Street Fighter 5 Arcade Edition sometime in the future?
Do you think Ono is trying to keep a tight lid on something in the future? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
Translations and additional contributions were made to this story by my coworker, Nicholas 'MajinTenshinhan' Taylor.
The banner image (minus the crossout symbol) was taken from SeeJayAre's YouTube channel. He built his own Street Fighter 5 arcade cabinet.
