Street Fighter 6 sells five million copies, on track to be best-selling Street Fighter ever

Capcom has announced that Street Fighter 6 has sold over five million copies, just as the game has been released on the Nintendo Switch 2. At this pass, the game is on track to be the best-selling game in the series.

Celebrating the achievement on social media with a lovely bit of custom art, the company wrote: “Street Fighter 6 has now sold over five million copies! What a way to celebrate our 2nd anniversary! Thanks to all our fans out there around the world and to all the prospective fans in the future!”

Street Fighter 6, released on 2nd June 2023, is catching up the series sales leader at a faster pace than its predecessors. According to the Capcom Platinum Titles page, which tracks the company’s best-selling games, Street Fighter 5 is holding the top spot for now. It’s sitting pretty at 7.8m units sold since its release on 16th February, 2016. By comparison, Street Fighter 6 has sold five million copies in just over two years.

Street Fighter 2, which you may have assumed was the best-selling game in the series due to its prevalence in popular culture and influence on the genre, has sold 6.3m. It is worth noting that this Capcom list only tracks console sales, we also know that over 200,000 Street Fighter 2 arcade cabinets were sold during the golden era of arcades.

Okay, so why is Street Fighter 6 on track to surpass Street Fighter 5 in sales? Well, it’s still receiving plenty of updates and has a flourishing global community of players. Its third season of DLC characters was just announced at Summer Game Fest, and includes plenty of returning favourites like Sagat and Alex. These, plus a recent port to the Switch 2 will help tempt older fans back into the fray.

The game has also had a far faster start in terms of sales than Street Fighter 5. If you don’t remember, the launch of Street Fighter 5 was a disaster. The PC version was a technical mess, online netcode was poor making it hard to play matches online. Yoshinori Ono came forward and discussed all its issues candidly too, explaining that the team underestimated the appetite for single player content in a barebones release.

Street Fighter 5 rose up the ranks of Capcom’s best-sellers due in large part to continuous support over the years. The game was tied heavily to the game’s competitive scene, promoting FGC events and Capcom Pro Tour tournaments through in-game stage advertisements and purchasable cosmetics. The game essentially regained the love of fans over time.

Street Fighter 6 never had this problem. It launched in a great state, with good online infrastructure and a sizable amount of single player content with the World Tour mode. What’s left is ongoing support for the game on Capcom’s part. Funnily enough, here the game has the opposite problem to Street Fighter 5. While previously there was no shortage in character cosmetics to buy, Street Fighter 6’s community has been frustrated at the lack of character packs released during its life cycle.

Nonetheless, the game has a popular competitive scene that continues to encourage new players to hop in, it has been supported heavily by community efforts like the Sajam Slam and Twitch Rivals, and popular content creators continue to dip their toes into the waters of Street Fighter 6 to entertain their fans.

Street Fighter 6 may not be around during the height of esports like Street Fighter 5 was, largely due to many of the speculative investors running away with empty pockets upon realising esports is a burning money pyre, but Capcom continues to offer a million dollar top prize for its annual Capcom Cup finals event. This has kept top players interested, and an aura of excitement alive.

How long will it take for Street Fighter 6 to surpass Street Fighter 6? Who can say. If I may make a prediction, I believe it’ll pass the milestone around the end of 2026. Sales will slow down due to a deluge of newer fighting games releasing and snatching interest, like 2XKO and Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. Regardless, it’s safe to say the game has proven quite the success for Capcom.