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  • Acclaimed Flop: The game had incredible hype given its lineage. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why it flopped:
    1. Most likely it was a strong case of unrealistic expectations.
    2. Some say years of updates/prequels to Street Fighter II resulted in franchise fatigue.
    3. The unfamiliar cast were less-memorable, and most of them failed to generate a large following, let alone leave a mark on pop culture like the others. Capcom is doggedly trying to fix this in the sequels (with some success).
    4. The learning curve of the game had also increased exponentially, in part because series veterans had become too good, and partly to throw off newcomers who knew what to expect from Street Fighter given its outsized footprint on the genre.
    5. This series also had the misfortune of launching almost concurrently with the Alpha series, which was a prequel to SFII and actually did contain many of the series mainstays that SFIII lacked. Players turned off by the gameplay changes and lack of familiar faces likely turned to the Alpha games instead, which were ultimately the more successful series.
    6. The lack of a console port at the time of release killed a lot of exposure when compared to both SFII and the Alpha series, all of which were Killer Apps in their day. When it finally received a console port, it was exclusive to the struggling Sega Dreamcast. SFIII has never really recovered from that.
    7. Despite its gorgeous 2D sprites, it originally came out around the time 3D fighters like Tekken, Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive were dominating the market, making SFIII look archaic by comparison to the average player.
    8. The game was made on Capcom's CPS-3 hardware, which was more expensive than previous arcade cabinets. This, coupled with declining public interest in American arcades due to the rising popularity of consoles, led to the game performing poorly at launch. Former Capcom Coin-Op sales manager Drew Maniscalco estimates that only 300 or so SFIII cabinets were sold in the U.S., as opposed to the 3000 units sold by Marvel vs. Capcom.
  • Acting for Two:
    • Wataru Takagi provided the voices of Ryu and Yang in New Generation and 2nd Impact. He also provided the voice of Hugo in 2nd Impact.
    • Koji Tobe provided the voices of Ken and Yun in New Generation and 2nd Impact.
    • Michael X. Sommers provided the voices of Alex and Necro in New Generation and 2nd Impact.
    • Bruce Robertson provided the voices of Dudley, Gill, and the announcer in New Generation and 2nd Impact.
    • Kaoru Fujino provided the voices of Elena, Effie, and Poison in 2nd Impact.
    • Atsuko Tanaka provided the voices of Chun-Li and Poison in 3rd Strike.
    • Yuri Amano provided the voices of Ibuki and Effie in 3rd Strike.
    • Lawrence Bayne provided the voices of Necro, Gill, Urien, and Twelve in 3rd Strike.
    • Len Carlson provided the voices of Hugo and Q in 3rd Strike.
  • Creator Backlash: Longtime Capcom artist Akira "Akiman" Yasuda has said if he could rewrite history, he would've never worked on the game.
  • Creator Killer: Not to Capcom as a whole but the commercial failure not only killed the CPS-III hardware dead in its tracks, thus forcing Capcom to abandon the platform in favor of continued CPS-II development, it also led to Capcom to stop making their own arcade boards by the end of the decade in favor of off-the-shelf systems like the Sega NAOMI then the Namco System 246 and then the Taito X2+ series.
  • Cross-Regional Voice Acting: For 3rd Strike, several of the characters, both new and Darrined, were voiced by actors situated in Toronto, incorporating a mix of Japanese and Canadian actors not unlike the Marvel vs. Capcom series at the time.
  • The Danza: Makoto is voiced by Makoto Tsumura.
  • Franchise Killer: The failure of this game ensured that Street Fighter wouldn't get a new installment outside of ports and re-releases for more than a decade until 2008.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: Until the release of 30th Anniversary Collection in 2018, the only way to officially play the first two installments of SFIII (New Generation and 2nd Impact) were either the arcade versions or the Street Fighter III: Double Impact compilation for the Dreamcast.
  • The Other Darrin: All the returning characters, sans Ibuki and Akuma, got new voice actors in 3rd Strike:
    • Wataru Takagi voiced Ryu in New Generation and 2nd Impact, while Toru Okawa voiced him in 3rd Strike.
    • Koji Tobe voiced Ken in New Generation and 2nd Impact, while Yuji Kishi voiced him in 3rd Strike.
    • Michael X. Sommers voiced Alex in the first two games, while Patrick Gallagan voiced him in 3rd Strike.note 
    • The personality shift Dudley experiences through the series is reflected in his changing voice acting. In New Generation and 2nd Impact, Bruce Robertson lends him a brisk, deep, stuffy voice. Then in 3rd Strike, Francis Diakowsky gives him a less brisk, slower-paced, more mannered tone. Finally, by Super Street Fighter IV, Stuart McLean voices him with a considerably softer, gentler, higher-pitched tone in a manner completely opposite to how he was originally voiced.
    • Yun was voiced by Koji Tobe in New Generation and 2nd Impact. Kentarō Itō took over in 3rd Strike and all subsequent appearances.
    • Wataru Takagi voiced Yang in the first two games, while Masakazu Suzuki assumed the role in 3rd Strike.
    • Michael X. Sommers voiced Necro in the first two titles, while Lawrence Bayne voiced him in 3rd Strike.
    • Isshin Chiba voiced Sean in New Generation and 2nd Impact. Mitsuo Iwata took over in 3rd Strike.
    • Kaoru Fujino voiced Elena in New Generation and 2nd Impact. Mie Midori voiced her in 3rd Strike.
    • Kan Tokumaru voiced Oro in New Generation and 2nd Impact, while Takashi Matsuyama voiced him in 3rd Strike.
    • Yuji Ueda voiced Urien in 2nd Impact, while Lawrence Bayne voiced him in 3rd Strike.
    • Wataru Takagi voiced Hugo in 2nd Impact, while Len Carlson voiced him in 3rd Strike.
    • Effie and Poison were voiced by Kaoru Fujino in 2nd Impact. In 3rd Strike, Yuri Amano voiced Effie, while Atsuko Tanaka voiced Poison.
    • The announcer was voiced by Bruce Robertson in New Generation and 2nd Impact. In 3rd Strike, the announcer was voiced by Infinite.
  • No Port For You: New Generation and 2nd Impact are technically this as the Dreamcast port is a just a mere rerelease.
  • Promoted Fanboy: In Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition, the last of the ten parrying trials is "EVO Moment #37", a.k.a. "The Daigo Parry".
  • Troubled Production: This video from Matt McMuscles shows that the game suffered numerous setbacks that ultimately played a part in it flopping:
    • SFIII was originally going to be an all-new IP titled New Generation before Capcom shorehorned the Street Fighter name into the title.
    • The game was developed by a wholly-new inexperienced team that had no idea on what mechanics should be implemented into the game.
  • Urban Legend of Zelda:
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Ryu was originally going to be the only returning character in New Generation, with Ken only getting added at the last minute to fill out the roster. Had Ken never been added, this means Sean would've likely been developed as a true Shoto Clone rather than a Dan Hibiki-esque Joke Character.
    • Gill's original design was to have him manipulate light and darkness. However, Capcom, for many reasons, decided to use the fire/ice alignment to showcase their spiffy new hardware. His secondary color is a reference to the original direction.note 
    • The development team planned to include Hugo in New Generation, but he had to be Dummied Out due to time constraints.
      • For similar reasons, Makoto was Dummied Out in 2nd Impact (according to an interview).
    • Shin Akuma might have possibly been planned to appear in 3rd Strike, as he has nearly complete Dummied Out code in the game and can be completely playable with a hack.
    • Remy's place in the roster could have been taken up by a character that used poisonous attacks, predating F.A.N.G.
    • While New Generation received a Dreamcast port, ports to the three systems in the previous console generation had in fact been considered. In the end, a Nintendo 64 port proved a complete non-starter due to its lack of storage capacity. Capcom reportedly looked at a 64DD version, but quickly and correctly concluded the add-on had no commercial potential. A PlayStation port quickly ran into insurmountable technical difficulties that Sony had no interest in helping Capcom resolve due to their preference for fully-3D titles, while a Sega Saturn port got furthest into development but was eventually scrapped and Moved to the Next Console after Sega pulled the plug on the Saturn.
    • According to Infinite, before he was brought on board to do the raps and announcer lines for 3rd Strike, he had to audition in front of Capcom staff members. The audition featured a who's who of Canadian hip-hop legends at the time, including Maestro Fresh Wes, Choclair, Michie Mee, Kardinal Offishal, and even his former group Ghetto Concept.
    • This piece of concept art showcases several scrapped characters designed for the game. These include a giant robot, a mad scientist, a genie, a breakdancer, a man resembling an ancient greek statue, and a Velociraptor. note 
  • Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The day Infinite got the confirmation that he was picked to do the rap tracks for 3rd Strike, Capcom told him he had studio time the very next day, and he had absolutely nothing prepared; so he spent 24 hours writing rough versions of all three tracks, so he'd at least have something to work with when he got to the studio.

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