Street Fighter 6 smashes the all-time Steam concurrent player record for fighting games

@Jag85: How many Steam users are there?

Very nice to see. It warms my heart to see another era of Capgod again.

Congrats on the Steam user's expectations. Let's see how it will fair when both Tekken 8 & Mortal Kombat 1 does when those fighting games are released this year.

I'm hoping Mortal Kombat 1 does well.

I'm more of a Tekken guy but those are impressive numbers.

Sweet.

Just watched some high level Chun-Li gameplay. Was batshit insane. I want in. :P

Millions. And millions.

But this is super impressive.

Very disappointing.

Raise your standards.

@last_lap: Millions. But obviously, they're not all going to be online at the same time. Concurrent players means how many are online at the same time. If it's in the tens of thousands, then it's a popular online game. Only a handful of games can pull off hundreds of thousands at the same time.

UPDATE:

Street Fighter 6 hit a new peak of 70,573 concurrent Steam players... That's more than double MK11's record!

Source: SteamDB

A quick Google search says there are over 120 million active accounts, and only 70k for a new game seems rather poor, A lot of hermits are probably waiting for the game to be cracked, or hermits don't game that much at all, most likely both.

Yeah pretty great numbers. Obviously SF6 is earning it, but at the same time, really the trend of the FGC growing on PC. Barring some terrible release shit, T8 will likely put up new records.

Pretty crazy how much fighting games have blown up on PC. Competitive players going there makes sense, but it's definitely weird seeing PC have a chunk of the broader audience as well.

@last_lap:

Monthly active users =/= Concurrent users

• Monthly active users (MAU) = Number of accounts active per month. It's usually around 120M.
• Concurrent users (CCU) = Number of accounts active per hour. It's usually around 5M.

You're comparing apples-to-oranges.

Here is an actual apples-to-apples comparison:

Top Steam Releases of 2023 (CCU)

1. Hogwarts Legacy - 879,308
2. Resident Evil 4 - 168,191
3. Street Fighter 6 - 70,573
4. The Outlast Trials - 36,689
5. Wartales - 35,879

Street Fighter 6 had the third biggest Steam launch of 2023, behind only Hogwarts Legacy and Resident Evil 4.

If you want to know how many units it sold, then the formula is usually something like this:

• Peak CCU X 10 = Estimated units sold

From this formula, we could estimate that Street Fighter 6 sold roughly around 600-700K units on Steam in its first day.

So if we go by your figures then it would have sold over a million copies by now and only has 70k at any one time playing it, seems poor to me. Not trying to shit on the game as i'm considering buying it. If only 5 million of the 120 million play regularly then Steam is not all what everyone makes it out to be, interesting, thanks for the chat.

@last_lap: Use some common sense, bruv....

• It's purchased by people all over the world.
• The Earth is a globe, with different regions having different time zones.
• Most people do not play the same game 24/7.
• Most people go either work, school, or take care of kids.

Not every purchaser on the planet is going to be playing the game at the same time in the same exact hour. You're making a big deal over nothing, dude.

I understand how the world works lol.

If the sales are over a million on Steam and America has the most Steam users, then 70k playing at any one time seems small. To put it another way only 7% of people who brought the game were playing it at any one time.

And i'm not making a big deal over it, just making a comment is all. You're making my comment out to be a big deal when it's just an observation. Now your thread is the one making a big deal over this, i'm just adding a different perspective.

"Not trying to shit on the game as i'm considering buying it" I guess comprehending what you read is hard for you :(

It's the same pattern across most games on every platform. Only around 10% of a game's total user base is going to be actively playing the game at any given hour. Doesn't matter if it's Street Fighter or Call of Duty, or if it's Steam or PlayStation. It's the same pattern across most games on all platforms.

Again, just use some common sense. Most people are casuals, not hardcore gamers who play the same game for 24 hours straight. Your argument makes no sense whatsoever.

FYI, I estimated SF6 Steam sales to be roughly around 600-700K, based on how most other games' CCU is usually around 10% of the sales. Not sure where you got 1M+ sales from.

@Archangel3371: Remember when Street Fighter 2 entered the arcade halls in the early 1990s? Capcom just ruled the gaming world. Great times.

Def not impressed with the state of the launch product on PC.

Correction:

The previous record holder was not Mortal Kombat 11. The record was previously held by Dragon Ball FighterZ, which had a peak CCU of 44,303. Street Fighter 6 surpassed this record with 70,573 CCU yesterday.

I remember the original Street Fighter game released in 1987 (although I'm unsure if I saw it in 87). There was nothing special about the first one, pretty amazing how they turned that around with the second one.

I like how the Street mode (forget the the exact the name) has used the Final Fight Story of Metro City and how Mayor Haggar cleared the Streets of Metro City from the 'Mad Gear' Crime group. This explains why there are so many fighters walking around.

The original control scene for Street Fighter was very different but too expensive to produce. Two pressure pad buttons.

Yeah, I think it's more that anytime you have something that is successful, you always get these types that show up and try to tear it down. Some sad shit, for sure.

That being said, the game definitely needs some patches.

@pmanden: Oh yeah, definitely remember that. Capcom and Konami were really going back and forth with some excellent games. Great times indeed.

@nod_calypse: Thar's funny coming a guy who always talks down about MS every chance they get 🤣

People in stone houses and all that jazz.

Hell yeah it was. I spent like 10,000 quarters at Round Table Pizza in those days.

@Jag85: For starters whether people are hardcore or casual has no bearing on the current player list, in fact scratch that, people have said that this is the most accessible SF game ever, so it should of helped the game out, anyway.

Congrats to Capcom for having the highest concurrent player rate of any fighter (weird to congratulate a game for that) I was just saying it seems low for a game with such a storied history in gaming.

Maybe concurrent is not the way to judge games or indeed celebrate them, seems like a weird flex to me.

@last_lap:

Again, it's the same for every launch across every platform. The CCU is usually around 10% of the total sales. This is true for every big launch, whether it's Call of Duty, God of War, Spider-Man, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, etc. All of them have CCUs roughly around 5-20% of the total sales.

Concurrent players is the industry standard for all Steam launches. Steam does not officially release sales data to the public, so the industry standard is concurrent players. The big Steam launches get CCUs in the tens of thousands. Very rarely does an Elden Ring or Hogwarts Legacy launch with a CCU in the hundreds of thousands.

Well, it's well deserved.

I played it this weekend on PS5, including some of the World Tour, trying out different characters in training mode, and about 30 ranked matches. I was very impressed not only by the quality of the revamped graphics and animations and the competence of the netcode, but also by the gameplay, which manages to balance fun and depth at a very high level.

As has already been pointed out, one of the main reasons for the game's popularity is its ability to appeal to both new and veteran players.

The introduction of new character designs that reflect today's youth culture (hip-hop/breakdancing/UFC/fashionista) while maintaining the good old-fashioned characters that veterans have grown to love.

The introduction of "modern controls" that allow even beginners to play intuitively and at a fairly high level, while maintaining the "classic controls" that allow veterans to pursue greater depth of control.

Finally, the introduction of the "World Tour Mode" for newcomers to get to know the Street Fighter characters/world while learning the basics of fighting games, while for veterans, the online "Battle Hub" that translates the old arcade atmosphere and communication in a modern way.

I guess this was made possible by introducing both perspectives, with younger generation producer Matsumoto and veteran director Nakayama taking the lead in creating it.

In any case, as a veteran of the genre, I'm very happy that the success of SF6 has allowed the fighting game genre to expand its horizons to a wider audience.

@Jag85: 70k still sounds small lol. especially for being record breaking numbers within the entire genre.

its the first day of release I feel it should be in the hundreds of thousands.

if its 70k peak (and obviously way less average) after just one week on the market.

How will it look like 1, 2 or 3 years time? impossible to find anyone to play?

EDIT: SF5 answers this. 504 people playing it right now as of this post (3 years old)

@Mozelleple112:

SFV came out in 2016 lol. And yeah, numbers gonna be way down considering SF6 just launched.

Even still, those SFV numbers are fine, can hop online and get a match instantly. There's never been a time in SFVs lifespan that I couldn't get a match in less than 30 seconds.

SF4 is much older with way less players and I can still get matches quickly.

You don't need tens of thousands of players to have a 1v1 game lol.

Anyways, both SFV and SF6 are crossplay too. You're only seeing the Steam numbers here.

well deserved. It's excellent and clearly assembled with a lot of love and lessons learned from the SF4 launch.

TBH, they should have gifed the game to every SF4 launch buyer out of respect for what they were asked to endure. But I digress.

@adrian1480: You mean 5? 4 was awesome.

@Mozelleple112: SF5 currently has 800+ CCU on Steam after 6 years. SF5 had a 14K peak, which was 5 times less than SF6. If SF6 has similar legs, then it should have 4000+ CCU after 6 years. And that's just on Steam. Add crossplay with consoles, and CCU should be in the tens of thousands after 6 years. There'll no shortage of online opponents in the future (unless Capcom somehow f's up and ruins the game).

@hardwenzen said:

You're wrong for this but I can't lie, I got some good laughs out of this. lol

Yes, it's really that good.

I doubt the current CCU is a good indicator for how it'll look years from now. SF6 just did way better with the normies than SFV did. Once this initial wave fizzles out, only the core audience remains, not gonna see a proportional spread like that lol.

I do expect SF6 on average to maintain higher Steam CCU. Even if only due to the trend of the FGC growing on PC. By a factor of five though? Nah. Not unless fighting games see some crazy boost in esports popularity and numbers just sky rocket. Otherwise expecting a factor of two at best long term.

That said, no need to get baited in that broader argument anyways. The idea that you won't be able to get matches in a current mainline SF game is hilarious. If Capcom dropped support today, you'll still have an active community for years. 24/7 you can hop on CE, ST, SFA3, 3S, USF4, SFV, or SF6 and get matches. People are always playing these games.

I was told PC gamers only pirate

platform ded

this is all fake news