Those of you old enough to remember when the first Street Fighter came out in the '80s might also recall that the PC Engine / TG-16 home port of the game went by the name of Fighting Street (this same version made its way to the Wii Virtual Console later on, too).
There has been much discussion over the decades about why this happened, and the most commonly accepted explanation was that a pre-existing trademark was in place for a pair of trainers, and that forced a name change. However, Yoshiki Okamoto, who would produce Street Fighter II, the infinitely more successful sequel, has apparently revealed the true reason behind the alteration.
Speaking on his YouTube channel (thanks, James Wragg), Okamoto gives the real reason: Namco owns the trademark for the name 'Street Fight', which means any application to use a similar name would have incurred a licence fee.
Given that Street Fighter, while popular, was not the multimedia monster it was by the time its sequel arrived, this fee would have hit the profits of the PC Engine port dramatically, so the choice made to avoid paying by tinkering with the title a little to avoid confusion with Namco's trademark.
Amazingly, Okamoto adds that Capcom did eventually stump up the fee to Namco for Street Fighter II and III (he was the producer on both), and is possibly still paying it (to Bandai Namco) as of 2021.
Okamoto left Capcom to form Flagship in 1997, a firm that would continue to work closely with Capcom, before founding Game Republic in 2003. More recently, he worked on Monster Strike, which is currently the second-highest-grossing mobile app of all time.
You can play the original version of Street Fighter by investing in the excellent 30th Anniversary Collection on Switch, if you fancy it.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 14
I wonder how they settle a matter like that, when Street Fighter characters are now featured in the Bandai-Namco and Nintendo joint-developed Super Smash Bros. games?
Considering WWF (now WWE) had to pay Marvel to use Hulk Hogan's ring name until Bollea bought the rights, I could see this being true, sadly. Though since Street Fighter is STILL going, they had to have come to an agreement which just gave Capcom the rights eventually.
Well, some fool trademarked the word "Edge", and this was the reason "Soul Edge" became "Soul Calibur"...
Now I know why Namco won't make their version of Tekken x Street Fighter. Why do it when they already made good money from the Capcom version anyways?
@Whitestrider It became Soul Blade and then Soul Calibur. Someone also trademarked the name "Blade" as well, I wonder who. Not only did they trademarked Soul Calibur, they are smart enough to make the title a closed compound word (SoulCalibur) this time so no other party could sue them for trademark infringement.
Surprised you can trademark something as simple as Streetfight. That's like trademarking Football.
@AndyC_MK I thought the reasoning that EA was able to take down the "Edge" trademark troll was they demonstrated the troll had no intent to actually release anything.
So does that mean Namco would have to have plans to actually release something called "Street Fight" (at least in the US) to be able to renew it?
FYI, this person was the developer of some standout early arcade games — including Time Pilot and Gyruss for Konami, and 1942 for Capcom. And various other Capcom games, like Son Son
An unsung hero of the video game history, IMO
@Silly_G The source is Yoshiki Okamoto's YouTube video.
No wonder they called it Fighting Street lol. Never gonna call it Street Fighter because it doesn't have that same feel to it.
Just reminds me how we got SFxT but never TxSF
@AndyC_MK Unlike copyrights (which effectively last forever, thanks to Disney's political lobbying after legal rights to its mouse should have otherwise expired), trademarks have to be renewed after so many years. At the least I know that.
@JayJ they did — that's why it's called "Soccer" in the USA, and "Kicky Kicky Panic" in Japan.
I'm just sitting here, waiting patiently for Capcom to make an announcement regarding the new games reportedly coming to Capcom Arcade Stadium.
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