This week 29 years ago, the first Street Fighter was released in arcades. There was Ken, Ryu and some very different buttons.
[Image: Event Hubs]
As pointed out on Event Hubs, the first cabinets had giant pressure-sensitive pads that you were supposed to POUND WITH YOUR FIST.
[Image: Event Hubs]
Which is nuts.
[Image: Event Hubs]
Problems arose from players punching the buttons, such as hand injuries and cabinet damage, so Capcom replaced the buttons with the now familiar six-button layout.
[Image: Event Hubs]
Like so.
[Image: Event Hubs]
Thank goodness.
Total Recall is a look back at the history of video games through their characters, franchises, developers and trends. You can find more stories like this one here.
Comments
8 responses to “The Reason Behind Street Fighter’s Iconic Button Layout”
Say what? That explains the presence of buttons but not their layout…
I think the pressure sensitive buttons must have had 3 levels of sensitivity. High, Medium, Low. so they just put 3 buttons for punch and 3 for kick. I’m guessing though.
That’s correct. The pressure pads were connected to the low, medium & hard punch/kick idea that is still around today… Even if Capcom tries to change it to low/hard only every now and again
Which ones did they do that on?
Thanks for complementing a very poor article.
The more you know about what you already know but done in a piss poor manner.
The only cabinet I ever saw the smashpads on was at Timezone on Pitt St in Sydney. The game spent more time waiting for repairs than it ever did operational. The guy behind the counter one day told me that the tech was out to fix it pretty much every day.
Good lord, how old are we? lol.
Agree, just wow