Japanese Community in Uproar Over the Latest Street Fighter 6 Patch

If there's one thing that most of us heard for years now after the release of Street Fighter 6, it's that this game is bigger in Japan than anywhere else in the world.

Japanese events are popping off, there are consistently huge streams with thousands of viewers, and all the big streamers, vtubers, and other popular influencers are jumping in on the game.

This led to a situation where people in the rest of the world started to feel like their opinion regarding content updates and balance patches don't really matter, since the Japanese audience comes first. Even the recent PPV changes regarding Street Fighter League and Capcom Cup seem to be made with domestic audience in mind first and foremost.

Well, it seems like we now have a bit of a reverse situation. The Japanese audience feels like the latest patch did target some characters that were generally seen as problems among the western or anglophone communities, while someone like Ed is untouched in the aftermath of mowing down the Street Fighter League.

Regardless of the framing, this feels quite unusual because we (as in people in the west, or just outside of Japan) tend to only get brief glimpses of the Japanese community, and they usually seem quite satisfied. And as long as they are happy, Capcom is happy.

But now the criticism is reaching a level where the company might actually have to scramble to respond. Given the otherwise very slow patch cycle for SF6, you probably don't want to allow these feelings of neglect among the community to just fester for another who knows how many months.

One of the most popular tweets surrounding this matter comes from Shuto, who expressed more general disappointment over Capcom's lack of activity. Seems like even in Japan there is a common sentiment that this game is not being updated and as meaningfully as it should be, and while trying to not interfere with the competition is well and good, the game's health could still use some help.

It's worth noting here that complaints like these generally don't spill out into some big outrage for one simple reason. Street Fighter 6 is generally quite a balanced fighting game relative to many of its peers, and the game is fundamentally quite solid. 

Even if there are some flaws and frustrations, the game still holds up well enough for Capcom to take their time when it comes to introducing any sort of meaningful changes.