Capcom: sales of Street Fighter x Tekken "have fallen short of our plan"

Are the wheels once again coming off the fighting game genre? Capcom today said sales of Street Fighter x Tekken were not up to scratch.

Street Fighter x Tekken has shifted 1.4 million copies since its launch back in March. This, Capcom said, meant sales "have fallen short of our plan".

It blamed the game's poor performance on the cannibalism of the fighting game genre - that is, too many fighting games launching within too short a time.

"We believe one of causes is cannibalism because of the large number of other games in this genre that were launched within a short time," was Capcom's statement.

Since the release and success of Street Fighter 4 in 2009 Capcom has launched a number of fighting games, including Super Street Fighter 4, Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Street Fighter x Tekken and a number of re-releases of cult classic fighting games on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.

But Capcom is not alone in investing heavily in the fighting game genre. Buoyed by the popularity of SF4, Warner Bros launched a new Mortal Kombat and Namco Bandai launched a number of Tekken games and Soulcalibur 5.

What does this mean for the proposed return to the Darkstalkers series, which Capcom's fighting game guru Yoshinori Ono is desperate to make?

Meanwhile, Capcom said the success of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, which has shipped two million units, justified its decision to draft in Canadian studio Slant Six games for development work.

"This shows the success of our decision to try the new approach of using an alliance with an overseas development company," Capcom said.