It was like today, 30 August 1987, when Capcom released a new title, a competitive fighting game called Street Fighter which was going to change the genre in the short term and to change drastically the whole videogame market few years later with the second chapter (Street Fighter II, 1991).
The first big new feature introduced by Street Fighter was the use of six buttons, 3 for punches and 3 for kicks and after its release in Japanese arcade center the game caught the attention of the players month after month : it was only the 5th most played game in arcades in August 1987 but just a few months later, in October, Street Fighter entered the podium and in January 1988 reached the top spot.
One of the key of this success was the introduction of the special moves which were not listed in the cabinet flyer as usual so after the word of mouth was spread, players started to practice the game and experimenting with controls to find the “mysterious” special moves and performing them, which was not easy as it will be from the second chapter.
Another hit point was allowing a second player to interrupt someone while playing and start a versus match : this was a drastic turnover because changed the game from being a solo fighting game to a multi-player competitive game.
But even if Street Fighter got a general good impression and became quite popular, at the end of the 80’s the most played games were still platforms and shoot’em ups, so unlike the most famous arcade games of the time it was not ported to many home systems but just one : in 1988 it was released on PC Engine on CD format and strangely while being an official port the title was changed to “Fighting Street“.
Source : Famitsu