10 Most Profitable Arcade Games That Made BILLIONS
3. Street Fighter II: Champion Edition - Capcom (1992)
Revenue To Date: $4.1 billion
Long before players were knocking each other's heads off and throwing them into pits in Mortal Kombat, they were busy smashing buttons on Street Fighter games. The first Street Fighter hit arcades in 1987, and before the year was out, Capcom released a sequel, but in 1992, they kicked out an update that changed fighting games forever.
Street Fighter II: Champion Edition was an update to the original released in 1987, and the mechanics and techniques used in the game established the many conventions that remain an aspect of fighting games today. Despite being an update instead of an outright new game, the fans loved it.
Fans were given the opportunity to play mirror matched for the first time, the game rebalanced gameplay to make it less advantageous to choose specific characters, and it offered up four playable Grand Masters. Because it was an upgrade, it sold as both a standalone new cabinet, but it also sold as an upgrade board, which could be installed in existing Street Fighter II cabs.
With 60,000 upgrade kits and 140,000 new cabs, the game managed to sell an impressive 200,000 units, and they required a lot of quarters! Sales by 1995 amounted to a whopping $2.3 billion, or $4.1 billion in 2019.