Yoshinori Ono on the benefits of leaving Street Fighter 4 on the back burner

Writers and artists know that forcing the issue just won’t help – sometimes, it’s best to leave ideas simmering on the proverbial back burner before returning to them at a later time.

Incidentally, that seems to be what Yoshinori Ono and the rest of the Capcom development team have done with Street Fighter 4. Ono explained things during a recent interview, located right after the jump.

If it’s one question that’s probably on the minds of some Street Fighter fans, it’s this: Why the long dormant period in between Street Fighter 3 and Street Fighter 4?

Fortunately, Yoshinori Ono of Capcom offered to answer this question in a recent interview. Ono admitted that Capcom could have stopped the series at part 3 – effectively quitting while still ahead.

Nevertheless, a lot of ideas bounced back and forth between Ono and his Capcom staff in the last ten years. Looking back, the Street Fighter 4 producer thinks that the wait was actually a blessing in disguise:

In the beginning we were not exactly sure which direction to go. Should we stick to something entirely new? Should we stick to the roots? Having the time to step back and look at the series up until now, to think about the various options that we have, I think was very helpful.

Having that time actually helped us to get the game headed in the direction that it’s headed now – which I think is a good direction – and to get us where we are today.

Ono mentioned another good reason for having waited this long: the advancement of technology. According to him, there was no way that Capcom could have envisioned arcade boards as powerful as the ones currently at their disposal.

When developing Street Fighter 4, it certainly helps to have the right tools to work with. As Ono put it: “The 360 and PS3, certainly, are incredibly powerful compared to what we had to work with ten years ago.”