Street Fighter II for Master System made possible because of a joke

The year was 1997; Master System and Genesis were still popular in Brazil and both were still receiving new games. TecToy, which had a lot of experience programming for Master System, wanted to bring the most popular fighting games to the SEGA 8-Bits console, which prompted them to start development on Street Fighter II.

However, the majority of the companies don’t want to see their projects related to old products, so Capcom didn’t want to see Street Fighter II on the Master System. Tectoy decided to do a little joke to get the license from Capcom.

On the day they presented it for Capcom, they hid the Master System under a table and gave two Genesis Joysticks to the guy, pretending it was a Genesis game. At the beginning when he started to play it, he thought the game was awful for a Genesis game, and he said “I think you should improve it a lot”. When he said that Tectoy took the console and put it over the table and the guy impressed said “I’ve never seen a game taking so much from the Master System CPUs as you did, I think we will allow you to release it”.

Following that, Tectoy got everything they needed to release the only official version of Street Fighter II for an 8-bit console. Have a look at the interview below with the CEO of TecToy, Stefano Arnhold.

Street Fighter II for Master System was released with 8 fighters. It features the announcer’s vocals and it has good graphics, but it missed a lot of moves because Master System’s Joystick has only two buttons. The game is still impressive for an 8-bit console, but the Master System would have sold much more if it was released much earlier in the console’s life cycle.