When the Nintendo 3DS launched back in 2011, one of the few decent games available for it at launch was Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, a very competent port of Super Street Fighter IV, complete with online play.

After Capcom released Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, the company went on to ship 1.1 million copies of the game, which is pretty good for a late handheld port. What’s impressive, though, is that three years later people are still buying the game.

From July – September this year, 3DS owners picked up another 100,000 copies of the game, bringing total sales to 1.2 million. That’s a very impressive figure, considering that this is the first version of Super Street Fighter IV, and hasn’t been updated since its initial release. It has none of the added content from Arcade Edition, 2012 or Ultra Street Fighter IV, but it has seen fairly healthy long-term sales regardless.

As to why the game has sold as well as it has on the 3DS, this is pure speculation on our part, but one reason could be the touch screen controls available in the game. Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition allows you to map a variety of moves to four virtual buttons on the 3DS’ bottom screen. This allows you to execute moves like fireballs and other Specials with relative ease, and makes the game more about planning and strategizing, rather than struggling to perform moves in the first place.

It’s an equalizer that helps level the playing field, even if you aren’t an incredibly dedicated player, and this probably helps attract people to the 3DS version, especially since online multiplayer works fairly well. Beyond that, it helps that there are over 40 million 3DSes out in the wild, and that Street Fighter is a relatively mainstream brand.

Source: Capcom Investor Website