And presently, it's the best version of Street Fighter 2, and probably the tightest, most balanced, best competitive fighting game in the world.
MANY people would beg to differ with that statement. To say the least, especially our Asian brethren, who can't even play the game through normal means (No Japanese/Asian release of HD Remix exists). Still others have problems with how David Sirlin chose to "balance" the game (giving buffs to his favorite character, Honda, for example).
Developers should spend more money in releasing titles worldwide and making the whole thing just work, because it gives them a bigger audience. Giving more importance to that big audience = more money.
You're asking them to spend the money, but...for what reason? Where is the guarantee of a "bigger" audience if they really sought out to change things any more than what they are currently? For example, "Vanilla" SF4 has gone on to sell upwards of over 3 million units world wide. Mortal Kombat vs. DC went on to sell 1.8 million units. Both of these games have done just fine, doing things as per the current "status quo". Conversely, Tekken 6 has done more to be a commercial failure, even in spite of an attempt to make for a decent worldwide push beyond its normal scope (for what it was worth).
If any thing, T6 is probably the very thing that showcases why trying to vie for what you speak of can do more harm than good for a fighting game. Development of the home version was held back by an additional year, and it was largely due to Namco wanting to craft a 360 port to make for better "worldwide appeal" (much to the chagrin of PS3 owners who were originally expecting to be able to play the game back in 08). The end result was that BOTH ports suffered as a result performance-wise, and that wasn't even necessary when bad netcode and other issues would eventually crop up, and would do more to seal the fate of T6's home version. In the end, what can be concluded is that trying to go for the "worldwide appeal" with the Tekken property was just too much for even Namco, one of the biggest publishers in the business. As of right now, Namco's Tekken brand is in a pretty bad slump worldwide, which is probably why they've already done more to announce Tekken 7 in an effort to try and save face after last year's fiasco.
So, we got a number of examples of some doing just fine with things the way they are, and one resounding example of how trying to go too far was disastrous. Which do you think most of the competition is going to go with, especially in this economic climate?
But I do believe there's massive potential for this genre. They just need to expand it. It can become very lucrative if they can make it work.
Unfortunately, I don't see it the same way. For one, how do you go about "making it work"? "Expanding the genre", even? Is the answer more in the way of "casual appeal"? I would say "no"; if there's anything that games ranging from KOF, Melty Blood, BlazBlue and TvC have showcased, it's that reducing the number of buttons doesn't do THAT much to level the playing field. Those who still bother to learn the games are going to be the ones who win out, even if you do end up humoring the fantasy of "one button Hadoukens", one day. On the contrary, such a thing does more to take away from the meta-game that experienced players like myself love, which doesn't do us any favors, either.
No, the long and short of it seems to be that Fighting Games would probably need to significantly overhaul the basic formula at a fundamental level, in order to make it expand. Because the basic thing is, Fighting Games require you to do a whole lot in the way of "learning" just to be able to be competent. And that's not something that everybody can do, especially since there's no immediate reward for this learning process that this current "Achievement" and "Trophy" generation can relate to.
Namely, a game like StarCraft will teach you how to play the game through its story mode, and if nothing else, a gamer can play through the campaign, and feel a sense of "achievement" for beating the game. He may or may not ever go on battle.net, but at least he's got that sense of achievement that can't be taken away from him. Such a thing doesn't really exist in the fighting games of today. A gamer can plow through the story mode, muster whatever is necessary to see a character's ending and barely scrape the surface of what the game may potentially have.
Now, I show you this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4WhEc_pjOE (Technical Breakdown for Ash Crimson in KOFXIII)
I could break down a video like this for a more casual minded gamer. Tell 'em how one does the stuff in it, when it should be applied in a match and etc. If they're still around, and not scared away by the amount of learning that would be required to perform some of this stuff, the main thing I could imagine them saying is "....why? Why should I learn this stuff? What's my motivation, if I'm just going to play the game the way I want to play it? I just count myself lucky that I'm able to do a Shoryuken at least 1/4 of the time~!
".
That, in a nutshell, explains why FG still have such a great "disconnect" when it comes to casual gamers, which furthermore is the main proponent of why expansion of any sort is unlikely. The basic formula would likely have to be overhauled in order to even hold their interest for more than the "shits and giggles" state of mind. And even there, where's the guarantee of expansion? Hell, you might do more to [acid burst] off your ride-or-die fanbase and lose everything in the process.
So, in the end, that's perhaps one reason why I'm still going to watch out for MvC3, even as I'm still cautiously pessimistic (for now, at least). A much more casual interface, "more emphasis on story" and familiar brand names and characters may have the potential to showcase a new way of doing fighting games. Or it could just be more of the same. We'll see~.
[/rant]