Yoshinori Ono, the face of Street Fighter for years and legendary Capcom producer, has announced his departure from Capcom. Ono, who spent nearly 30 years at the Japanese publisher, didn’t provide a reason for why he’s leaving. “I’ve been with the Street Fighter brand for a long time, experiencing good times, bad times, and even none-existent times,” Ono wrote in a Twitter message. “And now, after serving almost 30 years at Capcom, I am leaving the company in this summer. This means that I will resign my position as the brand manager for Capcom’s various titles including Street Fighter.” In his statement, Ono addressed some of the criticism around this year’s Capcom Pro Tour, which ran into a few problems due to its online nature and the game’s netcode woes. “We at Capcom had many internal discussions about the format for the CPT 2020. It took a long time for us to decide the format for this year, but we believe that conducting the event itself would repay those who [have] been supporting the CPT, regardless of what the format is,” he wrote.
“Needless to say, I understand there has been some criticism about this particular format. However, I’m fully convinced that it is important to shed light on various hopes by keeping the event even in this way.” Ono ended his message by asking fans to join him one last time in shouting a Shoryuken - a habit of his at Capcom’s various physical events. The news comes just a few days after one Capcom insider said that Ono had been demoted from his position as director of Street Fighter 6. Supposedly, the game is being retooled with a new director at the helm, and this delay caused the team an extra year of development. This explains Capcom’s surprising decision to announce new characters for Street Fighter 5, extending the game’s life beyond what fans expected.
