It has been announced that both Capcom and SNK will be bringing their newest fighting games to the arcade scene. For now SFV and KOF XIV will only be coming to Japan, but hopefully some of the cabinets will make their way west.
Capcom will be bringing Street Fighter V to arcades in the near future in the form of the the PC version. Details will be clarified at a later time.
For Taito, the company announced NESiCAxLive 2, its follow-up arcade digital content platform. Companies such as Arc System Works, Examu, FK Digital and French Bread have pledged support for the system. SNK will also take part by announcing that The King of Fighters XIV will be coming to Japanese arcades through this platform.
While SF V will be based on the PC version, this does raise some questions. Does the game coming to arcades mean we will get a proper arcade mode is the first and foremost question on my mind. The lack of a proper arcade mode with character ladders and endings did hurt SFV, so this introducing an arcade more could help.
For KOF XIV, the game is already near perfect but this can be used to find ways to refine the game and make it even better. It can also be used to determine if DLC should be done and who should be DLC.
Most importantly though, this could help the sales of both games. SF V has done notoriously poorly in sales, and KOF has been lagging. Arcade versions could get more people interested and help get more sales for the games. Whatever your opinions are of these two fighters, the FGC needs more fighting games to sell if it is to continue, and this can help greatly.