The world’s best Street Fighter 6 player will win $1M in its first year

A new era in fighting game competition begins in 2023, as Capcom is set to make Street Fighter 6 the exclusive game of its Capcom Pro Tour series. And the company is putting its money where its mouth is, backing the new game with a huge $2 million prize pool, a cool $1 million of which will go to the winner of the next Capcom Cup — the culminating event of the Pro Tour.

The announcement was made at the end of Capcom Cup IX on Sunday, Feb. 19. The last Cup to be fought in Street Fighter 5 was won by MenaRD, a.k.a. Saul Leonardo Mena Segundo from the Dominican Republic. The prize pool for the 2022 Pro Tour and Capcom Cup IX was just $300,000, which shows just how serious Capcom is about launching Street Fighter 6 with a splash on the esports scene. Though not that big by global esports standards — the 2021 Dota 2 International offered an astonishing $40 million prize pool — the $2 million reward Capcom is offering is massive for fighting games.

According to fighting game site EventHubs, the 2023 Capcom Pro Tour will also be the first to integrate online events — a vote of confidence from Capcom in the reliability of Street Fighter 6’s netcode.

Street Fighter 6 launches on June 2, 2023 — and it’s not all about the pro players. Capcom has also implemented a new “dynamic” control scheme, available in local play only, which translates hapless button-mashing into something like skilled play. It won’t win you a million dollars, but it sounds like a lot of fun.