I have an interesting question that I will ask to everybody: It is an interesting topic, I think.
[spoiler]"Do you believe that fighting games will be as big as RTS and/or FPS some day in the future?"[/spoiler]
Personally I think that's what Street Fighter IV was trying to accomplish, but IMO they succeeded in part and failed in another.
To me it seemed Capcom tried to make fighting games more cut and dry in that the more you play, the better you will be at the game. In SFIV the moves and combos that really work are quite limited compared to other fighting games. Meaning the strategies are as well. In doing so it puts people on a more even playing field. If player a and player b know all the strategies for each of the characters they are facing, then it comes down to a test of who is more seasoned, in that game rather then who can come up with the best strategy, where knowledge of past fighters would help. This difference shows when the new players hit KOF XIII. They go through all the tutorials, know the deadly combos, yet still get hammered by someone who looks like they know less, but has a better strategy cause they are an old school kofer. In SFIV if you do the missions and spend a little time looking at a couple strategies of the pros, you are going to win over someone who doesn't 95-99% of the time no matter how many fighters they have played. No matter if this is your 1st SF or not.
In doing this you are going to get more players off of other genres cause there is a direct way to get better. If I do what Capcom told me to practice on and play a few matches I can level up my game fast.
From a pros standpoint if each pro know all the situations of the other pro and vice versa then it plain comes down to a battle of who is more skilled rather then someone who does something no one expects surprising everyone then everyone complaining about luck or bad matchups (though at pro level you would think this doesn't happen too much). The more cut and dry you make it the better it is for classifying who is the best.
In doing all of this though you alienate all the older fans. Ones who play the more complex versions and you also alienate the fans who play fighting game to devise new strategies rather being the best at the few that everyone uses. It makes the game look pretty boring after a while.
When it comes down to it it's all in what you like, but when you find a new group of people to play your fighting game, but piss off your old group of people, to me, it doesn't seem like you will grow to be as big as the other genres. Maybe it's just me?