Capcom developer and publisher the original Street Fighter arcade game in 1987. It is the first competitive fighting game produced by the company and the first installment in the Street Fighter series of video games. Street Fighter was a hit in arcades and introduced special attacks along with a number of the conventions made standard in later fighting games, including the six-button controls and the use of command-based special moves.

Street Fighter was directed by Takashi Nishiyama, who conceived it by adapting the boss battles of his earlier fighting game, Kung-Fu Master (1984), for a one-on-one fighting game, and by drawing influence from popular Japanese manga comic books.