SF4 and BB proves what there is room for improvement in the fighter genre, b/c they imporve in a lot of ways.

Smash and nowadays Dissidia showed, that there are plenty of ideas how to create somthing entire fresh in the genre.

SF4 IS much more aproachable for new players but still has some very deep mechanics for people who wants to go all the way and practive their favorite character.

Saying fighters are primitiv IS ignorant. I don't rly think you understand the complexity of the genre Slimebeast or you don't know what primitiv means. Some fighters have gameplay as complex as some of the most mind blowing RPGs, but the difference between this two genres is: RPGs complexity is knowledge, but in BEMs knowledge is 1/10 of the road.

Now saying Tetris is primitiv clearly shows that you either didn't think about this statement or have no clue about game design. Tetris is elegant, not primitiv, a very important difference.

To OP: SF4,BB and Tekken are releasing this year so i cannot rly understand what you say about a needed revival.

The difference between fighting games and other genres is that they are harder to balance out. For shooters for example it's simple. Give someone a few different guns, a few different enemies to shoot at in different environments, and you have a shooter. For multi-player it's not a big deal because everyone can use all the guns etc so the balance is probably easy to find. Might be a mediocre game, but might still be fun.

With fighters it's another story. Fighters need optimization to be good. And developers that have no experience with fighters might have a very hard time creating a good game from the get go. Since fighters revolve around different characters with different styles, they need to find a way to make every character balanced. For example, a slow yet safe and high damage character and a fast but unsafe low damage character, or anything in between. The strings must have enough mix-ups, and animations are important. Besides that, there are other stuff as well, will it be 2d/3d? What influence do environments have on the gameplay, how fast should it be, what about launchers, juggles, ground games, stuns, charges, block breakers etc etc. Though fighting games seem simple, they are one of the hardest games to develop properly.

Besides that, fighters always have a steep learning curve compared to other genres.. Since every character controls differently it's harder to master than a shooter for example, or an rpg since those have standard strategies tied to them.. Most people will forget about fighting games because they get slaughtered when they go online and playing on yourself isn't so much fun, and it's hard to get good. So in the end you'll end up making a game that costs a lot of effort and only a relatively small group of people will really get into it.. So that's why fighters are less common than, let's say, the beginning of the gaming industry.

I dont mean a revival as in more games. i meant more attention. People are more excited about the Halos or the Final Fantasies and Gears. Its more appealing nowadays. Remember when vgchartz asked which is our fave genre and you were able to vote (like the wii question now). the fighting genre was nowhere to be found. it got low votes. theres gotta be a reason why it got low amount of votes so it makes me think why. Many points here make sense like how shooters and other genres improve by adding more to the gameplay where fighting cant because its all mostly there. Its true what one of you said too about how we need a new fighter to appeal to each console like teken did to PSX and Soul Calibur to Dreamcast and Super Smash did for Nintendo. (Killer Instinct 3 is still in my radar, hopefull for it)

Street Fighter 4, BlazBlue and Tekken 6 are fighting games this year, all amazing. But yeah, there needs to be innovation in the fighting genre.

Fighting games are still selling well and getting alone fine.

I just wish AKI was still making ANYTHING fighting related though. God they would make the best MMA ever...

Slimebeast already answered your question. It's an old genre that outside of depth rarely sees noticible changes. When a change comes however it's generally very note worthy and the individual game get's lot's of attention. Karateke for being one of the founders, SF2 for current design. VF for 3d. Tekken for unique emergent combos. Soul Edge for weapons. While many games improve on themselves non offeres anything all that different in design than their original.  Of course we have had Power Stone, SSB series and Dissidia, but for the most part the genre hasn't made a large impression becuase they are all mostly the same. Someday someone will come out with a new fighter that will make a big splash, but it will be very different.

They just made Ready 2 Rumble Revolution for the Wii this year, and it got absolutely slammed by reviewers. It's getting shovelware scores.

I won't like fighting games until you fight with your body rather than buttons.

Fighting games basically just had the largest releases this year, and we are still waiting on the Super SFIV announcement and Sam Shodown comes out in December.

Don't know what your going on about.

Other genres have always generated more attention than Fighters.  Heck, using your analogy, I could say Action games or Platformers or Puzzle games need more attention.  Or even just RPGs other than Final Fantasy.  Just because a game doesn't sell 4 million doesn't mean its a failure.

And it doesn't mean fighters aren't popular (they sell millions as well).  But it comes down to the same two problems, marketing and demographics.  Fighters sell MUCH better in Asia, where they are considered a hobby and tournament level skill to master.  Plus, a lot of people in Asia play games in Arcades still, as well as together.  In America, they are considered just another genre and hard to market to, because Arcades are effectively dead or dying, and the 'coop' markets are focused on genres like MMORPGs/FPS/etc.  If fighters had more marketing put behind them and they were marketed more towards cooperative play, they would probably sell more.  As it stands, the only games that really see good marketing are 3D fighters and Smash Bros...and those are the ones that sell in the millions in America.