However poor the game may turn out; from an artistic point of view, that trailer is SEXXAYY though!!

Well Soul Calibur and SSB are fighters, beat em ups would be Final Fight or Streets of Rage.

Anyways, at this point I don't see why Capcom would move on to Street Fighter IV if there was no noticeable change from the previous games like a lot of people in this thread are assuming. So you can assume all day long based off of this (beautiful) trailer, I'll wait for the actual thing to judge. This isn't going to be like all the Street Fighter II rehashes, when they come out with a new "series" of numbered games then I look at it similar to, say, SSB: They don't completely reinvent the gameplay but they do make enough changes to the roster, mechanics and moves that some people would prefer maybe Alpha over II, or SSB over Melee.

I really don't think SSB is a "fighter" game. Always thought of it as a beat'em up. You're correct about Soul Calibur though.

SBB is a fighter, no doubt about it. The only difference between it and other "normal" fighters is the scale of the maps and the unique gameplay. The increased maneuverability and jumping in SSB allows for a very unique gameplay experience compared to more traditional fighters. The increased flexibility allows for a larger number of simple, yet effective, attacks that can be stringed together in various fashions to produce combos of a different, but just as effective, nature than those in more traditional fighters.

Old school fighters generally have high and low attacks, consisting of punches and kicks, though some have the occasional mid level attack as well. SSB abandons this concept completely, and instead has forward, down, back, and up attacks of varying strength, as well as mid-air attacks in the same four directions.

Traditional fighters generally focus on stringing together various punch and kick attacks to perform intricate combos against one's opponent, whereas SSB focuses more on outmaneuvering one's opponent while getting in single hits here and there, occasionally stringing hits together to perform small combos, thus dealing greater damage to an opponent.

THey are two very different styles of fighters, but both fighters, nonetheless. The only thing SSB can be knocked for is being the first fighter to truly innovate the genre since it's inception.

IGN, wikipedia and other sites seem to list it as a fighter as well... I won't buy it now... :P

Street Fighter 2 is old, Street fighter 4 is new. We can't judge about something we haven't seen yet. That's like predicting the Wii will loose before it was released.
This could turn out to be good, if not great. If they can make SF4 with perfect 3d gameplay it will have a chance to be better than the rest. If not people will think it's SF2 all over again. No matter how hard they will try.

They can make up for all the spinoffs they delivered the past millennium if they can do this right.

This man speaks the truth.

Believe it or not, Capcom fighters have a cultic following and changing the core game play, making it 3D will explode angry fans and is a very dangerous move.

Also another very important factor that determines the longetivity of a game like this these days.  LAGLESS ONLINE PLAY.  Anyone thats tried fighting games online knows what I'm talking about.  These games are meant to play against people but unfortunately are very timing oriented as the slight delay can make the difference between a win and loss.

There's an interesting movement by core fans over at shoryuken.com (Portal for Capcom fighting games) check this out if you're interested in LAGLESS ONLINE FIGHTING GAMEPLAY.

http://www.capcom.com/BBS/showthread.php?t=20816

Joemanji: I will guarantee you, SF4 going 3D will be the biggest disappointment amonst true SF fans including me. Call us narrowminded but its just not SF from Capcom if it goes 3D. Besides they already tried 3D SF already (SF:Ex series) and that didn't catch much attention.

i would be pissed if it was 3D also, as you said SF:EX was a pretty big failure while at about the same time games like marvel vs capcom 2 and SFA3 were successful.

Capcom would be smart to make the game 2.5D with 2D characters and interactive backrounds that are a mix of 2D and 3D. The characters must be 2D though.

The odd thing about SF4 is Ryu and Ken being in it. Well it's odd but also not odd.

SF3 originally wern't going to have Ryu and Ken in it with Sean as the only... "Shoto...something" fighter in it because Ryu and Ken were considered "Too old" but then were added back in because of fan appeal.

I'll be interested, but not for full price, more as a "Buy it for 5 dollars when Street Fighter 4:Championship addition comes out." or it bombs.