Street Fighter 5 beta down for good

Street Fighter 5 is going back in the oven until it can produce a fully-baked beta test.

A Street Fighter 5 beta test kicked off late last week, and almost immediately fell right over.

After a troubled few days of servers going up and down fast enough to make us seasick, Capcom has elected to pull the plug on the whole thing.

"Capcom offers its sincerest apologies to everyone who participated in this first beta test," the publisher wrote on Capcom Unity.

"While the purpose of a beta is to work out these type of issues, it was very clear that the issues we faced were more severe than we were prepared for.

"We understand how frustrating it is to be so close to playing the game you are excited for, and to not have it working. The whole team here is very disappointed."

"After three days of testing, while we were making progress and collecting valuable data, we felt the majority of players were not having a good experience, and the best course of action would be to take the servers offline for extended maintenance. We will be postponing our first beta phase until we believe the experience is going to be a positive one for players."

Capcom had announced three batches of beta testing for the upcoming fighter, and stressed that this first abortive attempt won't count as one of those rounds. This is important for those who pre-ordered specifically to access the extra beta test.

"Additionally, we are working on a worthwhile in-game incentive for the players that participated in the first beta test," Capcom said, which is going above and beyond. "While we can't confirm specifics just yet, we will have more details on this in the coming weeks. "

Capcom also apologised to Asian and European players who were locked out of the beta as Capcom tried to get it running just for North America over the weekend; they will also receive a little bonus gift.

"To all of the players that participated and supported us through this initial phase, we cannot thank you enough," Capcom said, rather sweetly.

"We understand how frustrating it is to be so close to playing the game you are excited for, and to not have it working. The whole team here is very disappointed that we were unable to deliver a proper beta experience this time."

Street Fighter 5 is coming to PC and PS4 in March 2016. Aren't you glad this is happening now and not then?