The Street Fighter 6 wifi wars have begun
With new players excited for the Street Fighter 6 launch date, ethernet vs wifi arguments are back.
The Street Fighter 6 community are throwing punches at eachother online following the revelation that wifi indicators will appear next to players heading into online lobbies. With this out info out in the world, debate surrounding the merits of wired vs wireless connections has sprung up yet again.
It's an argument that has been raging for years now, born thanks to the importance of a stable connection in the genre back when the netcode wasn't nearly as good as it is these days. Back then, a wireless connection would result in unplayable matches. In Street Fighter 6, the netcode is good enough so that wifi warriors can play just fine, but the stigma still remains.
"This is discrimination on the highest level," writes Pemo on Twitter, in response to a tournament organiser stating that wifi players will be kicked from SF6 tournaments he runs. "You're just going to alienate people from playing with others? Idk what you senile boomers have against technology. The router is in my room and I have fiber internet. This isnt the 90s, we don't need wires/cables anymore."
Posts like these are being shared, mocked, and memed upon on a variety of online fighting game spaces including Reddit and infamous Twitter account ScrubquotesX. For years, those who died on the hill where their router was have found themselves the target of ridicule. You can undersand why - wifi used to ruin online matches all the time - not that this new wave of Street Fighter fans would know.
But on the other side of this debate is a new breed of wifi defenders. Different and more convincing than those who claim they have good wifi. It turns out that for many, online matches across continents have worked fine on wifi - largely due to the vast improvements made to Street Fighter 6's netcode. It's quickly becoming a popular opinion that the ethernet cable was a weapon of the dark days. A new time is now, old man. You can unplug that cable.
The fact remains that a wired connection will always be better than a wireless one. That's just reality. However, when the difference starts having a negligable effect on your matches (unless you're actually playing against Brazilian Kens from your German holiday home), how do you unwind years of hardfought campaigning from the minds of the fans online? How many would-be tournament players will be left out in the cold, and how will this impact the longevity of the game?
Or is everyone just falling for the same old tricks justifying sub-optimal setups? With Street Fighter 6 launching this week, the casualties of this newfound wifi war will only increase.
Are you wired or wireless on your setup? Let us know below! For more Street Fighter 6 content, check out our pages on Capcom's president having high hopes over how many copies Street Fighter 6 will sell.