Why wasn't SF II ported..

[Tatsujin]

..in fullscreen for the all the 16-bitter?

you actually can see it on every port of street fighter II on any 16 bit platform like SFC, PCE, MD, the black bars above und below.

but why is it so? what was the reason for the horizontal cuts?

the PAL version was even a step worse, since it had the standard 100 black lines from NTSC to PAL, added to the original black bars, which cutted off almost 1/3 of the screen  that was nooo fun.

[Arkhan]

I think its to give it a wide screen effect!

[Tatsujin]

ROFFEL

[Grandmaster]

perhaps it was a way for capcom to fit the game on those home systems, saving the game's overall integrity from the arcade version.

[omotai]

Capcom arcade games ran at a funky resolution, and they ported them like that instead of cutting off part of the screen or squishing it into TV aspect ratio.

[Tatsujin]

but non of 'em were straight conversions, all of em were redrawn. so i don't see the point of make 'em smaller than necessary?

[SuperDeadite]

Well they were all based off of World Warrior on SFC right?  So they probably did it for some reason on SFC, and then just stayed lazy for the ports.

[Joe Redifer]

The arcade ran at the same aspect ratio as home game systems:  4:3.  The resolution was odd, but there was no need to letterbox it. Capcom never really put a lot of effort into home games except for the NES, I feel.

[majors]

The arcade ran at the same aspect ratio as home game systems:  4:3.  The resolution was odd, but there was no need to letterbox it.

The arcade may run on 4:3 monitor but it has bars also. The arcade owner may have adjusted the virt to expand the screen. I know CPS2 resolutions are not 4:3 (384x224), dunno about CPS1 of the top of my head.

It may have effected game mechanics if the screen was a different aspect/size so they "ported" it to be the same.

[nodtveidt]

It may have effected game mechanics if the screen was a different aspect/size so they "ported" it to be the same.

I remember from playing SFII on the SNES that the letterboxing actually DID change the game mechanics...it was most noticeable in Vega's stage.

[Tatsujin]

sure it does, but only in a bad way! N0 LB 4TW!

[Black Tiger]

The arcade ran at the same aspect ratio as home game systems:  4:3.  The resolution was odd, but there was no need to letterbox it.

The arcade may run on 4:3 monitor but it has bars also. The arcade owner may have adjusted the virt to expand the screen. I know CPS2 resolutions are not 4:3 (384x224), dunno about CPS1 of the top of my head.

It may have effected game mechanics if the screen was a different aspect/size so they "ported" it to be the same.

All that I can think of is that you're assuming that games back then were meant to be stretched proportionately until the longer dimension touches the edges of the screen. It wasn't arcade operators fooling around with monitors, video signals were meant to fill screens and that's why everything looks so disproportionately wide in raw cps2 screen shots. Unless you see black bars in the screen shots, the game wasn't mean to have them.