The reviews are in and the gamers have spoken, and Street Fighter IV is a hit. It is so much of a hit, in fact, that the game has shipped over 2 million copies worldwide since it was released a week ago.

Street Fighter IV marks the first version of the franchise to be completely new and rebuilt for the next generation consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. In addition, Street Fighter IV has been released for the PC, as well, this time around.

The release of Street Fighter IV has also sparked the sales of third party controllers designed for improved performance and game play. This was true the last time the Street Fighter craze struck, as well. Mad Catz, who is responsible for these third party controllers, has already seen better than expected sales leading to out of stock situations due to supplier constraints.

The release of Street Fighter IV ties into Capcom’s celebration of the 20th anniversary of the franchise, as well as hype for the upcoming live action movie that is already in production for release under the title, “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li” later this year. Capcom is also holding a national Street Fighter IV tournament that kicked off last Friday.

The Street Fighter franchise got off to a somewhat rocky start with little or no attention paid to the game when it was initially released back in 1987. The game that revolutionized the fighting game arena stressed the importance of multiplayer in the modern arcade game. The Street Fighter franchise has sold over half a million coin-op machines, as well as over 27 million copies during the run of the franchise on just about every modern video gaming console from the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis forward that you can think of.