I'm talking about people on the street, though. Tekken 3 sold 8 million copies, which is fucking amazing (AFAIK, the second best or absolute best-selling fighting game of all time depending on if you regard Smash as a fighting game or not), but all I'm really saying is thanks to a combination of things - game, movie, cartoon, references in other media - a fair few of the SF cast have a sort of broader 'cultural zeitgeist' thing about them where even people who don't know games can identify them, that's all. That's also why Chun, Gief and Bison crop up in stuff like Wreck it Ralph alongside icons like Sonic, Bowser and a Pac-Man Ghost. I just think some of these characters transcend their games in a way Tekken characters don't, basically. A few of the MK characters do too.
I've heard a sitcom character on TV describe somebody being "an evil scientist like Doctor Robotnik", others make jokes about shoryukens, and one make a bad joke about an asian girl being dressed like Chun Li. I've seen characters throwing hadoukens while dressed as Ryu in shows like American Dad and Family Guy. MK references pop up in a similar sort of context. I don't feel like I see that sort of thing around Tekken at all, and so that's my point - I just think more average people who might not even know the game would be able to name an SF character or at least if shown a picture of one name what they're from, because when you get to that point it's about a lot more than games. I could be wrong though.
