The world has been dealing with this pandemic and the economic conditions are not looking good, in such times companies need to think outside the box to come up with better sales strategies. Well the age old proven strategy has been to introduce limited edition watches. All brands try to jump into the wagon but only few succeed as you need to have a well established brand before you can entice customers with limited editions.
In September 2019 Seiko decided to shake up their 50 years old iconic and successful sports line of watches the Seiko 5 and give it a new look. What transpired were models based on modern designs and a revamped style of writing the 5. The message was loud and clear that it was going to be the company’s entry level sports watch collection. Within a span of a year, in August 2020, Seiko announced it’s collaboration with Capcom and came up with this really interesting “Seiko 5 Street Fighter” set of timepiece. 6 models each limited to 9,999 pieces taking the total number of watches to 59,994.
On the face of it Street Fighter video game series fans will be impressed with some of the smaller details and callouts to the game universe and its characters. Seiko wanted to take advantage of it’s well know brand Seiko sports 5 and chose to connect the Street Fighter V game series with its Seiko 5 Sport watch collection, given the continuity of the number “5″. The Seiko 5 watches themselves all have 42.5mm-wide (13.4mm-thick with a 46mm lug-to-lug distance) steel cases (some are coated with colors) which are water-resistant to 100 meters with Seiko’s Hardlex crystals. The diver-style watches have unidirectional rotating bezels with metal inserts. Inside the watches is Seiko’s in-house-made caliber 4R36 automatic movement, which operates at 3Hz with about 41 hours of power reserve.
It looks like the company gave the designers a free hand and a brief to have fun. The colours look experimental with various combinations that the company didn’t offer before. But when the watch is looking to tap into the emotional fan following of the video game characters then the designs have to reflect that.
Seiko had a wide array of characters to choose from and it’s still a mystery as to how they needed up choosing these 5 characters. The comoany opted for legacy characters that have been in the Street Fighter game series since the early 1990s. These include Ryu (SRPF19K1), Ken (SRPF20K1), Chun-Li (SRPF17K1), Zangief (SRPF24K1), Blanka (SRPF23K1), and Guile (SRPF21K1). The six chosen characters each have a watch that, in theory, is meant to suit them. Seiko seemingly went the correct design route of making a timepiece they might imagine the characters themselves would wear — not an easy task, though it is aided by the fact that, across many video game titles, the look and feel of these characters have remained consistent and recognizable.
Would I immediately think of Guile, Ryu, or Zangief when seeing their respective limited-edition Seiko 5 Street Fighter watches? Not necessarily, but fans and even those who are not fans will probably still be impressed. The best of these watches are fashionably appropriate to be worn around people who don’t need to know you are being reminded of a video game on your wrist. On that note, pieces such as the Seiko 5 Street Fighter Ken (reference SRPF20K1) is my favorite in terms of their looks From a fashion perspective, I think it is clear that in addition to looking good on a metal bracelet, the Seiko 5 sports watches are handsome on NATO-style or sports fabric straps.
Each of the six watches is imbued with a number of references to the Street Fighter characters they are meant to celebrate. The design of the watches is meant to be inspired by both their costumes and playing techniques. For example, some of the watches make visual or text references to the backgrounds of the characters, as well as their signature fighting moves. To that last point, on the rear of each watch — printed on the transparent caseback window — is not only the name of the character the watch is meant to represent but also a diagram for how to use one’s video game controller to execute the most famous of their “special moves.”
What it does for the company is to create a new line of colourful products that was missing in their portfolio and the success (proven by the pre orders) show that markets definitely exits. That was from the company’s perspective but what about the buyer? Imagine, somewhere in America or Europe or Japan, you are walking down the street with ken edition on your wrist and a guy comes up with the same watch and you strike a conversation around the watch!! What a brilliant ice breaker!! Watches like these truly have the potential to break barriers and bring the world closer. Well it took me around a month after the initial announcement to write this up and just as I was adding the finishing touches the news came by that Seiko is going to launch 7 more Naruto & Boruto Limited edition watches! Enjoy…..
The Enigmatic Pen 