I definitely fall into the catagory of someone who's intimidated by the depth of Street Fighter, so I'm all for sacreligous re-balancing!

ARE there actually better controllers (or controllers with better D-pads) out there for the Xbox 360? That's another thing that's kept me away from fighting games on 360 is the notoriously incapable D-pad.

SF2HD is the best Street Fighter ever created!!!!!  Everything looks so beautiful, and it's only $15.  Love the game.

I got it for PS3 cause the Xbox controller sucks ass for fighting games.  Only bad thing about getting it for PS3 is there are no trophies for it.  There are achievements for the Xbox version if I'm not mistaken, so if you are an achievement whore and have both systems go with the Xbox version.

Josh - There are a few controllers out or coming soon for the Xbox 360 that are better suited for fighting games.  They are usually in the $60 and up range though.  I know there is one coming out for Street Fighter 4.  If you are interested in seeing some, type "Xbox 360 Arcade controller" in Amazon and you should see a few of them.  The SF4 edition is going for $150!  DAaaaaaaayum.

Can't this be on PS2 as well. it can handle a 2D fighter.

here's a link to a somewhat reasonably priced (79.99) Xbox 360 SF IV controller: from Amazon. It looks pretty sweet but still a little too rich for my blood. For that much money I could by Gears of War 2 and have enough left to actually buy SF 2 HD

In case anyone is still wondering... there are also the MadCatz Street Fighter gamepads coming out next month for $40 each.  They have better D-Pads (no analog sticks) and six buttons on front (not counting the non-gameplay buttons).  The two big arcade sticks are cool, but yeah... expensive unless you play the game every day (which I did back in the early nineties). 

I like the 360 controllers overall, but I wish they were better for fighting games.  I can stand the four buttons on front (though I prefer six), but that D-pad is horrible for most fighting games and the analog is useless too.  Next gen systems will all have the motion sensors, so I doubt much thought will go into improving the D-pad.