On change: The reason fighting games can't afford to change themselves up that much is because a great dynamic has developed through lack of change - skills you develop in a series one day will still be valid and useful over a decade down the road. Thus, this is what the players have come to expect, and to make serious changes is to screw the established players. Every time that has happened, the players defecated on it, and the game was forgotten after a month.

On playerbase: You can't possibly say the fighting genre is dead when Evolution (a global-scale tournament consisting of an average of seven games per year) keeps getting bigger every year. This year's is actually starting tomorrow, BTW. You might want to check it out. http://www.evo2k.com/

On the games: Whether you like the games themselves or not, the general consensus is that we're coming up on a huge fighting resurgence. Starting with the release of SoulCalibur IV last week and going into next year, we're coming into the best time for fighting games since the mid-90s. The reality is, this is what we're looking at.

SoulCalibur IV (quite possibly the best SoulCalibur yet)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix (fighting community control = best SF2 ever)
The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match (SNK takes that last step into tourney play)
Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe (will probably suck, but it's coming)
Tekken 6 (looks to capitalize beautifully on the series' recent momentum)
Virtua Fighter 5R (a more refined version of the greatest 3D fighter ever)
Street Fighter IV: A New Beginning (a new SF era begins at a very symbolic time)
UFC 2009 (may not catch on...we've proven resistant to reality-based games)
Marvel vs Capcom 3 (confirmed at ComicCon, will surely bring in more new players)

In the end, I can only speculate that this thread is really about you complaining that there are no fighting games coming up that cater to YOUR tastes, and thus switching that into the overstatement that the genre itself is dead as a result.

Things are JUST FINE in the fighting world.

DarkCatalyst