The PS4 beta of Street Fighter V has been postponed indefinitely due to crippling server issues.

Launched on July 23 as a preorder incentive, the beta saw players struggling to connect to Capcom's servers, making the game difficult or impossible to play.

Capcom pulled the beta, apologising and noting that "the issues we faced were more severe than we were prepared for," and that "the best course of action would be to take the servers offline for extended maintenance."

The publisher is lucky these issues emerged in the game's beta test, rather than facing the teething issues that SimCity, Battlefield 4, and Halo: The Master Chief Collection suffered after their launches.

But with beta tests functioning as much as demos and marketing tools as actual tests nowadays, even poor beta performance can be an embarrassing PR issue.

Three more beta periods are planned before Street Fighter V's official launch in 2016.