I think the problem was that the arcade board for VF3 was too expensive.

Virtua Fighter 2 was a huge success, and VF3 made its way into even small neighborhood arcades, but the arcade board was too expensive, so
it was set up for 300 won per game (other games at the time were 100 won) with a best-of-three, two-out-of-three format.
The damage setting was so high that if you got hit by Jeffry's Splash Mountain once or a cheap shot, you'd be KO'd, so people got up after only 2 minutes of sitting down, and the number of players decreased.

I remember the machines disappearing quickly.
Compared to Virtua Fighter, Tekken could be played for 100 won, and you could just spin the lever and press the buttons to

execute techniques in various ways, so Tekken was more popular in neighborhood arcades.

I don't know about Japan, but after that, Virtua Fighter became a game played only by those who played it.

Of course, I was one of those people.