Japan Fighting Game Publishers Roundtable featuring Harada and Okubo on August 1

A Roundtable discussion stream featuring leading Japanese fighting game figures and producers is now scheduled for the 1st of August. Staff from Arc System Works, Arika, SNK, Capcom, Koei Tecmo and Bandai Namco will come together to discuss the latest happenings in the community and their games. Katsuhiro Harada and Motohiro Okubo are both confirmed for attendence and are said to present the latest news on both the Tekken and SoulCalibur series during the broadcast. The stream is planned to go live next Saturday with an early start of 9AM Japan time.

Japan Fighting Game Publishers Roundtable ≫ https://www.4gamer.net/games/999/G999905/20200727034/

YouTube tekkenchannel Stream ≫ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09KT7pEVKk8

Click to read more ...

Long interview: Harada looks back at the 5 years of Tekken 7

It's been a long time hasn't it? Tekken 7 saw it's initial gameplay debut back in the location tests of October 2014, but would eventually 'pre-launch' in February 2015 with an official launch a month later. In commemoration of Tekken 7's 5th anniversary, Dengeki Online talks to Katsuhiro Harada in this enormous single page interview on a wide range of topics. Subjects to expect; Post-launch support for the title, arcade adoption with the online network, collaborations, balancing characters, Tekken's low points, on spreading Tekken globally etc etc. He even explains why a Wing Chun character has finally arrived after all this time. This interview is huge so this page will run a machine translation on the entire thing so don't expect everything to be ad-verbatim, but I say this mostly came out decent so it's worth posting. In case of any inaccuracies, the original source in Japanese is here and prevails:

Dengeki Online Source ≫ https://dengekionline.com/articles/28096/

Click to read more ...

Harada wants to know if you still really want Tekken X Street Fighter

With the announcement of the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 for Holiday 2020, we're nearing the time for the next generation of gaming consoles. The Tekken X Street Fighter project—which was announced back in 2010—is currently looking like it's skipping two entire console generation since the initial announcement. Harada explains that with both Tekken 7 and Street Fighter V currently out with active communities, the opportunity to release Tekken X Street Fighter was made a lot more difficult resulting it its lengthy 'on hold' development status. Given how long we've known about the project, it's kinda slipped from the general gaming public's mind as Tekken 7 has released instead and taken the spotlight when it included Akuma as a guest character. So Harada wants to know, after all this time, is Tekken X Street Fighter still a game you're waiting for? You can vote in the poll he posted on his twitter page right now:

Tekken X Street Fighter Twitter Poll ≫ https://twitter.com/Harada_TEKKEN/status/1205330571880095744

Click to read more ...

What's next Harada: evolving the fighting game genre and Esports

It's that time of the year again where E3 takes place, and although there isn't anything new to present for the Tekken or SoulCalibur side of things, figureheads from Bandai Namco were in attendance once again to do an E3 coliseum panel with Geoff Keighley. The panel for this year is focused on the strengths of Fighting games in the Esports business, but similar to the interview from last year, Geoff is slightly awkward since he doesn't have a FG background and throws out his ideas on where they could go or evolve into that might not really resonate with those inside the community. Video archive of the 'Strength of Fighting Games in Esports' session is now available for people to catch up over on YouTube. I also have a written transcript of the panel added down below so feel free to read that if you want to skip most of the 'soooo, uhhh, anooo' air time.

• E3 Coliseum Host: Geoff Keighley
• Tekken Franchise Director: Katsuhiro Harada
• Tekken Franchise Producer: Michael Murray
• TEKKEN 7 & SOULCALIBUR VI Brand Manager: Mark Religioso
• Senior Esports Specialist BNEA: Cesar Solorio

The Strength of Fighting Games in Esports ≫ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkMEc-cIGdg

Click to read more ...

Harada Elaborates on his Hesitation to Release Tekken X Street Fighter

It's becoming 'harder to justify' the release of Tekken X Street Fighter, Harada tells VGC. This might not be something that fans who have been waiting since the title's initial announcement back in 2010 wants to hear but the hesitancy to get the game produced can be attributed to the current market for Fighting Games. "Capcom released Street Fighter V and then we released Tekken 7. Those titles are some of the best fighting games ever and they became very successful. [...] So then I started to wonder, do I really want to attempt to compete with these huge titles? It could end up splitting the community. That was a serious consideration from the marketing perspective." Harada still reaffirms his own desire in working on Tekken X Street Fighter mentioning he still has the passion and excitement in carrying out the project should it ever get the green light. Since we're at the tail-end of this current console hardware generation, perhaps waiting this out to release on the next generation of video game console which is expected next year is the current best course of action for the game. You can read further comments from Harada about Tekken X Street Fighter over at VGC's report:

Tekken X Street Fighter becoming ‘harder to justify’, says Harada ≫ https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/tekken-x-street-fighter-becoming-harder-to-justify-says-harada/