The early days of Tekken with Masanori Yamada

While it was no secret that the early years of Tekken development were a turbulent storm, no one could predict the impact that came with the rise of the very first PlayStation. Masanori Yamada was the main programmer for Tekken 1 through to Tekken 3 and found himself on the forefront of emerging new technology. Talking with Polygon, Yamada-san reminisces on his older and more hectic days of developing Tekken games while under corporate deadlines and the advancement of 3D graphics. "We were all told not to go home without authorization, even on weekends,” he explains during a dinner session with former Sony developers and businessmen. Yamada goes on to conclude that he misses the early days when it came to video game development considering the level of challenge and innovation needed at the time and compares them to the level today where he voices concerns that the games themselves aren't changing much. There's a broad range of topics covered in this conversation with Archipel/Polygon so you can find some snippets posted down below but check out the full documentary style interview for the bulk of the history behind gaming development during the times:

[Polygon] The early days of Tekken ≫ https://www.polygon.com/features/2019/12/2/20992483/staying-up-all-night-and-riding-in-a-car-trunk-the-early-days-of-tekken

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The Making Of Tekken with Yutaka Kounoe

Awhile back, I managed to get my hands on a transcription of the 'Making of Tekken' Interview in the #104 issue of Retro Gamer Magazine with Yutaka Kounoe but for some reason or another I eventually ended up forgetting to share it with everyone. There's a lot of development background information that is especially interesting for anyone that is curious on the development of the early Tekken games so I feel like this is great to put out there. This interview goes in depth with a game developer who did work on the first 3 Tekken games while he was working in what he considered to be 'Namco's golden era.' Yutaka Kounoe currently no longer works at Namco and has since moved on to found his own indie game development company: O-Games. This interview was published around June, 2012 so it's been awhile from now.

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