UPDATE: Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada has clarified that Tekken X Street Fighter has not be cancelled, merely “put in storage;” after English subtitles on comments made during a podcast were misconstrued as such.
As reported in the original article below, during Harada’s Bar Radio; a podcast version of Harada’s Bar, Harada was speaking with Tekken 7 Game Director Kouhei Ikeda, discussing the game. However, the conversation turned to Tekken X Street Fighter. Harada stated “development stopped but we got about 30% done.”
Speaking on Twitter (and linking to the statement on TwitLonger), Harada explained that he used the phrase “今はとめてますよ(ima tomete masuyo).” While subtitled as “stopped,” it can also mean “It’s pending state,” akin to “paused.” As such, the English subtitle should have been “up to 30% of the development was in progress, but now it is still pending.”
Likewise, when discussing collaboration with artists, “Okura-iri ni nattan dayo na” was stated. While Okura-iri can be “project died,” the intention here was to say it had “been shelved” or “put in storage.”
“Contracts with artists and collaborators outside of development are subject to terms and conditions, including duration, so we do not own the rights to them indefinitely,” Harada explained. “So, this one has been put in storage for now.”
Harada concludes that this is not the end of Tekken X Street Fighter, and he hopes development will restart some day.
“In any case, the status is not much different from the status I told you about before. Well, the fact that the status has not changed is not a nice thing for us and for you.
We are still hopeful that TKxSF will resume development when the opportunity arises. However, such a title cannot be moved just for the convenience of one company in terms of marketing and branding, and it also affects each other’s development resources. For now, we are just waiting for the right opportunity.
This is sometimes a problem because it is very difficult to translate, including my way of speaking, and also because it is impractical for me to do all the subtitle checking for this volume. In this article, I am writing my own English, but I may have made some mistakes. If there is anything you don’t understand, let’s talk again sometime.”
Original story:
Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada has confirmed during a podcast that Tekken X Street Fighter was cancelled; public after being announced 11 years ago.
During Harada’s Bar Radio; a podcast version of Harada’s Bar, Harada was speaking with Tekken 7 Game Director Kouhei Ikeda, discussing the game. However, the conversation turned to Tekken X Street Fighter.
Harada stated “development stopped but we got about 30% done.” Motion inputs for characters had been completed, as seen with Akuma in Tekken 7, and Dhalsim also turned out “well as we expected, pretty good.” Despite being cancelled, the development and animation experience was useful. Female character models and concept art were also a highlight.
The game was announced in 2010; and was intended to act as a counterpart to Street Fighter X Tekken. While both fighting games would see a cross-over between the franchises, one would be handled by Capcom, while the other by Bandai Namco Entertainment.
Over the years Bandai Namco have insisted that that the game was still coming, and that they were far into development and the roster had been chosen. In 2016 they stated they had not decided on a release date, and later that year announced the game had been officially placed on hold.
Since then, several major events may have thrown off development. The first was the game was announced just as a new console generation was beginning, with the launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2013.
The coronavirus pandemic, and subsequent quarantine orders, also began in December 2019; causing many delays across multiple industries. The next was the Capcom Ransomware Leaks [1, 2, 3], and while the game was not mentioned, the information leaked was sure to have sent Capcom scrambling, and possibly delaying anything on their end.
Finally, EVO 2020 was cancelled due to the aforementioned coronavirus pandemic, and altered to EVO Online for Summer 2020. On July 2nd, 2020, EVO Online was then cancelled; due to multiple allegations of sexual harassment and abuse made against co-founder and then CEO Joey “MrWizard” Cuellar, as well as other prominent members of the fighting game community.
As the allegations came to light, multiple publishers and developers pulled support for the event. As such, EVO would have had very few game tournaments even if it had run, and those who did attend were likely to have faced backlash.
The “Japan Fighting Game Publishers Roundtable” seemingly took its place for announcements on new games and characters. Even so, the lack of a major venue and inability to network may have further hindered development; as fighting game companies re-assessed how to handle tournaments and projects.
On March 18th, 2021, Sony Interactive Entertainment and RTS (an esports event management specialist) announced they acquired the rights to EVO, with an online competition running August 6th to 8th, and again from August 13th to 15th.
This is not the first time Harada confirmed major news in a casual manner. In late March Harada had teased on Twitter that Tekken 7 had sold over 7 million units.
