Speaking during an interview with Finder, Bandai Namco Games’ Katsuhiro Harada confirmed that the publishing giant is still keeping the release of Tekken x Street Fighter on hold for the foreseeable future.
Harada-san explained that the company does not want to segment the fighting game audience by having too many titles in the genre in shops at the same time. Things are already pretty crowded as it is, with Street Fighter 5 and the soon-to-be-released Tekken 7 competing for our attention.
“The game was in development for a while, but it came down to the timing of Street Fighter V coming out [in early 2016] – and Capcom was putting a lot of effort into that game – and our work on Tekken 7,” he said.
“If you throw another fighting game featuring those IPs into the ring, it’s just going to segment the audience. It wouldn’t be a very smart decision in regards to marketing. So if the timing arises where it is a good opportunity, then maybe the development on Tekken X Street Fighter will resume. But for the moment it is still on hold.”
Tekken x Street Fighter was announced back in summer 2010 alongside its companion title Street Fighter x Tekken, the latter of which launched in early 2012 for PS3, PC, and Xbox One. Little on Namco’s project has been seen to date aside from some artwork, although in terms of gameplay Tekken x Street Fighter is planned to utilise the same game engine as Namco’s flagship fighting series.
Harada confirmed last April that development on the title had been put on hold, while previously he had said that the game was still in the works but could not pin down a release date for the project. The character roster has at least already been decided upon, however. Tekken 7 meanwhile is scheduled for release on PS4, PC, and Xbox One on June 2, 2017.
Source: GamingBolt