Tekken's Katsuhiro Harada on VS Studio, the SNK-backed team he founded after leaving Bandai Namco

Katsuhiro Harada, who announced last December that he was leaving Bandai Namco after more than three decades, says VS Studio is his attempt at something new. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, he said the decision came from thinking about how to spend the last 10 years of his career, with retirement in Japan typically around 60. He noted that games that once shipped yearly can now take five years to make, so he might only have time for one more.

VS Studio is bankrolled by SNK. Harada said he received many offers after announcing his exit, some of them quickly, and that SNK's stood out. He pointed to the Crown Prince's passion for games, and said the talks were about games rather than money or business. He also said he has been assured VS Studio will have complete autonomy and decision-making authority.

The team began with a core group of 10, who then reached out to people they knew, according to Harada. Tekken 8 director Kohei Ikeda joined as a game designer, announced in August. Harada said all the people who approached him were over 45, and argued that experience is an advantage in game development. He described a small studio where artists, engineers, directors and designers discuss ideas together. He also said big publishers hold an overwhelming advantage in marketing and sales, and that VS Studio has a lot to build there.

On the wider industry, Harada said AAA development has become so costly that it leans on established franchises, citing 50 billion yen for a single AAA game. He said those costs have not really come down even with AI. He said the quality gap between indie and AAA has narrowed, but players have a hard time discovering good indie games. Even teams of about 10 can make great games and still fail commercially, he said.

Harada also described esports as the modern form of arcade culture. He said its value lies more in extending a game's lifespan than in direct revenue, and warned that a publisher centralising all tournaments and streaming revenue would be dangerous. On AI, he separated his view from generative AI. He said AI can make CPU opponents in fighting games feel much more human. The source text ends partway through this section.