Forum - View topicNEWS: Former Tekken Game Producer Katsuhiro Harada Launches VS Studio SNK
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AiddonValentine
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so, which sex pest who's friends with the Saudis is he gonna be forced to put into his game?
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Dancing Green
 Posts: 76 |
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Legendary director joins legendary studio. SNK's been getting banger after banger lately.
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1790 |
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Full disclosure, I haven't bought any recent SNK game, I don't have any problems with people who don't want to support the company, but I'm not going to criticize anyone who continues to play their games either.
Leaving that aside, I admit that I'm quite surprised that Harada decided to join SNK, now I'm wondering if there were some internal issues between him and Bandai-Namco's management, I'm not that into Tekken, but I've heard that a large part of its fanbase had some issues with the recent Tekken 8. I don't know, but I can see some parallels with how Toshihiro Nagoshi left SEGA some years ago. Honestly, I don't know what to think, while SNK hasn't had a major hit recently, KOF XV and City of the Wolves still have a lot of fans, perhaps with Harada's help they'll finally be able to develop a competent 3D fighter, there have been rumors floating around that SNK is planning a new Art of Fighting game that plays more like the third game in the series, which despite being a 2D fighter, it kind of played a bit like Tekken or Virtua Fighter |
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LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 823 Location: PA / USA |
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Maximilian Dood did a pretty good analysis of it live last night and it's worth a watch - he'll probably have a summary of it up as a smaller 8-minute video soon. Probably.
Given what Harada is saying, this seems less like he's throwing in completely with SNK, and it instead just happens to be where the money is at currently that is supporting his dream. I don't think it's wrong to say that its a controversial move, but it also needs to be given consideration that none of the other more traditional company structures have been making this sort of grouping of talent possible for a while now either. I can see why he may have seen this as an opportunity given the state of things in the gaming industry. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 5396 |
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Well, it's at least fairly clear what both sides of it hope to get. SNK is pretty clearly devoted to fighting games, and Harada could push them over that hill and have a solid hit in the genre. Harada probably gets more autonomy on this than he would have with Bamco. It might even boil down to something as simple as he wants to make fighting games, but doesn't want that to mean just Tekken.
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2990 |
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I very much doubt Harada is getting more autonomy from the Saudis. They forced awkward cameos into City of the Wolves for a DJ and a soccer player (who is also an accused rapist) because they were pals of Mohammed bin Salman. The two reasons are probably 1) Harada was a huge proponent for getting Saudi money into fighting games 2) they offered him more money.
Heck, I doubt anything is gonna come out of this partnership anyway considering Saudi investment money has been drying up. They just pulled their golf league Last edited by AiddonValentine on Wed May 13, 2026 2:16 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Zased
 Posts: 154 |
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This just sounds like a unnecessary conspiracy theory to try to cope with the fact Harada is fine with working with SNK and by extention Saudi Arabia. I know some people have a an issue with anything related to Saudi Arabia but the most likely answer is since most people in the world do not care about this issue Harada doesn't either. If creating a scenario where Harada is being coerced or desperate enough to work with them and actuallly he is secretly is against this is how some people have to cope with this news then so be it but it's very unlikely. As a fan of Harada and SNK I think this is great news to see them work together and hope it leads to some fun projects. SNK's output has been great so far so hopefully this just leads to even more greatness. |
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EmeraldSaucer
 Posts: 987 |
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Will be surprised if anything even comes of this before the Saudi royal family backs out of game development (like they just backed out of golf once it became clear they couldn't take it over completely and realized they don't actually have infinite money) and SNK folds again
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lufia2rocks
Posts: 73 |
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Tekken 8 really was that bad, huh? Trading up from Bamco to SNK. If those rumors are true, Harada leading a new Art of Fighting game would be nice.
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NJ_
 Posts: 3416 Location: Wallington, NJ |
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https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2026/may/13/harada-competitive-studio-tekken/
https://www.mobygames.com/person/274781/yuichi-yonemori/credits/sort:date/ Another Tekken guy joins him, seems he lasted from Tag 1 to 7 and had left before 8. |
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Meexa
 Posts: 331 |
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What I want to know is, what he going to make? There is a lot of legendary game developers who leave their original companies and end up producing bad games . . .
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That Little Rapscallion
Posts: 151 |
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Harada suffered under Bandai-Namco's leadership and their polarizing and conflicting methods for Tekken 8 versus what he wanted. I hope he finds better luck with his new studio and partnering with SNK. Watching that video and realizing everything he's saying about this new studio is what Bandai-Namco didn't want him to do with Tekken really highlights to me this is nothing but a positive direction for him. Everything his new company stands for is a direct criticism of Bandai-Namco it feels like.
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