Tekken 7's Future in American Arcades and Consoles Is Uncertain, But It's Still Ready to Kick Ass

Tekken 7 sits in unusual—but not entirely unfamiliar—territory. Tekken 7 has already released in Japanese arcades nationwide in March 18, 2015, and Bandai Namco recently sponsored The King of Iron Fist Tournament 2015 in Japan with a prize pool of over 10 million yen. While other fighting games would be jealous of the success that Tekken 7 has already achieved, the game is still not fully realized. Technically, it's still in beta and its gradual release in Western territories is very much uncertain.

In a group-based interview at a private press event held at Bandai Namco's headquarters in Japan, developers Michael Murray and Kousuke Waki explained that while Tekken 7 has had location tests in the United States, especially Los Angeles and New York City, the game's future in American arcades is “not decided.” As you might suspect, its official release on consoles (PS4 and Xbox One) is also undetermined, though it will include content from the recently announced arcade update “Fated Retribution” and more.

Some of the uncertainty, Murray explained, in the arcade release stems from the game's rather revolutionary feature of being connected online for multiplayer matchmaking, so that players can match up against another each other even if there's no one else in the arcade:

Part of the reason for this is in case your local arcade is dead, so this helps arcades because they get business where people can come regardless of if anyone else is there or not. Also, how much fun you have with fighting games, a great portion, is related to your opponent. Are they much better than you? That's not that much fun. Are they much weaker than you? That's also not much fun. The best is when you have someone of equal skill to you, that's when you have a lot of fun.

Being constantly connected may not be as reasonable a feature in American arcades, where they aren't as bustling as those in Japan, are further apart from each other (which could lead to lag), may not have internet access for arcade machines, and attract more of the family-friendly audience than hardcore players. luckily, there is a deal in the works for Tekken 7 in Dave & Busters, so fans will need to cross their fingers for this to go through if they want a chance at the arcade version.

To clarify, Murray notes that this matching feature in the arcades likely won't extend to a connection to console players, since the business model between arcades and consoles are much different. If someone disconnects, deliberately or not, on the console side, then the player on the arcade side might lose the money he or she spent to play. That would lead to a lot of complaints, but the Tekken 7 team is still looking into the matter to see if it's a viable option.

As such, Tekken 7 will be taking an attentive approach to eSports in this transitional year between arcades and consoles:

eSports is something that Harada and I have been more and more involved in each year, as we've made the trip out to EVO and other events. Street Fighter is also doing a lot on their front, so we're learning from what they're doing but also finding something more Tekken-centric as well. Mark Julio from MadCatz is always offering good ideas on how to involve the eSports community more with Tekken.
The one thing that makes us different is that Street Fighter is that they had that huge gap between III and IV where they were absent for such a long time. They're not so prominent in the arcades now, where Tekken is huge in arcades in Japan and Korea and throughout Asia, and because… Namco has their own chain of arcades, we can't just say [that] we're not doing arcades anymore.

From the looks of it, Tekken 7 likely won't see a console release before the next EVO championships, scheduled for July 15-17. So if Tekken 7 will have a presence in eSports in 2016, it will more in line with its current arcade-specific King of Iron Fist Tournament in Japan, perhaps with more regionals and qualifiers around the world. After Tekken 7 releases for consoles, the prospect of being featured at EVO will be much higher given the much wider pool of players and the ability to conduct tournaments on consoles and fightsticks/gamepads instead of massive arcade cabinets.

However Tekken 7 chooses to release in the United States, it has plenty going for it already. Its graphics, rendered on Unreal Engine 4, are spectacular, the new Rage Arts and Power Crushes allow for comebacks and better tactical play, and the game introduces seven new characters to the roster (plus an update to Jack). And Bandai Namco has confirmed that the PS4 version will support PlayStation VR.

The badass dark master Akuma from Street Fighter IV will be making his debut as well in the arcade update Fated Retribution, which makes the prospect of having Tekken X Street Fighter actually happen much more plausible. I mean, if you have one Shotokan character, you've got the base for Ryu, Ken, and a few other Street Fighter characters too. Hey, let a guy dream.