Former Tekken director says Xbox Series S should never have been made

What Harada said

Katsuhiro Harada, who led the Tekken series for 30 years and is now president of VS Studio, told a developers panel that the Xbox Series S should never have been released. He addressed the remark directly to an Xbox representative in the audience, according to a report by Eurogamer.pl.

The panel took place at Console Game Developers Conference 2026 in South Korea and was moderated by former Sony president Shuhei Yoshida. The other speakers were DongKi Lee, CTO of Shift UP; Kazutaka Kodaka, president of Too Kyo Games; Tynan Sylvester, president of Ludeon Studios; and Paweł Sasko of CD Projekt Red.

Harada framed the issue around fighting-game tournaments, which run best on consoles. He said he would prefer that hardware like the Series S had never been released, then asked Sasko whether he shared the frustration.

The optimisation problem

Sasko laughed and agreed in part. He said the Series S constantly challenges developers and forces very careful code optimisation. Harada described the console as sharing the Series X architecture but offering noticeably lower performance, which he said leaves developers feeling they must do extra work for a weaker device.

Harada also said that in markets such as the US there are more Series S owners than Series X owners, so studios cannot take shortcuts. Players then blame developers rather than Microsoft for lower-resolution textures on the Series S, he added.

Sasko said players do not always understand the technical reasons for limits such as fewer characters on screen or simplified graphics. He noted that optimisation forced by weaker hardware also helps other platforms, including handhelds such as the Steam Deck, and that cheaper devices let developers reach more people.

A joke about the next Xbox

Harada closed with a jab at Microsoft, joking that the Xbox representative in the room kept nodding at Sasko's answer and might now feel too confident, releasing a successor in the style of a Helix S. Eurogamer.pl noted that such a device is unlikely given recent reports that the next Xbox Series X could cost more than 7,000 złoty.