Tekken veteran says Xbox Series S should never have shipped

The complaint, in front of Xbox

Katsuhiro Harada, the developer long associated with the Tekken fighting series, said consoles with in-between hardware like the Xbox Series S should never have been released. He made the remark at the SKY31 technology event in Seoul, according to the Vietnamese outlet Gamelade, which reported the panel on 11 November 2026.

An Xbox senior manager was seated in the audience during the session, Gamelade reported. Harada's objection covered two points: the console's limited memory and its position between generations, sharing the architecture of the Xbox Series X while running on reduced performance.

Why studios keep the weaker console in scope

Harada compared porting to Nintendo hardware with porting to Microsoft's consoles. A Nintendo version, in his description, is a separate ecosystem with its own audience. For Microsoft, a studio that has built a game for the top-end machine must then do extra work for the weaker version.

He likened that work to caring for a frail child in the family, Gamelade reported. The pressure grows because the Series S has a large user base: in markets such as the United States, sales of the cheaper model have run ahead of the premium variant, so developers cannot skip optimization.

The studios take the blame

When a game ships, Harada said, developers often absorb criticism over low-quality textures. Players complain about the graphics and direct their frustration at studios rather than at the hardware limits set by the manufacturer, according to his account.

Pawel Sasko of CD Projekt Red offered a different view at the same event. He argued that tight technical limits act as discipline for a production team, forcing programmers to keep system code clean and tightly controlled when a large open-world game such as Crimson Desert has to run on modest hardware. Visual trade-offs, in his description, are the price of reaching a wider audience.

What is not settled

Gamelade's report does not say whether Xbox responded to Harada's remarks, and it gives no figure for Series S sales. Microsoft has not announced any change to the console's requirements for developers.