Katsuhiro Harada, the man in charge of all things Tekken these days, says that downloadable characters won't be coming his fighting game series now or anytime soon. The man at the very top of the Iron Fist tournament tells Edge that his fighting game characters are like "chess pieces."
"They are essential items necessary in the game and we would never sell any of those individually," Harada said.
Harada's explanation of his philosophy comes after Capcom's kerfuffle with Street Fighter X Tekken, which includes a set of characters planned for a post-launch DLC release, even though those characters are already contained on the game's disc.
But the furor surrounding Capcom's business decision hasn't changed the way Harada thinks, he says, as Tekken has never pursued add-on characters. But he's not ruling out future downloadable content that might include costumes or accessories.
"There are some strange people on Twitter who ask for really peculiar items like bikini suits for Lee Chaolan," he tells Edge. "Obviously, we wouldn’t have had that in our original development plan, so if we were going to do it, we’d need to create it right now, without a budget – obviously we’d have to charge a little bit for such items."
Harada's next game is Tekken Tag Tournament 2, which comes to PS3 and Xbox 360 this fall.
Oh thank god!!! At least one guy out there who isn't trying to nickel and dime us to death. You know I have very fond memories of getting Tekken 5 for PS2 and finding it included Tekken 1, 2 and 3. Very few companies, if any have ever done that.
