Harada talks Namco Bandai involvement in next Smash Bros., characters
The next Smash Bros. is “a big priority” for Namco Bandai, says Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada. He also indicated that his Tekken Tag Tournament 2 team will likely he assisting in the Wii U and 3DS projects even though they’re currently occupied with their own title.
Harada said:
“Obviously it’s a big priority for the company, so company-wide there are a lot of people involved with that particular project. Not just from Tekken but a lot of our franchises. Although our main core staff is busy with Tekken Tag tournament 2 and trying to finish that up, I do think we’ll support the initiative in some kind of capacity.”
As far as characters in the new Smash Bros. games are concerned, Harada noted:
“That question was one of the most frequently asked questions we got when we announced the project. Especially from abroad. The fans, rather than asking about Tales or Gundam, or some of our other franchises, the fans abroad saw Tekken as one of the key words and took off on that. We’re not really sure at this moment but when thinking of the playerbase who is playing Smash Bros, maybe Tekken characters is something they wouldn’t want, so I’ve been pulling back on that a bit. But I don’t know.”
Now that there’s an actual Smash Bros. team being assembled, we’ll start to hear about the Wii U/3DS games on a more regular basis. If we’re lucky, maybe Nintendo will have something to show at next year’s E3.
