Bandai Namco's general manager and longtime fighting game director Katsuhiro Harada has delved into the sibling rivalry that Tekken and Soul Calibur had within the company for decades, while implying that the latter series is somewhat in limbo.
"After observing the industry for 30 years, I can say that in the case of fighting games, there have been many instances in which a series has stagnated or ceased to exist when a key player in the franchise leaves or disappears," Harada explains. "The reasons for the disappearance of these key persons are often not only their own problems." Harada then points to Bandai Namco's long-running, big-swords fighting series Soul Calibur as an example: "Having seen it up close and personal... this was not simply a matter of sales and marketing, but I can tell you that the organizational changes and decision-makers at Namco Bandai had a great deal to do with it."
