Tekken 6 will be hitting the Playstation 3 in 2008. Tekken has always been a Playstation only series since day one. Even the first Tekken was developed on the PS1 arcade board. Namco followed suit with every game in the series including 6, which is being developed on PS3 arcade hardware. Another series that was Playstation only was the Ace Combat series. Ace Combat 6 is now a 360 exclusive. Does Namco have reason to bring Tekken 6 to the 360? Read on for the facts.
We’ve already seen proof that it’s easy to port any game over to the 360. AM2 did just that with Virtua Fighter 5 which is graphically identical to it’s PS3 cousin. So porting Tekken 6 over wouldn’t be a difficult task. It’s all a matter of whether or not putting Tekken 6 on the 360 makes sense financially.
Halo 3 sales opened the eyes of a lot of game publishers. You can’t deny that they want a piece of the Halo pie. The 360 attach rate is higher in Japan than it is for the PS3. It’s 3.6 games per system on the 360 versus 1.7 games per system on the PS3. With an attach rate so high it’s almost a no brainer to greenlight games on the 360. It’s why Ridge Racer, Beautiful Katamari and Ace Combat 6 are already on the 360.
The next thing it comes down to is whether or not 3D fighting games are still good sellers. Well we know they sell in the US, but in Japan it’s quite different. To everyone’s surprise, Virtua Fighter 5 moved only 82,000 copies total in Japan. That’s pretty sad considering Virtua Fighter 2 broke 1 million+ and the acclaimed worst game in the series, Virtua Fighter 3TB moved 365,000 copies. Attach rate is a big deciding factor. It’s probably what made Sega put Virtua Fighter 5 on the 360 in the first place.
Japanese publishers are highly interested in the western market these days. In order to sell their IP’s to a worldwide market, they must be more open to system diversity. You cannot ignore a combined 360/PS3 userbase of 18 million. The possibility of Tekken 6 coming out on the 360 is very high given the current state of gaming. We won’t know for sure until next year so for now, enjoy Katamari and AC6.
Actually, HALO may very well have been a flash in the pan. JP buyers want more than a single game to sell them a system IMO, and I’d lay good odds that financial evidence would prove that looking at past records. Would you happen to have a link to more recent H3 sales in Japan?
Sadly, a lot of the JP-only or JP-native 360 content really hasn’t been that good, even if it looked promising early. Bullet Witch and Zegapain come to mind, and RR6 was (for me anyway) rather a disappointment. Lost Planet is actually a rather average game that happens to look pretty. The 360’s image in Japan is still pretty weak. I don’t know that a single game, regardless of its early sales, can even begin to reverse that trend. Ace Combat 6 will surely help, but it’s also looking more and more like a timed-exclusive rather than a true exclusive, which IMO erodes the 360’s position as much as it helps it. Think: a JP buyer will wait for the PS3 version for 2 reasons; first, s/he wants to buy a system with more games that appeal to him/her, second, the later-launched version of a game typically has a few extra features to compensate for the wait. Lose/lose for the 360 when its market position is already dead last.
Bear in mind, I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that I think T6 on 360 is either less likely that you’re speculating, or at the very least farther away. We might see it 8 months to a year after the PS3 version hits. Care to make a gentleman’s bet? Loser buys the winner a copy of T6 for their preferred system.
HAHA you got a bet my friend! Yeah, I have no idea when it would come out if it did. Given the fact that Tekken games don’t have a lot in them, it would be a quick and easy port. I still see it coming out. I don’t think one game will change Japan, but a few can.
I can’t disagree with you more. I believe that sony views the Tekken series as one of their big series and would make some efforts in keeping it as an exclusive. Sony is also making move to get more consoles in more homes inturn increasing the demand for software.
Personally I am getting so tired of these articles about some game writer’s opinion about this series going multi or this series crossing over. In your article you state a bunch of facts about other games and other series and then state, look tekken 6 is “probably” going to xbox. Do you have insider info? Have you found some press statement by Namco/Bandai saying anything like this? It just doesn’t make sense to me at all. I mean the arcade game is based on the PS3 arcitecture.
I have searched several Japanese sites and have found nothing even remotely close to what you have stated. Which makes me wonder where you got your info. As a reader I would appreicate a clear statement of what is fact and what is your opinion.
I’ll give you a few reasons why your theory may be wrong and mine may be right.
- Ace Combat was always a Playstation game and always made on Playstation hardware
- Ace Combat is now on 360.
So who’s to say it wouldn’t happen to Tekken too?
It’s just a theory. I’ll see you next year when we’ll know for sure.