Maybe in 10 more years?

Street Fighter x Tekken and Tekken x Street Fighter were both revealed to the public all the way back in 2010 as collaborative projects between Capcom and Bandai Namco, but only the first of those games has ever made its way into the hands of players.

Katsuhiro Harada, Tekken's longtime producer and director, recently spoke to VGC to discuss his passion for the crossover project, its current state and the logistical issues the developers face in making Tekken x Street Fighter a reality in the current market.

The last we heard about Tekken x Street Fighter's status was in December 2018 where Harada mentioned that the game is currently sitting on the back burner at around 30 percent completion. He also talked at that time about Akuma's inclusion in Tekken 7 coming about because of their work on TxSF.

Now, the Tekken director is still hopeful and passionate about the unreleased project, but the world is a very different place than it was seven years ago and may not fit in any longer.

"Traditionally, the life cycle of a fighting game is very short – maybe one or two years and then you make a sequel. But Tekken 7 is very successful as a service game with its DLC. That makes it much harder to justify releasing another game, while Tekken 7 is still doing so well" - Katsuhiro Harada

"Yes, I am emotionally up for it," said Harada via VGC. "I still want to release the game. However, as much as I want to proceed with the project, things have changed a lot since 2012. So I need to get approval and I need to speak to Capcom again as well — they may say 'no' now."

On top of that, the face of Bandai Namco's eSports initiative is worried that releasing TxSF now could mess with the momentum and success of Tekken 7 and Street Fighter 5 while possibly dividing the communities for both series.

"When we were ready to progress further with the project, Capcom released Street Fighter 5 and then we released Tekken 7," said Harada. "Those titles are some of the best fighting games ever and they became very successful. Traditionally, the life cycle of a fighting game is very short – maybe one or two years and then you make a sequel. But Tekken 7 is very successful as a service game with its DLC. That makes it much harder to justify releasing another game, while Tekken 7 is still doing so well."

It appears at this point if Tekken x Street Fighter ever does make its way into the hands of the fighting game community that it will have missed an entire console gaming generation. The title was originally planned for a PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360 release like Street Fighter x Tekken but was pushed back in 2013 with the new PS4 and Xbox One on the horizon.

The only things we've ever seen publicly of the Tekken x Street Fighter project were a few images of a prototype model of Ryu in the Tekken style back in 2010 as seen above — which obviously would need to be completely remade as would much of the development as a whole.

Given the fact that Harada is still good friends with Yoshinori Ono over at Capcom, their original deal would likely still be valid though it's looking like we'll still be waiting years before we actually see something concrete for the game if it ever resumes production.

You can check out the full interview with Harada on VGC.