Former Tekken Boss Wants Next-Gen Xbox to Avoid Repeating Series S Mistake

The Xbox Series S has drawn criticism from game developers who find its lower specifications challenging compared with other current-generation consoles. Former Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada voiced his own frustration at Korea’s Console Game Developers Conference, with a Microsoft representative in the audience.

“There’s something I really want to say while I have the floor,” Harada said, according to Inven Global. “Since a senior Xbox official is actually in attendance here today, I wish hardware like the Xbox Series S wouldn’t be released (laughs).”

Harada served as the public face of Tekken for nearly two decades, directing or producing every mainline entry from Tekken 3 through Tekken 8. Known for his outspoken style, he left Bandai Namco late last year and established VS Studio, an SNK subsidiary.

He then turned to Paweł Sasko, associate game director on Cyberpunk 2077, and asked whether the Series S had frustrated him as well. Sasko offered a diplomatic response: “It constantly throws challenges at us and forces us to optimize our code very cleanly.”

Harada pressed the point, joking that Sasko had found “a very polite and elegant way to say ‘Xbox Series S sucks.’” He argued that limited memory was a problem, but that the greater difficulty was working with a console so similar to the Series X yet noticeably less powerful. Developers can approach the Switch 2 as a distinct platform, he said, whereas the Series S demands additional work after they have already delivered their best output for Xbox.

Sasko acknowledged the technical constraints but emphasized the benefits of addressing them. Optimizing a game for less powerful hardware, he said, can improve its performance across other platforms as well.

He also pointed to the Series S’s affordability. Not every player can purchase high-end hardware, Sasko said, and a lower-priced console gives developers a way to reach a wider audience, even if its limitations make development more demanding.

Harada remained unconvinced. He joked that Sasko had presented the console so favorably that the Microsoft representative was nodding along, adding that he worried the company might feel encouraged to release a next-generation equivalent, which he dubbed “Helix S.”

The Project Helix question

Harada’s comments raise a question about Microsoft’s next Xbox console, reportedly codenamed Project Helix: will the company again offer a cheaper, less powerful model alongside its flagship hardware?

Microsoft has not confirmed such plans. Early speculation suggests that component shortages, including a shortage of RAM, could make the next console expensive to produce. Some reports claim manufacturing costs could fall between $1,200 and $1,800, although those figures remain unconfirmed.

If the flagship console proves costly, a lower-spec alternative could help Microsoft reach more players. For developers like Harada, however, that accessibility may come with another round of difficult optimization work.

Source: Polygon