Tekken Director Katsuhiro Harada Says He Wishes the Xbox Series S Had Never Launched

Katsuhiro Harada has never been shy about his opinions. The former Tekken director, who spent years shaping one of fighting games' biggest franchises, used a developer panel to make his view of Microsoft's smallest console plain. According to the report, he said he wished the Xbox Series S "wouldn't be released," and he said it while a member of the Xbox team was in the room.

The comment joins a long-running debate among developers about the Series S. Launched in 2020 alongside the Series X, the compact, all-digital console was pitched as an affordable way into Xbox's current generation. Its lower power and memory, however, have pushed studios into compromises on resolution, frame rate and how they handle heavy new releases. Some developers have said that supporting the weaker hardware adds cost and effort to projects that are already demanding.

Harada's remark fits that line of criticism, and it is a blunt one. The report does not say whether the Xbox representative responded at the panel or how the exchange played out afterward. Still, it matters that a veteran developer who has worked on a major fighting game said it so directly in front of the people who build Xbox's platform.

It also raises a question Microsoft has to keep answering: how to keep its cheapest console from becoming a burden on the studios making games for it.