« CVG Interviews Yoshinori Ono and Katsuhiro Harada About the Street Fighter vs Tekken Crossover »

Capcom and Namco are bringing the Street Fighter and Tekken series into a head-to-head collision. Capcom is developing Street Fighter X Tekken, which will feature 2D gameplay similar to Street Fighter 4, while Namco is developing Tekken X Street Fighter, which will utilize 3D mechanics similar to Tekken.

CVG got an interview with Capcom's Yoshinori Ono and Namco's Tekken guru Katsuhiro Harada.

Topics include how the cross-over came about, the seriousness of the "rivalry" between the two games, whether or not Harada-san's team has an advantage over Ono-san's game due to it coming out second, avoiding the pitfalls of bringing Street Fighter to 3D, and more. Read the full interview here, but here's a sample:

You've made it clear that this is a "competition" between two beat-em-up teams. How seriously are you taking this? Are you keeping your ideas secret or sharing information with each other?

Harada-san: Well, it's not like we're trying to trip each other up in creating these games - it's nothing like that at all. There are two aspects to this face-off; the first is in-game between our characters and the Street Fighter characters.

For example, from Ryu's viewpoint looking at the Mishima Zaibatsu and the characters involved there, I'm sure he hates them and can't really go along with their principles and the things they're doing, so he'd want to crush them. On the other hand Kazuya, Heihachi and others would see the Street Fighter characters as something in that way and would do anything to eliminate them - that's their way of thinking. That's the game aspect of that facet.

On the other hand, from a development team perspective, although Ono-san's team was absent from the fighting game scene for about ten years they have over 20 years of fighting game experience with their franchise. So, of course, they have a lot of know-how and I'm sure they have a lot of pride on the line, especially since a franchise other than their own is attached with the title.

The opposite can be said of us as well, I don't think it's trying to hide something from the other side, it's more company pride to try to make the best product possible and then to be excited to see the results of how that plays out.