Thread by @gosokkyu

Virtua Fighter eSports/Ultimate Showdown producer Seiji Aoki & Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada discuss the resurrection & future of Virtua Fighter 4gamer.net/games/572/G057…🇯🇵

https://twitter.com/4GamerNews/status/1412577162859888641

Harada's always seen VF as the game to beat; he recalls being asked by now-Bandai Namco Studios president Nakatani, "how long it take for Tekken to surpass VF?" & Harada replied "five games, released once every 2 years", and even then he felt he was being conservative

in those days, the Tekken & VF communities were at each other's throats, but when VF went away, the anti-Tekken sentiment from VF heads slowly turned into fans asking Harada to make a new VF with increasing seriousness; Harada notes the mood shifted started around 3-4 years ago

at that point, Harada started casually but deliberately mentioning VF-related topics on Twitter to gauge the reaction; he noticed the VF heads that might previously have bitten his head off for mentioning VF were instead happy to see that someone was acknowledging VF, but...

…he knows that they'd never react that way if VF was still around and Harada himself didn't like this dynamic & wanted that old VF rivalry to return

Aoki says they'd been monitoring the VF fans all this time, including Harada's twitter, so they knew ppl were still hungry for VF

VF eSports came to Aoki in the fall of 2019; despite working at arcade studio AM2, he had experience bringing arcade games home & vice-versa via projects like Border Break PS4 & Puyo Puyo eSports Arcade, and he'd also worked on previous VF games & was a fan, so he accepted

once they finally settled on developing an eSports-focused game for PS4 & arcades, it was February 2020, and the state of emergency hit right as they started to staff up, which threw them into disarray as they navigated work-from-home; WFH didn't get into full swing until May

not only were they contending with work-from-home but they also had to unite the workflow between arcade devs AM2 & home devs Ryu ga Gotoku Studio within this environment, plus they were aiming for simultaneous global multi-platform launch, so Aoki had his work cut out for him

Harada asks about the initial, "first in Japan" VF eSports reveal & whether they might not have released it globally; Aoki says that's not the case & that the name change is because overseas players don't like publishers proclaiming a game to be "eSports" before it's even out

there's also the fact that there are established scenes & avenues for for both VF & eSports in Japan/Asia, whereas building up from the grassroots with established US/EU VF fans is a gradual process

Harada asks why they didn't unify the Ultimate Showdown name in Japan: Aoki wasn't personally that fussed either way (especially as it would've made submission easier), but the idea in Japan was to establish that it was an eSports-centric game & successor to Puyo Puyo eSports

Harada wonders if Aoki had people from within Sega asking about the status of the game: Aoki says he did, but info was under-wraps & they were working remotely so he doesn't think a ton of people knew about the project

there are a lot of VF heads & former players within Harada's team, and those people would constantly be asking "Harada, do you know what's happening with VF? you can piece it together via all the outsourcing studios, right?"

Harada had no clue, and so when VF eSports was announced he was excited, but he noticed the most diehard VF fanatics were the most skeptical: "it could be a mobile game, "it's probably not even a fighting game", "it might just be a team/league", "it could be an energy drink", etc

even so, Harada had invited Sega to participate in one of the FGC roundtable streams and while they declined, the fact that it took them so long to mull it over and that Aoki himself replied suggested to Harada that /something/ must have been happening

even the other devs in Harada's FGC Line group were like "they're taking too long to respond, they've gotta have something cooking"; Harada says the reveal would have been more of a surprise had Sega immediately declined their invite

Harada asks about the decision to launch on PS+/Now: basically, they wanted to reach as many ppl as possible, particularly younger ppl who only know VF by name & wouldn't be inclined to buy it off the shelf

one other idea was "well, it's Sega's 60th, so let's sell it for ¥60"

Harada asks about the remade graphics: Ryu ga Gotoku Studio is proud of their character modeling & sought out the challenge, but getting them on the same page with AM2, gatekeepers of the IP with very particular opinions about the depiction of the characters, wasn't always smooth

Aoki eventually started using the high-res character select renders from VF Final Showdown as the visual benchmark, and once the designers understood what they were aiming for, the quality of the redone models very quickly improved

Harada asks about the added hitsparks: Aoki says they were added for the sake of eSports and communicating things to spectators; they were a lot flashier in the beginning but were gradually revised to what we see now at the advice of veteran players & supervisor Daichi Katagiri

the character moves and properties are identical to those of Final Showdown; Harada asks if they might add/tweak it via updates, but Aoki feels FS is pretty well established and the introduction of new stuff might ruin the balance or made it harder for new players to jump in

(oh boy, the netcode section...)

Harada asks about the netcode method and whether they used rollback: Aoki confirms it's not rollback, despite Sega of America's regular requests for them to add rollback; it's essentially the same delay-based p2p method conceived for the PS3/360 versions of VF Final Showdown

they (mostly Harada) explain how retrofitting rollback into 3D fighting games in particular is tough due to the fact that they're presupposed on fluid, smooth animations as opposed to the limited keyed animations of 2D games, which makes the frame-skipping more conspicuous

they (again, Harada) also talk about how there are lots of little things you have to do to mitigate the visual impact of rollback on 3D fighting games and how "3D fighting games" is too broad bc the visual techniques & overall move/input timings are so different from game to game

Harada uses Soul Calibur as an example: when charas swing their weapons, there's a colored trail that follows the arc of their swing in a smooth line; that line becomes jagged as frames are rolled back, so it's a very obvious indicator of how rollback can impede a game's visuals

the interviewer asks about Tekken 7's rollback implementation: he says they're able to track when the game rolls back and by how much and that in network environments like Japan it doesn't have to roll back often, so they added it in consideration of the overseas infrastructure

Aoki says they conducted weekly intl tests for VF eSports' netcode; he thinks their implementation was the best option given the circumstances & that they were using VF5 as a base, and that Sega of America's staff were surprised & convinced it'd be ok once they actually tried it

the interviewer says games between JP/US, US coasts etc have to have issues; Aoki says it's fine as long as the connection's stable

Harada talks about how packet loss is a bigger impediment to smooth play than distance & how long-distance play can be fine with a solid connection

Aoki understands there's a lot of demand for rollback from places where bad connections/infrastructure, and while it'd be nice if infrastructure could be improved around the world, that's a tall order, so they're considering various approaches on their end

Harada talks about how the increase of traffic caused by the pandemic has made packet loss a bigger & more general issue worldwide, and how he'd heard certain game devs have been told "the online got worse after the last update" even though they hadn't changed anything

you'd typically see the online experience affected by occurrences like massive spikes due to smartphone OS revisions or a general increase of traffic at night, but now there's tons of traffic everywhere at all hours, but from the players' perspective, it's an issue with the game

there are ways you can design around or account for external factors like network issues at the game design stage, but that's not so easy to do with existing games or legacy franchises like VF & Tekken that have felt & animated in a particular fashion for 25+ years

Harada also mentions other factors that have come into play like modern LCD displays, lag introduced by game engines, less direct connection between the control input & hardware, etc—the games' design can & do gradually change with circumstances, but there are always trade-offs

(tl;dr: VF eSports doesn't use rollback, mostly due to dev circumstances & being built off an existing game, but they understand the demand for it & are keeping it in mind for the future, not least of all bc Sega US keeps asking for it

most of the broad excuses came from Harada)

(oh and no mention whatsoever of the Google server stuff... maybe they did that for FS back in the day and nobody noticed or looked into it?)

Harada asks about Aoki's experience going from years on the JP arcade game Border Break to the simultaneous global release of a console game; Aoki knew the increasing focus on global products would make arcade dev tougher, but he still sees a place for arcades, hence VFe Arcade

Sega recently sold off their game centers, but Aoki says it's more the pandemic that's an issue when it comes to running events at arcades; the atmosphere & dev/player connection cultivated at arcades is something he doesn't want to lose & wants to cultivate within home games too

Harada talks about how in ~2000, AM2's Hiroshi Kataoka approached him about their impending ALL .Net system & getting Tekken on board, but Tekken 4 was already almost done & the rest of Namco was opposed—they thought it'd be bad business & one dept had plans for a similar project

however, that internal Namco project never went anywhere so they teamed up with Sega on Tekken 5

Harada asked Kataoka whether he minded that TEKKEN-NET looked like a VF-NET ripoff but he was like "it's all good, whatever drives buzz in arcades", which Harada appreciated

Namco & Sega unified their IC standard in '11; Taito & Konami came aboard later but Namco & Sega were pioneers on working together to reinvigorate arcades; Harada hasn't forgotten, & even tho he wants VF as a rival, he also wants to repay them & join forces on eSports initiatives

Sega & Namco's management were also talking during the Dreamcast era; Harada was called up by now-retired chairman Ishikawa & asked "you like Virtua, right? Sega says they'll give us VF characters if you put Tekken on DC; you can do that VF x Tekken thing you keep talking about"

Harada says that, at the time, "Virtua Fighter x Tekken" wasn't really a concrete title he wanted to make so much as an aspirational phrase about making something he thought was worthy of standing side-by-side with VF

his response: "if it makes business/mgmt sense, let's do it"

Sega was also excited to do it, but for whatever reason, it never happened; Harada surmises Namco's relationship with Sony may have been an issue

even when they were tentatively talking about "Street Fighter vs. Tekken", Harada's boss was like "sure but can we do VF first?"

Aoki's like "…how about now?" & Harada thinks it could happen, provided it's not a 1st-party exclusive; that said, even if they're friendly, he'd rather they go on being rivals & that the rivalry is what makes the concept exciting, so the DC era may have been the time to do it

Aoki says that, as the western market becomes more dominant, Japanese fighting games need to work together in order to stand their ground, and Harada agrees, but he also wants the games (but not the fans) to be able to pit their ideas against each other & fight for dominance

on VF's future: Aoki says that internal opinions were split on the release of VF eSports—the long-held belief within Sega is that VF = innovation and if they couldn't offer that innovation, they shouldn't proceed with a new game, hence why constant proposals were never okayed

it took the tie-in with the Sega 60th celebrations to get VF eSports okayed; Aoki sees this as a stepping stone for a genuine VF6, not just in terms of being an interest check but bc it'd take 3-5 years to make a hypothetical VF6, so eSports is one way of cultivating an audience

basically, VF eSports is keeping the bench warm so that, in the event that VF6 happens, the community's still around

Harada says he wants to help w/ marketing+distribution a la Guilty Gear; today's marketing budgets can match or exceed dev budgets & it's an area Namco excels in

Harada also wants to unite when it comes to tournaments, eSports, etc—a company like EVO cuts individual deals for each game but if they presented a united front they'd have more bargaining power to, say, pull their games if the tournament did anything untoward (for example...)

Aoki acknowledges that Sega's a company that's always prioritised cutting-edge technology over marketing, so they've always been "10 years too early", not just in comparison to other game devs but to the broader entertainment industry

Harada floats the idea that maybe it's ok for VF6 to just be another VF & not some grand innovation, and that there's value in simply giving ppl what they're asking for, a la Tekken; that series has constantly evolved in small ways to serve a nexus of EU, US & JP arcade players

Aoki responds by saying that he feels the same way: in general, a new game doesn't necessarily need to be innovative, nor is innovation necessarily important on its own

that said, "VF=innovation" is the widely-held stance internally, so eSports is one way of testing that theory

Harada talks about how while the number of active FG series has decreased, the active games are selling better than a lot of ppl might have u believe: MK's at ~10M, SFV's at 5M, Tekken's approaching 8M (3.5M at full price), and so he thinks there's genuine market potential for VF

in closing, Aoki says modern games take so long to make that he can only make so many more in his lifetime, but he wants to go out on a high note

"VF'll have the last laugh, you'll see"
"if so, I'll be hard at work on my own game, so don't expect to see me in another interview"

...and that's that, but there's also a post-launch comment from Aoki where he mentions VF eSports is being played by way more people globally than anticipated, and that they're going to continue doing patches, adding features etc

(oh and just so it's clear, note that the interview took place on May 25, before VF eSports was released—in other words, Sega of America had been asking for rollback long before the broader internet started demanding it)

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