Just a small clarification regarding the facts.
The work behind the latest update had actually been in progress since last year, and what is currently being delivered is the result of that long-running effort. (Anyone who has worked in game development will probably understand this timeline—it’s not just about debugging and QA; there are also first-party certification and approval processes involved.)
About a year ago, I made this post –> ( https://t.co/0IH3lubaGB )
And yes, the direction of this patch update was naturally led by Nakatsu (Kohei Ikeda). At the same time, the other director you mentioned, Yasuki Nakabayashi, was also deeply involved in directing it. Mishimastar as well.
The reality is that they spent the past year working toward this release, and this update became the final work they delivered before leaving the company.
Also, this should go without saying, but not only for this update—these results are the product of many project members working incredibly hard, even if their names are not widely known. Because of that, I hope people will evaluate these achievements as the work of a team rather than focusing on individual names. (Personally, I don’t think there is much value in studying the credits and trying to attribute everything to specific individuals.)
I also see a variety of speculation and analysis from the community. Unfortunately, most of it is not accurate (and I don’t mean just this particular topic).
In fact, the directors whose names you mentioned, including Yasuki Nakabayashi, have already left the project and begun new journeys of their own.
There are also a small number of people who explain things based on their supposed knowledge of the game industry. Unfortunately, most of those explanations are not accurate either.
This is simply a factual clarification and nothing more. Nothing beyond that.
That will be all on this topic.
Now then, since we’re here, a quick personal update.
I recently considered changing my X account name, but the X team advised me against it. They warned that the current name could quickly be claimed by someone else and potentially used in a misleading way. Even the old trick of changing the name and immediately reclaiming it with another account apparently doesn’t work very well these days, because bots monitor these changes and can grab the name almost instantly. They did say X might lock the name, but there are no guarantees.
My heart remains with this community. It always has, and it always will. (Well, I do get angry from time to time, but I deliberately do that because I believe people expect honesty from me lol.)
So I’ve been thinking that perhaps I should leave this account here as a piece of history and simply create a new one. But there’s no rush. I have plenty of time to think about it.
For now, let’s keep talking here.
It turns out there is quite a bit of demand from younger generations for stories about the game industry in the 1990s and the early days of the 21st century. (Who would have thought? lol)
Anyway, today is guaranteed to be another incredibly fun day at VS Studio.
There is a shared environment, atmosphere,vision, and team here that genuinely feels like stepping back into the 1990s and the early 2000s.
Get Ready for the Next Creation!
Announcement:
After 20 incredible years, I have left Bandai Namco Studios.
Thank you all for your support.
【ご報告】
バンダイナムコスタジオを退職いたしました。20年間、本当にありがとうございました。
#TEKKEN#TEKKEN8#鉄拳8
Rather than clearly defined “rules,” Japan has a strong culture of unwritten expectations — manners, morals, and the overall atmosphere of a place.
For example, if you talk on the phone inside a train, people around you will look at you as if to say, “Seriously…?” It is also true that many tourists are confused by this.
Also, for example, I have visited more than 60 countries so far, and I still travel around quite a lot these days. Based on my own experience, in most countries, taxi drivers may talk to someone on the phone, or they may listen to or play music they like. But I have never seen a taxi driver in Japan driving while talking on the phone with family, a partner, or a friend. Music is generally not playing either. At most, you might occasionally find an elderly independent taxi driver playing the radio, but basically, unless the passenger requests something, the inside of the taxi is a quiet space. Well, taxi drivers from Kansai, such as Osaka or Nara where I was born and raised, may casually start talking to you, though.
In any case, it is true that Japan has many unwritten manners and Japanese-standard moral expectations depending on the place or space: don’t be noisy, stay quiet, line up properly, wait your turn, take off your shoes, arrange them neatly, take your trash home, and so on.
However, I think the idea of “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” exists to some extent in every country.
I go to the USA very often, and when a complete stranger gets into an elevator, that person may give me a light smile or casually say “Hi” to me. That happens, right?
Back when I was not used to that kind of culture yet — when I was in my teens or twenties — this was very confusing to me.
I asked my online gaming friends in the USA what the correct reaction was supposed to be, and they told me:
“We do that to show other people, basically without even consciously thinking about it, that ‘I’m not your enemy.’ It’s better than standing there silently with your arms crossed and an angry-looking face. It’s a way to avoid trouble.”
That conversation made me start trying, whenever I made eye contact with someone in a confined space, to raise my eyebrows a little and give a slight smile with my mouth. Though, to be honest, I often still fail to react in time.
Then, with that habit, I would return to Japan. When I made eye contact with a stranger entering an elevator and raised my eyebrows with a slight smile, they would look at me with a very suspicious expression, as if to say, “Uh… what is this guy doing?” Then I would suddenly remember, “Oh no, this is Japan!” After that, whether in elevators, hallways, or trains, I would switch back into a mode of either having no expression or pretending to be completely indifferent (Although, in Osaka, random older ladies and men around town may casually talk to you, so I switch into Osaka mode there. In other words, even within Japan, it may depend on the place).
I don’t think either side wants more and more rules to be created. But in the sense of treating each other with respect, I do think it is necessary for people to respect each other’s cultural customs.
I have launched VS Studio.
Built on the knowledge and passion we have cultivated over many years on the front lines of game development, we are now beginning a new challenge.
VS Studio を立ち上げました。
私たちは、長年ゲーム開発の現場で培ってきた知見と情熱をもとに、新しい挑戦を始めます。
https://t.co/js8uZH5O7N
How do you build a national team? 🇿🇦🎮
Now that the roster deadline has passed, we’re spilling the tea on the strategy behind SA’s @ENC_EN squad. From community expert consultations to the ESIC verification process @Micks_Sticks breaks it all down in our exclusive sit-down.
Everything you need to know about South Africa's journey to the world stage is below ☕
#ENC2026 #esportsza
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I think it was around the third or fourth year after the show that used to be called CES became known as E3.
Back then, someone from the event staff asked me something like, “Some American celebrities are here ! do you want to meet them?” But I was just a hardcore game developer and self-built PC nerd who had absolutely no understanding of the value of meeting celebrities. So instead of paying attention to famous people visiting our booth, I only remember running straight to the Half-Life booth and the pre-release Baldur’s Gate booth.
(Actually… I still wonder what celebrities were even there.)
At that E3, NVIDIA’s RIVA TNT graphics card was an absolutely massive topic of discussion ..at least among people like me ,,and I remember standing there staring at the demo endlessly.
I think my body temperature was probably three degrees higher than normal at the time.
And younger people today may not know this, but back then there was a video card called the Voodoo2 that every PC gamer in the world knew about. I was completely obsessed with the idea of buying a second Voodoo2 card at a Fry’s Electronics store in the US.
I needed that second card. The meaning was a bit different from what people today think of as SLI, though.
but at the time almost every PC gamer belonged to the “Church of Voodoo.”
Eventually I converted to NVIDIA later on, though.
Honestly, my head was so full of “I need to get to Fry’s” that I barely even remember the reaction to our own game titles. In those days, unlike now, our schedules weren’t packed from morning to night with interviews.
Every year back then, I’d run around to other companies’ booths, play demos, stare closely at the technology, and then head to Fry’s the next day. I remember once going there to buy a Santa Cruz sound card, and seeing an employee casually put what appeared to be a returned product right back onto the shelf. I was genuinely shocked by how different that was from Japanese retail culture.
Also, in the 1990s, arcades still barely survived in the United States, and there was still a real arcade versus culture there, so I used to go watch it. This was something I did from the very beginning. What always surprised me was that, unlike Japan, players in American arcades often played sitting directly side-by-side on linked cabinets. I would always think, “These guys are sitting this close to each other… how are they not constantly getting into fights?”
In Japan, the players usually sit facing each other with two arcade cabinets physically separating them, so if someone gets angry, the most they can really do is throw an ashtray or kick the cabinet to indirectly express their frustration.
I also used to visit stores and tournament organizers who were running major events, bringing posters, small printed character CG posters, and Japanese prize goods, telling them, “Please use these as tournament prizes.” It was a very grassroots kind of support activity.
And speaking of memories from those days …I remember seeing Masaya Nakamura, the founder of Namco and the company president at the time, bringing Japanese instant udon with him on business trips to Los Angeles. After seeing that, I started copying him and did the same thing for years.
I guess those are the kinds of memories I have from that era.
AH!! I just realized something ….apparently even at this age, I’m still the same hopeless game nerd at heart.
The moment someone asks me even a small question, I immediately start rambling on forever about tiny details nobody even asked for.