The Reason Why Pokken Tournament Is Releasing In Arcades First

Bandai Namco has now given a reason as to why Pokken Tournament will be releasing in the arcades first before a console version is announced.

In recent times, fighting games have a simultaneous console release alongside the arcade version. In some cases, many fighting games are expected to be released for consoles later down the road. For Pokken Tournament however, there has been no mention of the game coming out for the Wii U yet.

Bandai Namco’s Katsuhiro Harada was recently interviewed by 4Gamer talking more about the status of Pokken Tournament. Siliconera kindly translated some of the more interesting parts of the interview.

Harada mainly wants to release Pokken Tournament to arcades first to “see fan reaction sooner“. He also wanted to see fighting games at least succeed in the arcade environment at least once. He said arcade games succeed if they are popular. When arcade games are boring they “will most certainly be dismissed“.

It sounds like Harada is testing out the waters of Pokken Tournament first to see if it will become popular. If it succeeds in the arcades, there is a chance we may see the game ported to the Wii U one day.

Considering how popular Pokemon is, there’s no doubt Pokken Tournament will be a success in the arcades. The game will be out in Japanese arcades in 2015.