Tekken boss says microtransactions are prevalent because dev costs are larger

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Tekken series boss Katsuhiro Harada says rising development costs have necessitated the inclusion of microtransactions in the series' latest outing, claiming the cost of making these games is ten times higher than during the 1990s

The comment comes from Harada, who was responding to a social media user lamenting the inclusion of items such as paid costumes in the fighter.

He said, "In the past there weren't so many specs and there wasn't online. Plus they didn't have such high resolution and high definition. Now, So many people want the game to run and be supported for a long time. It costs money to continually update the game for that reason."

The Bandai Namco executive also cited the changing economy as to why Tekken 8 features microtransactions in response to the fan.

"If we simply do nothing as he suggests, the game will simply stop running in a few months…He wants us to stop economic activity and stop updating and supporting the game."

Harada also said that current development costs are "more than double or nearly triple the cost of Tekken 7".

Last week, Bandai Namco revealed its post-release roadmap for Tekken 8, which shows that it aims to add an in-game shop for players to buy cosmetics and old character costumes for real money.

GamesIndustry.biz's Brendan Sinclair explored the reveal of these microtransactions and other publishers' histories of adding additional purchases to games post-launch in the latest This Week In Business.

During Bandai Namco's Q3 earnings report, the games publisher reported that its newest Tekken title sold more than two million copies since its launch.