For basically a decade now, the PlayStation 4 has served as the tournament standard across most of the fighting game community, but it seems like the time has come to fully move on.
Although there was never one announced, Bandai Namco confirms they have no plans to go back and release a PlayStation 4 version of Tekken 8.
One fan just reached out to Katsuhiro Harada on X (formerly Twitter) to ask about the new 3D fighter’s possibility for the PS4, and the longtime Tekken Project Director had a fairly concise answer.
“Since [Tekken 8] is a completely next generation-developed project, there are no plans for this,” confirmed Harada as translated by us.
This probably shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, but it is nice to have a firm confirmation on the matter.
Tekken 8 is arguably attempting to push graphical fidelity higher than any fighting game before it though getting it toned down enough to run consistently on a PS4 should have been technically possible — and likely would have made Bamco a nice chunk of more sales.
完全次世代プラットフォーム開発なので、その予定はありません。 https://t.co/9f02OpeDjV
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) November 18, 2023
My personal PC, for example, is about on par with the PS4 Pro and was able to play the Tekken 8 beta without real issue and barely making the cutoff for minimum specs required.
Mortal Kombat 1 similarly skipped over the PS4 and Xbox One as well except they still pushed to release a Nintendo Switch version of the game that has now become pretty infamous for its quality.
Tekken 8, meanwhile, is putting its focus squarely on the newer hardware and is the first major title to basically fully commit to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
We saw Capcom stick it out with the PS4 through the release of Street Fighter 6, but it feels like just barely.
Now, it feels as though we’ve truly reached the tipping point, however, where fighting game fans are going to need to make the upgrade (if they haven’t already) to a newer console or stronger PC.
That doesn’t mean the PS4 has been completely abandoned by future releases in the genre, as Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising and Under Night In-Birth II are still on the horizon for notable launches in the coming months.
Tekken 8 is on track to release January 26, 2024, for the PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam, and with the recent announcement of Reina, we now know the complete launch roster for the game.