Just minutes ago, immediately following the Tougeki fighting game championship finals held during the Tokyo Game Show, Namco Bandai game director Katsuhiro Harada announced Tekken Tag Tournament 2, the first iteration in the Tekken Tag series since the 1999 debut over a decade ago. We had a chance to speak with Mr. Harada following this unveiling, and learned more about the long delay, the game's arcade destination, the current state of fighting games and what's going on with Tekken X Street Fighter.

Joystiq: How long have you been working on Tekken Tag Tournament 2?

Katsuhiro Harada: Actually there was some talk at first of doing this before Tekken 6 came out, but when we discused it amongst ourselves and the team we felt like we first wanted to make a proper sequel to 6 to see how far we could push the limits of our graphics engine on that hardware before going to Tag.

As you've seen for yourself in the trailer, we have three or four characters on the screen at once so that's simply twice as much power needed than previously for example in Tekken 6. So obviously trying to do that right off the bat earlier on would be much more difficult.

If it's running on the same technology as 6, which came not only to arcades but to consoles, what are your console plans for Tag 2?