Namco's research managing director Shegeichi Nakamura met with Sony Computer Entertainment head Ken Kutaragi in 1993 to discuss the preliminary PlayStation specifications, with Namco subsequently developing the System 11 arcade board based on PlayStation hardware and Tekken as their answer to Sega's popular Virtua Fighter. Tekken was initially planned for the Namco System 22, after Namco heard Sega was developing Virtua Fighter 2 for their new Sega Model 2 board, before the development of Tekken was later moved to the System 11 after the meeting with Kutaragi.[2]Tekken was the first game to use the System 11, and was initially released for arcades in September 1994,[3] several months before the PlayStation's Japanese release in December 1994.
Although the System 11 was technically inferior to the Sega Model 2 arcade board, its lower price made it an attractive prospect for smaller arcades.[4][5] According to the June 1995 issue of Edge:
Namco took a significant risk in basing its Tekken coin-op on raw PlayStation hardware, considering that it would be competing directly with Sega's Model 2-powered Virtua Fighter 2 ... For once, a home system can boast an identical conversion of a cutting-edge coin-op ... Namco's research section managing director, Shegeichi Nakamura ... explains: "When Sony came along we decided to go for a low-cost system—in short, we've left the big arcade stores to Sega and VF2 and Tekken has been sold to smaller arcade centres" ... Namco has a further four titles planned for System 11, all of which are likely to make the jump to the PlayStation.[4]
Namco System 12 was developed using the same basic configuration as System 11 but with the CPU operating frequency increased 1.5 times and higher memory capacity. This board was first publicly used for Tekken 3 released in March 1997.[6]
^ ab"The 1996 AOU Coin-Op Show: 3D Arcade Gaming Enters the Next Level!". Maximum: The Video Game Magazine (5). Emap International Limited: 116–7. April 1996.
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