Pokken Tournament coming to Wii U

A while back, if you recall, Nintendo announced it would be looking to loan out its IP to third party developers under very strict controls, just to see what would happen. This coincided with the announcement soon afterwards of Nintendo entering the mobile games market as well as the announcement of Pokken Tournament, a 3D fighting game by Tekken developer Bandai Namco that would release exclusively for Japanese arcade machines.

While Nintendo said it had no plans to move the game to a console release, I think we all know they were blowing smoke out of their butts. So it should come to no surprise to you that now, a few months after the game’s official release, we’re being told there’ll be a Wii U version. Check the trailer:



I have to say: even ignoring the fact this is Nintendo’s IP, it seems like the Wii U and its dual screens actually makes it a great fit for this kind of free-range 3D fighting games: since each fighter has their own screen, the camera doesn’t have to enter weird angles or zoom out to accommodate both players. Some fringe genius on Nintendo’s part.

Either way, there’s no announce date or even footage of what the game looks like, but at least it means that Western fans who can’t afford to get a plane ticket to Japan just to try out an arcade game (PLEBEIANS) will still get a Pokken Tournament experience. Cheers to that.