SNK launches VS Studio, names Katsuhiro Harada to lead it

SNK did not just add another office to its map. It handed Katsuhiro Harada, one of fighting games’ most recognizable creative leaders, a new subsidiary and a direct role in shaping the company’s next development push.

VS Studio SNK Co., Ltd. was established on May 1, 2026, and SNK said it plans to support the studio as a consolidated subsidiary while the two teams collaborate on game software development to strengthen overall development capabilities. The studio is based in Shinagawa, Tokyo, in the Shin-Meguro Tokyu Building on the fourth floor, a location that fits SNK’s existing footprint in Osaka and Tokyo. Harada serves as Representative Director and CEO.

The appointment instantly reframes the move as more than a staffing headline. Harada left Bandai Namco at the end of 2025 after more than 31 years with the company, and he had worked on Tekken since 1994. He said he had spent four to five years gradually handing responsibilities and worldbuilding over to his team before stepping away, a detail that makes his move to SNK feel less like a retirement beat and more like a second act built for one more hard push in the genre he helped define.

SNK set VS Studio’s philosophy as “Beyond tradition, crafted to perfection,” and Harada said the new environment was meant to combine technology, sensibility, and world-class expertise to create memorable games from a “free, open, and spacious environment.” The name itself carries layers of fighting-game history and ambition. Harada said “VS” reaches back to “Video game Soft (VS Development Division),” while also pointing to “Versus,” “Visionary Standard,” “Volition Shift,” and “Vanguard Spirit.”

Yasuyuki Oda framed the partnership as a meeting of peers rather than a routine executive hire, calling Harada a longtime friend and a worthy rival. Oda said the two had long imagined working together and suggested that, while no specific game has been locked in yet, the collaboration could make things “even more exciting than ever before.” That is the real read on VS Studio: SNK is not only protecting its legacy brands, it is building fresh fighting-game capacity around one of the people most closely identified with the genre’s modern era.