As you'll know if you read our earlier news story about the legendary developer Seichi Ishii, Tobal No. 1 was very nearly a Chrono Trigger fighting game.
Speaking during the same interview with 4Gamer, Ishii was asked about returning to his native Japan from Canada, where he currently resides.
"As you may know, prices are high in Canada," replies Ishii. "A hamburger in a food court costs 20 Canadian dollars, which is more than 2,000 yen in Japanese yen. It would be great if it was delicious enough to be worth 2,000 yen, but that's not the case. In fact, McDonald's in Japan is more delicious. When I first came to Canada, all-you-can-eat curry was 8 dollars, but it's gone up and up. It was still cheap before COVID, but now... I hear prices are high in Japan, but they're cheaper than Canada."
It would seem that another motivation to return to Japan involves fighting games – a genre he has spent plenty of time working with. He worked on the original Virtua Fighter during his tenure at Sega and has games like Tekken and Tekken 2 on his CV.
"I would like to start a fighting game project in a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) or something, and if I can raise the funds, I would like to do it in Japan," says Ishii. "Also, if I can negotiate with Sega and handle the rights to Virtua Fighter, I would like to start a DAO and reboot the IP."
The catch here is that a decentralized autonomous organization is blockchain-based game development – so we might not get the Virtua Fighter we all wish for.
There hasn't been a new mainline Virtua Fighter game since 2006's Virtua Fighter 5, although this has seen multiple updates over the years, with the most recent being 2021's Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown.