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Former Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada told a Korean developer conference panel that he wishes hardware like the Xbox Series S would not be released. The panel, held at the Console Game Developers Conference in South Korea and moderated by former Sony president Shuhei Yoshida, took place with a senior Xbox official in the room. Harada called the Series S a "weaker child" with awkwardly lower performance and said that developers must do extra work for it after delivering their best version. He argued that Series S users outnumber Series X users in markets such as the US, so developers cannot cut corners, and said players blame developers rather than Microsoft for lower texture resolution. CD Projekt Red associate game director Paweł Sasko, who was asked whether he was upset, said the console forces cleaner code optimisation, which he said made games run better on all platforms, and that its lower price widens the audience. Harada joked that Microsoft might feel reassured and release a successor called "Helix S". Shift Up CTO DongKi Lee said he looked forward to the next-gen Xbox Helix and asked for an early dev kit. IGN reported that Helix has been estimated for 2028 at a high price, and it is unclear whether a lower-powered version will follow.